Casa de Chacala

Rick left at the same time as Heather and Chris and I was on my own for three weeks. I was a little apprehensive but after the mad rush of company and friends at Christmas time I was ready for a little solitude. I found myself copying the locals, I would start the day with a nice breakfast on the upper patio contemplating the view and waiting for something to come up. Sometimes someone would drop by to visit, sometimes a delivery or work person would come, sometimes no one. I would clean up, read a book, paint or just generally sit around for the morning. In the afternoon I went to the beach or visited friends or stayed home and read. Usually about four o’clock I would go for a long walk, meeting up with Mexican people I knew and spending a little time trying out my Spanish. Some mornings I went to Spanish class, others I stayed home and watched the birds. Altogether I had a blissful time, just letting down and enjoying the atmosphere.

I drove down to Puerto Vallarta to pick Rick up and we spent a little time around PV getting groceries and just generally hanging out. We find it easier to hang out there now that we know where things are. We had dinner in Bucerias and enjoyed a great little street market and fiesta that was happening there.

The last two weeks flew buy. Rick was taking an SRT course at Mardi Jade and the last week I got a horrendous stomach flue. But just before we left we were invited to a little town nearby called el Capomo. They were having a nine day festival, it included a float with biblical characters, five loud Mexican bands, a lot of fireworks, and great things to eat and drink. We enjoyed this evening the most of all our time there.

We were both sad to leave our new home. I think next year we will spend the same amount of time here, December and January as well as April, and hopefully the following year we will be able to spend longer. We do feel a sense of well being and home in Chacala. It is such a great experience to live in another culture and we value the people and the culture above everything else there.

Labels: Drive down 2007

POWER: We have it, at least permission from Puerto Vallarta. I think it helped that Rick knew the engineer that came by on our last day, he had visited with him and his family in Las Varas when we were trying to find his brother a couple of years ago. He said as long as the road was in he would recommend it to Puerto Vallarta, we assured him, with fingers crossed that the road would be done.

Next time we go to Chacala we will be furnishing, finishing the painting and joy of joy we will be gardening. We plan on being there for December and January and maybe some of February. Hopefully another visit in the springtime, after Semana Santos.

People have asked where Chacala is as many maps do not show the town. It is on the coast North of Puerta Vallarta. On the map follow the road north to Las Varas, Chacala is West approximately 19 km.

More photographs available at shutterfly.com email me for the password.

Our two week trip to Mexico this time was filled with fun, frustration, good food, good talks and very little sleep.

We arrived to beautiful warm balmy weather which gradually got warmer and warmer as the days progressed. I was glad we didn’t have a thermometer as I am sure we would have decided it was too hot to do some things. We made it to the beach twice just to sit and laze around for a couple of hours but otherwise we worked full out to get everything done.
Our Mexican friend had called our contractors to get us started – we needed some things fixing, painting inside, tiling, counters, window covers, interior doors, railings and building of steps. On top of this we needed to try to persuade the local authorities that we deserved power, not an easy job. We also quickly realized we needed a mattress, as our air mattress did not hold pressure, needing several pumps to make it through the night. A North American friend loaned us a single mattress until we found a very reasonably priced mattress in Las Varas a town a few minutes away.

We enjoyed picking colours for our house, at first we were very confused, we had several books to refer to – “Mexican Color” and “Ajijic Behind the Walls”- but still found it confusing. I realised we were trying to make too many decisions at once, when we slowed down it became much easier to see what colour came next.

On Thursday we rounded up several people, our new neighbours, also from B.C., a local woman who’s English and Spanish were very good and whose husband was also building in our neighbourhood, and ourselves. We headed off to Las Varas to once more apply for power. The engineer we talked to was helpful as usual and took us through the same procedure as before, saying that permission had to be received from Puerto Vallarta before they could do anything but they would do another study. We didn’t have much hope as we had been turned down before. At the same time we were being awakened at 6:00 am every morning with a bulldozer clearing an area just in front of our house. We talked with the driver and he said they were clearing roads, Rick asked if our road was going to be cleared and he said eventually, he thought, a usual Mexican answer for “I don’t know”. Then we found out that this was a government machine whose job it was to clear and put in new roads, but they was actually clearing private lots. Obviously something had persuaded them that this was profitable. Anyway, to cut a long story short, Rick got mad and more or less demanded that our road be put in so that we could get electricity. Initially they ignored him, turning around and talking to others. Wonder of wonders, on the last day of our stay the bulldozer came up our driveway at 6:00 am and started clearing our road. We are still not sure if this will get us electricity but we have a little more ammunition now.

