All right welcome back to our channel. My wife and I have been living in the Lake Chapala area of Mexico for over two months now,
And in this video I'm going to tell you everything you need to know about living here.
We'll talk about the cost of living, the housing, the transportation, the community, the healthcare.
And then we'll tell you whether or not we think living in the Chapala area is actually kind of overrated,
or if we think it really does live up to its reputation as being one of the best places to live in Mexico.
Let's get started.
So if you've never heard of Lake Chapala before it's probably because it's a pretty small place.
If you have heard of Lake Chapala it's probably because of the area's huge retired expat population,
and many are members of the Lake Chapala Society which offers a huge number of activities.
We took several classes here, one on Mexican manners so that we could learn how to interact with the local people politely.
Another class on tortillas, how they are made and what types of dishes they are used in.
A class about aguas frescas, which are different kinds of juices and drinks,
some are made out of fruit and some out of different plants and flowers.
And we took a salsa class. I'm referring to salsa the food not the dance.
If you've seen me dance before you would know what I'm talking about.
We made five kinds of salsa and we loved every one of them.
So that's a little info about the expat community, but of course we are in Mexico and the Mexican people here are friendly.
That's the best way to sum it up.
But it's not just that they're friendly, it's a very gentle friendliness, a very tender hearted friendliness.
It's kind of hard to put into words what I'm trying to describe, but I don't know we just get this feeling of warmth when we are interacting with the local people here.
If you've visited or live in Lake Chapala please leave a comment about your experience with the community here.
I'm sure others who might come to Lake Chapala would like to know about your opinion too.
For housing you can find anything you're looking for here,
from renting a very basic local style apartment for just a few hundred dollars per month,
all the way up to owning a multi-million dollar mansion.
Let me show you the apartment that we chose so that you can see an example.
All right, just arrived here in Ajijic. Let's take a tour of our apartment. We just got here like five minutes ago.
So here's the front door, this by the way is a huge splurge for us, we almost never stay anywhere this nice.
Here's a nice little bedroom here and then if we keep going down the hall we've got....
another bedroom. Very big bed probably a king-size bed here.
And then let's take a look at the bathroom, absolutely huge bathroom here.
A nice shower with a bench, I always love showers with a bench.
Now let's take a look at the living room and kitchen.
Very nice dining room, we love having a big table because we do a lot of work. Here's a nice big sofa.
And here is our kitchen first time in three years of full-time traveling we have a dishwasher....
We've never had a dishwasher before. And here's one of the best things. Look at this here nice deck.
And a really nice pool. There's a little mini gym over there looks like a library or something.
We're paying US$775 per month.
The weather here, yeah it's practically perfect.
It's not too hot in the summer, it's not too cold in the winter.
There's very little air conditioning or heating here. You just don't need it.
We were here during the rainy season but almost all of the rain is in the middle of the night with just some occasional daytime rain.
All right let's explore some of the markets here in the Lake Chapala area,
And one of the neat things about the markets here is that there's something different each day of the week .
The biggest outdoor market is in Chapala on Mondays called tianguis, and you can find anything you need here.
You can find clothes, shoes, toys, electronics, cosmetics, hardware, fruits, vegetables, you name it, it's here.
Then on Tuesdays there's a market in western Ajijic that caters a little bit more toward the expats but there's local people here too.
At this market you're going to see more homemade products, things like homemade jams a lot of organic products homemade baked goods and things of that nature.
On Wednesdays we've got the market in central Ajijic.
It's very similar to the Monday market but maybe not quite as big.
Here's a short walk through to give you an idea of what you can find here.
All right let's take a walk through the Ajijic market here. We see a man cutting up coconuts for some drinks, that reminds me of our year in Malaysia.
Here's some clothes that look like they're probably handmade right here in Mexico.
And then we have different kinds of cooking things you can buy some grains and ingredients for baked items.
Over here we can see they're making tortillas, and we love the corn tortillas. They're especially good when you get them fresh right off the grill.
And then over here there's a little restaurant they set up little booths where you can get some food they'll make for you just like two or three tables.
And then we've got this stand here where they have looks like different kinds of nuts, maybe some dried fruit different kinds of candy.
Most of these things probably come right here from Mexico.
And then finally on Thursdays there's a market in Jocotepec, which is on the west side of Lake Chapala.
It's not huge but big enough, and you'll find mostly clothes and food at this market.
There is no shortage of restaurants here around Lake Chapala.
You can find Indian food, you can find U.S. style barbecue, we loved the Smoke House restaurant.
You can find Asian food. You can get burgers; this place is kind of like a Five Guys slash In-N-Out burger clone.
But let me tell you about a really great restaurant here.
All right I'm here in the central plaza of Ajijic. It's very quiet and peaceful here nobody's stressed out nobody's in a hurry.
And here's our favorite restaurant called Chile Verde. Let's go have some lunch!
So Chili Verde is not just in a great location, but the food is really really good.
Each day of the week they have a special item on the menu.
They have all the typical Mexican dishes like enchiladas and tacos and the prices are really reasonable.
And the best gluten-free pizza we've ever had is at RJG Gluten-Free Restaurant.
They've got delicious desserts too.
This place can be a little bit hard to find. Here's a map so you can see where the restaurant is located.
The healthcare in the Lake Chapala area is actually quite good.
There are several clinics around town, a few hospitals.
We had a few medical appointments and were satisfied with both the quality and especially the prices.
And if you have something more serious you can head to Guadalajara, just an hour away, which many consider to be Mexico's top city for healthcare.
Many of the expats here have decided to have a car, but really it's quite easy to live here without one.
There are buses that run along the main road between Jocotepec and Chapala about every 15 or 20 minutes or so.
Another way to get around here is with a bicycle. There's a paved bike path along the main road.
Other options for transportation are walking, taxi, motorcycle, ATV and yep even by horse.
We never saw expats on a horse, but the local people yep some of them do use horses.
We feel like the Chapala area is very safe.
We never felt threatened by any type of crime but the security situation anywhere in the world can change quickly so you always want to get the latest information.
So here's a breakdown of our monthly spending average living in Ajijic.
This is for two people and U.S. dollars.
Let me just say that the Lake Chapala area definitely does not have the lowest cost of living in Mexico.
There are many cheaper places around the country.
Alright so back to the question do we think Lake Chapala is overrated?
We think it's overpriced, and yeah maybe just a little overrated for us, but everybody is different.
If we were to live here we would probably make Jocotepec our base because it just felt more like an authentic Mexican town to us.
But if you're looking for a place that supplies lots of support for adapting to life in a foreign country then check out Lake Chapala.
And we recommend Jerry Brown Travel's YouTube channel for more about this area
We ran into Jerry and Laurie here, and they are just as genuine and fun and person as they are in their informative videos.
Thanks for watching, we've got more videos from Mexico coming soon. Please subscribe so that you can be notified when our new videos are released.