Comida Mexicana! (Food in Mexico)

Let's start with the most important thing: eggs are about $1 for 15. They come in cartons of 15 or 30, and in the market (the weekly tanguis) I can consistently find them for around $1. If I'm lazy and just go to the grocery store that's closest to me I may pay closer to $1.50 - $1.75.  For 15. And yeah, they're fine.

Just this week I had the best tamale I've ever had - and I've had a lot of tamales over the years. These I get from a street vendor at the bottom of the hill on the main drag. Tamales are tricky. They can be too dry, have too much masa/not enough filling (or vice versa), etc. But these (Rico's Tamales!) are tasty, just the right texture, just the right mix of masa/filling, etc.  Score! $1 each and they're good size.

Not too surprisingly, I have also eaten a shit ton of tacos since I've been here. While I have an early "favorite" on the main drag, there are other spots - LOTS - all around with good tacos, from street vendors to small diners to restaurants. The best I've ever had? Probably not, but then I have had a LOT of tacos in my life from a lot of places and - oddly enough - the best I can remember were from a street vendor/taco truck in.......Zurich, of all places.

I am waiting to see if I will tire of Mexican food - I'm guessing no, since I love it so much. But after we were here about a week, and had already had many Mexican meals, I broke down and took DJ to get pizza but on the way, all I could think was, "Wah! I'm in the mood for Mexican!" lol  Have also eaten a lot of tostadas. Everywhere sells the crispy tostada tortillas and there's multiple good local brands of refried beans in a variety of flavors. 

After the tamale, the best thing I've had here was something not necessarily "Mexican," but I would have never thought to make in the states. Since they use limes so much here (to the point where there is actually a lime press included in the cutlery in this airbnb place), I bought a bag at the tanguis ($1 for one kilo - 2.2 pounds). That's a lot of limes, so I decided to make fresh limeade.  Then, I hit on the notion of blending some limeade with frozen strawberries and good gawd almighty, that was some awesome shit that I have since had again and again. It helps that the strawberries were so good - and I spent about $1.50 for a kilo.  Potatoes are about $1 - $1.25 for one kilo, Mandarins the same.  I got a full quart of fresh blueberries for $2. Tomatoes about $1 - $1.50 for one kilo. And so on.

I do wash produce well, but have scaled back from the heavy duty "treatment" I was initially doing after being frightened into it by my friend David. He insisted - and was validated online in a few places - that I need to give all produce a "disinfectant bath" and/or a bath in vinegar and water.  So I did that the first couple of times. Then got lazy and just scrubbed produce with a sponge dipped in vinegar. Finally, I asked the expats downstairs what they do, and they said they just wash/scrub them good with the "good" tap water we have up here on the hill, so now I do that. Not dead yet! (knock on wood)

In the grocery stores, selection is pretty good - and you can get all kinds of American stuff (shudder) if you wanna pay a little more and/or shop at specialty stores.  Mexico requires products to have labels on the front/top if said product has excess calories, or sugar, or salt, or saturated fats. Makes it easier to pass it up.

There's nothing I haven't yet been able to find that I want/need, and in fact they have  things that aren't available in the U.S. - or hard to find anymore. Like Fresca! I never did like Fresca as a kid, but I love it after rediscovering it somwehre abroad some years ago. DJ had never had it before, but is now a fan.  I've already discussed Mexican Coke, and we can even find Dr. Pepper here w/o too much trouble - including a flavor I've never seen in the states: "Dark Berry" Dr Pepper that i had to try.....and, well, it wasn't BAD, but....meh.

Some things are actually pricier than in the states for some reason (e.g., pasta sauce), and pizza, while cheaper in general, is pretty closely priced to the good deals you can get in the states with so many options.  Milk is cheaper, and you can actually buy it in a 3-pack of 1-qt plastic bag/pouches which is convenienft for us coz we don't use it a lot and can freeze 2 of the 3 bags until needed. Cheese is a little pricey, unless you wait for a sale.

I made my first homemade salsa and it was amazing, and also just made a huge vat of black bean chili for the first time. Good stuff. If by some chance I do end up in Mexico for retirement, FOOD wll be a major reason why!

Fun facts about Mexico!

Part of why I picked Chapala to check out is the weather. Most of Mexico is just too hot for me to consider for retirement.  But Chapala is one of the few areas listed for "nice weather year round" in Mexico.  Apparently, the hottest month here is in May and the rest is pretty pleasant.

