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Guadalajara, Mexico Retirement
Live in Lake Chapala & Ajijic
Retire in San Miguel de Allende
Retire to Sayulita, Mexico
Joel’s AARP Review & Comments

Page 2: (Lake Chapala)
La Vida Cheapo, AARP, Continued….

By Barry Golson, March-April 2004
AARP Magazine

LAKESIDE
We pack our bags and taxi south to Lake Chapala, a $30 ride. The view as we approach is breathtaking—a 50-mile-long lake, no urban haze, all sun and hills and marshes. Idyllic, but looks can be deceiving: the lake is polluted by industrial waste upriver. Where once there was fishing and water sports, the lake is now a view, nothing more. There have been ongoing efforts to clean it up, including a hands-around-the-lake protest several years ago, but significant results seem a long way off.

The retirement zone comprises two communities along the lake, a few miles apart: the funky, more Mexican village of Chapala, where gringos and locals live mostly side by side, and Ajijic (pronounced ah-hee-heek), where many Americans and Canadians live apart from the natives in pricey gated communities. Ajijic straddles a highway strip whose shop signs are half in English, half in Spanish, but the town does have its Mexican charms: a few blocks in from the main highway, for instance, you'll find small plazas, quaint churches, and solemn donkeys pulling carts.

Our guide at Lakeside is Ruth Ross-Merrimer, 69, an irrepressible dame with a sardonic wit. A Californian who worked in documentaries, Ross-Merrimer has lived here for 20 years and has reported on the social scene for several local English-language publications. She has also self-published a novel called Champagne and Tortillas, which pokes satirical fun at a retirement community not unlike Lakeside.

She can be tart about the goings-on around the lake, but also boasts about the amateur theater, the October concerts, and the opera season, as well as the charity work done by the gringo population, which includes a large number of Canadians. "Some people do live in gated bubbles," she says at the lively Ajijic Grill, where we meet. "But most had enough of an adventurous spirit to move to Mexico in the first place. They were doers, and they pour a lot of that energy into local charities. It's either that or Margarita City."

Whether you move to Guadalajara, Lakeside, or elsewhere in Mexico, Ross-Merrimer advises, be prepared for culture shock. "The two cultures have opposing attitudes toward wealth, death, time, and taxes," she says. "Americans tend to flaunt their wealth. Mexicans shield it, sometimes behind walls with spiked glass. Americans consider death the end of life; Mexicans consider it a part of life. Americans obsess about time; Mexicans are casual about it—and that's understating it, honey. Americans pay their taxes without protest; Mexicans put them off or ignore them."

Thia and I meet a wide range of retirees over the next several days. We see gorgeous homes, landscaped with all of the dazzling garden foliage the climate encourages ("Stick a clothespin in the ground here, and it'll grow," says Ross-Merrimer). And while we didn't collect data in a formal way, we were struck by how consistently retirees spoke of the reasonable cost of living in Lakeside compared with where they'd lived before. Here are a few of the comments we recorded. On housing: "A house that costs $600,000 in Phoenix might cost $300,000 here." On taxes: "Real estate taxes in a New York suburb can run $12,000 a year for a house this size; here they're $67." On utilities: "Gas and electricity are $600 a month in Chicago; here it's $100." (Electricity in Mexico is expensive, but at Lakeside, there's little need for air conditioning.) And finally, on amenities: "A maid in New Jersey, if you can afford one, can be $100 a day. Here, it's $5 to $10 a day."

In Lakeside, as in other Mexican retirement havens, you can live as cheaply or as extravagantly as you've a mind to. Karen Blue, who at 52 "chucked corporate life" in San Francisco's Bay Area to settle in Ajijic in 1996, runs seminars for newcomers to the area with her business partner, Judy King, 59, who unlike Karen needs to work for a living. They also host a helpful subscription website for people thinking of moving to the Chapala area.

Blue and King join us for lunch to talk about life in Lakeside for those without fat pensions or golden parachutes. Our first question: "Can Americans live comfortably here on their Social Security checks?" The answer is an unqualified yes.

"Truth is," says Blue, "there are lots of respectable homes you can rent for about $600, and then you add maybe $100 for a gardener and maid—which makes for a very competitive housing package, no matter what your financial circumstances." Adds King: "I actually know a fair number of people who do it on less than that. They've looked around, gotten a decent little place for $350. They may not go out to eat much, they eat more tacos than steak, but they have a very nice life here. So, yes, you can live here on your Social Security check."

On our last day in Ajijic, we gather at a lush garden home with several transplanted residents, including retiree John Bragg, 69, and his wife, Mary, 57, Californians who moved to Mexico 11 years ago. I mention to John that we are planning to visit legendarily arty San Miguel de Allende next. "Oh, I'd never live in San Miguel," says Bragg, engaging in the ever-popular sport of bashing other retirement havens. "The town is filled with Texans. You can't even go to a bar and hear any Spanish. Some blond lady's gonna come up to you and say, 'Y'all must be new in town. Wouldn't you lahk to go on a house tour?'"

As it happens, one of the first people we'll meet in San Miguel is a lady who runs—you guessed it—house tours.

Lakeside scorecard
• Looks 7 (for the vista);
• Charm 4 (some nice plazitas);
• Culture 5 (October concerts and ballet);
• Shopping 2 (but Guadalajara, 9, is not far);
• Medical facilities 2 (ditto);
• Other Americans 9 (lots of them);
• Wow factor—all sorts of personal services, from tai chi classes to assisted living facilities.
• Thia's review: "No need to worry about speaking Spanish here, but kind of suburban."
• Barry's review: "Nice folks, but not where I'd settle. Can't get over that pretty lake no one swims in."

Next page: San Miguel de Allende Retirement,
(AARP) American Association of Retired Persons Magazine, "La Vida Cheapo"

Article Links
Page 1: Guadalajara, Mexico Retirement
Page 2: Live in Lake Chapala & Ajijic
Page 3: Retire in San Miguel de Allende
Page 4: Retire to Sayulita, Mexico's Pacific Coast
Page 5: Joel’s AARP Review & Comments

Page 2 of 5

Source:  http://www.aarpmagazine.org/travel/Articles/a2004-01-21-mag-mexico.html

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Casa Preciosa Comments:

Also..

Thinking about visiting Lake Chapala? Retirement in Mexico has opened a whole world of possibilities to a lot of Americans, Canadians and Europeans.

A great way to stay during your holiday is a Vacation home rental in Ajijic.

Casa Preciosa is such a Vacation rental home rental located in the best part of the village of Ajijic Jalisco Mexico. 

Isn't it about time that you wrote a new chapter in your life and take a look at Lake Chapala, Mexico for retirement.