We went to Compostella and Tepic twice, the first time to order tiles for the bathrooms and the second time to pick them up. We had many Mexican moments and thoroughly enjoyed out time in Tepic.

This is a picture of zocalo in Compostella

The town square, where birds and children fly and run freely. It is always a hive of activity; each day seems to have a different emphasis. On the weekends the markets are the main events. During the week small stalls selling everything from jewelry to chickens. The first time we were there they were pruning the Bougainvillea, great branches of glorious colours, fallen petals making a carpet across the square. The second time we had to plug our ears as cars maneuvered their way around the square with their boom boxes on high volume. Another day we had the great experience of Margaret locking the keys in the car, Rick can almost now see the funny side of this, and we discovering the wonders of taxi drivers. We only had to ask one of them and he took us to the nearest locksmith, demanded that he come right away, and then took us back to our car; all for 100 pesos.

We spent quite a lot of our social time with our Mexican friends, giving house tours and visiting, all in Spanish, which is challenging but getting easier. We thoroughly enjoyed these friends and look forward to getting to know them better. We have a sense of community there, for example one evening walk was interrupted 5 times with people we knew wanting to talk—something that never happens for us here. We also feel grateful for the quality of the workers who have helped us. All of them were very skilled, honest, honorable and friendly. We rarely had a problem with any of them, and any small problems were easily sorted out.

We had lots of help from our North American friend, a woman who lives in Chacala full time, she writes a blog about her life there - http://mylifeinchacala.blogspot.com/ - we find we are able to keep up with what’s happening in Chacala through this blog when we are not there. This is very helpful. Our Mexican friend who has been managing the project with us was great. She was able to find someone to make doors for us, send the Machina (machine) Guy over when we needed him, bring the metal guy over to decide on railings, as well us take us on a trip to a far away beach and lunch at another for great seafood. She has been sending us photographs of the progress of all the work. I think she will become the official photographer for Chacala pretty soon.

It is two weeks since we left and I think everything has been completed. Everyone came together on time and I think everything is finished. Now we can hardly wait to get back to see it all, but I think it will be December before we can get away again. So for now our pictures speak a thousand words.

I am finding it hard to download more pictures so will do another page tomorrow.

Our latest trip to Chacala was great. Our house is almost finished, ready for painting. We made many new friends and had a great time shopping for our new house.

Our construction crew has done a great job, we are very pleased with the way they were able to work with little direction from us. Some things in the house were different than we expected-the size of the wood, the arbor on an upstairs patio, a deck off the bedroom that is twice the size we expected, but we like what they did and the reasoning behind it.

It didn’t feel so hard dealing with everyone in Spanish this time-I think everyone has adapted to our broken Spanish and are speaking more simply. Our time there was spent running around getting things and meeting with builders. We had 2 quick trips to Puerto Vallarta for supplies-we bought toilets, lights, pumps and even a couple of wicker chairs.


The beach was fabulous, although we spent very little time there. On Christmas Eve we went with eight other people to Majahua for a fabulous dinner and Christmas Day was a pot luck at Casa Pacifica. We met so many people we had to escape a couple of times to Las Varas for a break.

The market at La Penita was another highlight. They have changed the set up so that most of the jewellery and other tourist items are around the square with the rest of the market, with fruit & vegetables and house wares and clothes stretching down the street. It seemed to go on for ever. We also discovered a fabulous new Italian restaurant in La Penita with great cooking, coffee and pastries.

Things are changing fast in Chacala, there is a lot of building starting, a new restaurant on the beach, several new houses started, a gym and surf shop and a new hotel. We are not sure we will enjoy all these changes as we signed on for a sleepy little town in the backwoods of Mexico. Our house is still off the beaten track and we hope it will stay somewhat quiet in our neigbourhood, but 4 lots sold in the time we were there and building on some of them will start soon. We’ll see.

This picture shows the little tenaca on top of the house and the tiles on top of the patio roof. Hard to see but they make the house look entirely different.

We go next in late April to see everything finished fully, do the landscaping in the front so the house isn’t up so high, and decide on paint for inside. Until then we just dream of being in Chacala.

Latest picture:Upstairs ceiling about to be poured.