I had actually hoped to start our adventure sooner, but the adoption delay meant we started here in May. And it was indeed hot for most of the month - low to mid 90s for the high pretty much every day. BUT it's dry heat, which helps. BUT it also has bright UV intense days, which isn't so great.  So far, June has indeed been cooler with highs in the lower 80s.

If I end up really liking it, I suppose I could spend the month of May elsewhere, but the goal is to land somewhere where I don't HAVE to escape for however long. But while we're waiting out the summer, here are some fun facts I learned about Mexico from a  little booklet in the "Lake Chapala Society" expat group HQ "downtown:"

1) Not only is Mexico home to the world's largest pyramid - the Great Pyramid of Cholula - but it also has more pyramids than Egypt. Cholula (AKA Tlachihualtepetl, or 'constructed mountain') is actually shorter than Giza, but much wider and larger in square feet.

2) As you may know, Mexico is the birthplace of chocolate!  The Olmecs and Mayan used it to make beverages.

3) Mexico City is sinking, with some buildings sinking up to 4-20(!) nches per year. Those clever conquistadores drained Lake Texcoco to expand the city originally built on the lake's islands.

4) Too bad it's sinking, coz Mexico City has the 2nd most museums in the world.

5) There are 69 recognized/"official" languages in Mexico! 

6) A Mexican engineer, Guillermo Gonzalez Camarena, invented color TV.

7) Mexico is home to the 2nd largest coal reef in the world. The Great Mayan Reef actually stretches from Mexico down through Belize, Guatemala, and down to Honduras - well over 500 miles.

8) Mexico is home to the oldest university in North America: The Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico predates Harvard by 80 years, although AI will still say Harvard is older.  Tell me again how AI isn't corrupted by the information/propaganda it's fed.

9) Per capita, Mexico drinks more Coca-Cola than any other country. And yes, Mexican Coke is still better.

10) Mexico is home to the Americas first printing press - established in Mexico City in 1539, about 100 years before the first one arrived in Boston.

11) Mexico is home to the world's most volcanoes - including the smallest (Cuexcomate is only 43 feet high).

12) Las Colorados in the Yucatan has pink lakes! It's not "natural" but rather due to a high concentration of red and pink algae, plankton, and brine shrimp.  If it wasn't so far, I'd love to go see them!

13) Technically, the country is called The United States of Mexico.

Life in Glamorous Chapala Mexico

So what's the most important thing that happened for DJ once we moved to Mexico? Trying Mexican Coke, of course. We're both Dr Pepper fans at heart - like all the cool people. At home, we never drank Coke, going with Sprite or Orange or even Root Beer if Dr Pepper wasn't available. But I told DJ Mexican Coke is way better than U.S. coke, so first oppt'y we had, we each got a bottle with lunch and he agreed it's way better - and we've each had a few since we've been here (partly out of fear of ordering water).

He also had his first experience using a bottle opener - as they use more glass here. Altho it took a little doing, he was enormously pleased with himself after getting his bottle open and insisted on doing mine.

Arriving in Chapala was a bit of an adventure. We got a taxi at the airport in Guadalajara, and while dude was confident in his ablity to get down here (Chapala is about 40 miles south of Guadalajara - Mexico's 2nd largest city), he wasn't quite that familiar with the town itself and we wandered for quite awhile around town, before I could finally get him to understand our rental place was at the top of the hill - so then LOTS of wandering around there, trying to find the short street we're on (Calle 4 Milpas). Locals were very friendly and helpful, and after much back and forth we arrived.

We both really like the place. Very good size. Click HERE to see it - and it's even nicer than than the pics. Only weird thing is bathroom is only accessible through my/main bedroom. But it's good size, on top of the hill which is good in the sense we get nice breezes, but bad in the sense it's a pretty serious hill so while walks down to town are okay, the trudge back up is a bear - but it's only about 5 (down) to 10 (up) minutes so we get some good exercise.

The population of the Chapala metro area is around 50K - which includes neighboring Ajijic - and is the largest of the little towns that dot the shoreline of Lake Chapala (Mexico's largest freshwater later, but let's put fresh in quotes since too much crap is dumped in the lake to make it potable or swimmable, alas). My geography was off and I thought Guadalajara/Chapala were south of Mexico City and more central. It is not.  Lol

One down side to our digs is the barking dogs. I'm sure I'll be talking about this more as I'm blown away by how many fucking dogs bark their fucking heads off here all the fucking time. Lol  Apparently this is kind of a "thing" in Latin America and is definitely a big CON for moving here unless I'm able to land a place with no neighboring dogs. But good luck with that as there are a lot of dogs here. On the plus side, the roamers are all friendly and not aggressive - a welcome change from the mean Balkan dogs in Montenegro.

