Point South Mexico - Real Estate and Lifestyle Magazine

Each year more Canadians abandon their former winter snowbird destinations to live happily for a few months or all year long in colourful central Mexico. They often prefer to take up lodging in Lake Chapala and the surrounding areas.

What’s causing once fiercely loyal winter Texans, Arizonians and Floridians to abandon their previous warm haunts and move farther south and seek out lodgin in Lake Chapala? Well, the area has a nearly perfect climate, is close to an international airport and excellent medical care, has restaurants, hotels and bed and breakfasts, activities and events to suit every visitor’s dream for the perfect winter escape. Mexico’s largest natural lake is the focal point of the country’s high central plain. Located less than an hour south of Guadalajara (Mexico’s second largest city), Lake Chapala is approximately 100 kms long and 20 kms wide, and home to 5,000 to 7,000 full-time foreign residents with nearly three times that many visitors arriving during January, February and March.

 

Being a part of the Lake Chapala society, I have come to realize that biodiversity is crucial to the survival of plants, animals and human beings. Reading The Tapir's Morning Bath convinced me of this beyond the shadow of a doubt. Elizabeth Royte spent most of a year in a cloud forest on an island in Lake Gatan formed by damming the river to create the Panama Canal locks. Since 1926 a science laboratory there has attracted ecologists and nature biologists from all over the world. The title refers to the enigma of a small pond meticulously measured several times a day by a scientist who wanted to account for every fluctuation of the water level. Mysteriously, at 6:00 in the morning the water level rose, and shortly thereafter it returned to what it had been earlier. Finally the scientist discovered that a tapir, a large rhino-like animal, bathed there.

Today many foreigners love living in the Lake Chapala area, but many don't really understand what makes the area so beautiful and interesting, or even how the lake was actually formed. It really is quite an interesting story. A seismic upheaval 12 million years ago along the San Andrés-Chapala plate formed a gigantic basin surrounded by extinct volcanoes. Water from the Lerma-Santiago River system filled the great fresh-water inland sea, which was seven to ten times the current size of Lake Chapala. The great lake covered much of Jalisco and Michoacán, totally submerging the area now occupied by Guadalajara.

The first people living in Lake Chapala, came to the area in the late 11th or early 12th century from the far north, a place called Aztlan, which means whiteness. It is believed these people were part of the Asiatic migration to the Americas across the land bridge across the Bering Sea. Believed to be the ancestors of the Nahuas, some of these indigenous people were living in this area when the Spanish arrived.

As the weather turns cooler in the North Country, the thoughts of many Canadians turn to sunny Mexico and areas like Ajijic Mx, and the Lake Chapala area. This is not only a wonderful place to discover a beautiful and unique culture, but also a great place to meet fellow Canadians who visit and live in Lake Chapala, Ajijic Mx, San Miguel Mx and other areas. When first visiting Mexico, it is easy to think “Wouldn’t it be exciting to own a place in Mexico that we could come to every year?” With the strength of the Canadian dollar to the Mexican peso, it is more affordable than ever to look at purchasing a home or condo.