Hola from Chapala!

Chapala: The little corner of love!

We moved again. This time, we did it just for us. 

Residency Day!

We talked about moving out of the United States before Dani went to medical school. For a long time, we thought that meant Spain for us, but the logistics of that (moving the animals, the long flights from Spain to the US, and the complexity of moving to the EU) led us to consider Mexico. After all, Mexico was where we first visited when we got together, right after Katrina hit New Orleans. Even though we only went to Juarez on that trip (yes, we stayed in Juarez) we found so much that we loved about Mexico once we went into the "real" parts of the city away from the border. 

While we love Oaxaca and Mexico City, we didn't want to land in either at first. When we visited in January to explore Ajijic, we both felt at home in Chapala. On my first visit to the Chapala malecon, I saw Los Valadores de Papantla. Dani and I had gone to Cristiana Park with Butch to try pickleball, and I decided to take a jog. I found my way down to the malecon and got to watch as the flyers made their way up the pole and then took flight.

It was magical. I realized in that moment that as charming as Ajijic is, Chapala was a better fit. While it might be more challenging to live in Chapala than in the largely tourist and expat village of Ajijic, I was willing to take that challenge on.

And the challenges have been plenty. Once we got here, we started rebuilding our household, which included the seemingly simple task of replacing Chester's dog bed. We'd made the trip with one bed in the truck, and the cats managed to not flood their carrier (and the bed under it) until the last day on the road. The first challenge was finding a bed big enough for him. A lot of folks bring their dogs down, but the shops in Ajijic had small beds. Even at Walmart the beds were small.  When we did find some lightweight pillow beds, they are pretty thin.

So, I ordered the bed in the picture above. It's got memory foam in it, so his joints and boney bits don't get irritated by the hard tile floor. 

The complication? Our address with CFE (the electric company) is not a real address anyone can find. Add to that the fact that Estafeta didn't even stop on our street (even when Dani was trying to flag them down), and we got an alert it had been delivered to our house. I could see where someone signed for it. It took a bit, but I realized that the Pepe Guizar was not a person but the location of the Estafeta office the bed had been delivered to. We made our way there in Chapala Centro and sure enough, the bed was there. The clerk gently scolded me for using a US cell number (yes, the country code was right), and thankfully we'd gotten a Telcel phone and account by the time I went in, so we laughed about it and Chester got his bed.

Now we know how to give folks our address for non CFE purposes.

Ocotlan on a Sunday. Despite all of the mundane things we've had to do, we have snuck in some recreation.

Here's to a month of living here. We're still figuring out the basics, but we've also already had amazing encounters and grand adventures with our new friends. 

Now, if I can just relearn how to cook and how to highlight the ingredients I find here--that's my next big challenge.