Along with dogs, though, there's a fair number of horses in our neighborhood, which tickles DJ (and me, honestly). Probably will take the little monster for his first horeseback ride at some point while we're here as there's a place in Ajijic that rents tame ones.

Final interesting thing about the place we're staying. Until about 20 years ago, there were very few, mostly hovels, up here on the hill. But the influx of gringos and moneyed folks vacationing at the Lake opened up this hill to development and lots of new/nicer places are being built (like ours). Bonus: they found the hill sits on volcanic springs which means more/fresher water, and they also built more modern plumbing so none of that 3rd world scourge of not being able to flush your toilet paper (yay!). So we CAN drink the water up here - but we don't due to all the volcanic minerals in it. But it's definitely fine for washing, brushing your teeth, cooking, etc.  

But you can tell when the reservoir in the hill gets low and refills from the volcanic spring as sometimes the water will come out hot if the reservoir has just recently re-filled.

While it's ear;y days, I still can't imagine ending up here permanently. Our first three stops on my retirement scouting tour are being done in reverse order of my initial thinking on preference. I figure I'll like Oaxaca more because of it being more urban/more stuff to do, and I'll like Quito even more due to weather. We'll see!

Why I'm in Mexico

So a lot of people think/assume I've left the states coz of IT (Krasnov). And while I'd love to ride that noble high horse, I actually put this current adventure/plan into motion some months BEFORE the election - and when I actually was dumb enough to think Americans would make the right choice.  

As most of you know, I ended my Peace Corps service early to come back to the states and adopt my little monster. But I made sure he knew that as soon as that was official, we'd be taking off for me to explore where I want to retire. In fact, the main reason I had selected Montenegro for my PC service was to explore it/the Balkans as a possible retirement option. Decision: No. While I enjoyed Montenegro, and it's a VERY beautiful country, well located, etc., it gets too hot in the summer AND any of the cities I'd consider retiring in - specifically coastal cities like Bar or Kotor - are already getting too expensive.

I did make a sojoun around the Balkans the month before I left, seeing Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia - and while I MAY go back to further "analyze" some, I have at least so far dismissed them all: Slovenia - specifically Ljubljana (which I still can't spell) - was my favorite. Charming town center closed off to autos, interesting history, great architecture, people seemed cool, etc. But, alas, others are getting the same idea and the city will be priced out of my retirement savings/reliance on SSI. I would consider living with someone, but even then I'm worried it's too hot for me in the summer.

Croatia has plusses, but too toursity and expensive and hot.  I did like Belgrade, but personally find the Serbians off-putting/arrogant/uber-nationalistitc. Bosnia has some VERY cool towns, and is quite affordable, but again the heat in the summer and much of th country still bears very large/depressing scars from the war.

So after finalizing DJ's adoption, I've whisked him away to be a nomad online learner while helping me evalutae a landing place for retirement. I don't think Mexico will be it, but I feel compelled to at least check it out due to proximity to the states, same time zones, inexpensive, etc.  But I'm guessing the summer weather will nix it (if you haven't guessed yet, weather is my #1 consideration in choosing - followed closely by cost of living).

We're spending 3 months in Chapala and then 3 in Oaxaca (U.S. citizens can stay 6 months in Mexico on your passport), before heading to Ecuador for three months. From there, we're headed to Europe where we'll spend about 4 years bouncing around the different countries I'm considering there. 3 months in each place, due mostly to visa restrictions. But I did learn in Peace Corps that 3 months is a good amount of time to really get to know a place.

Finally, I know a lot of folks seem to think I'm rich for being able to do this and/or that I'm reitring early. I wish! To both! I am still working - TRYING to get more work as a travel agent, and also doing online remote work (and looking for more). I am the opposite of rich and another reason I am doing this is because it's CHEAPER to live overseas.  From a quick analyses, it looks like our living expenses will be around HALF of what they were in Oklahoma (a notoriously cheap place to live coz you get what you pay for) - so I actually can't afford to NOT live abroad.  And thanks to miles/points I've saved up and travel agent perks, the travel side is free or very cheap (e.g., free repositioning cruise on Princess of 25 days will get us from S. America to Europe).

I've posted my itinerary in multiple places on Facebook, but if you're interested in checking it out - and/or meeting up someplace along the way (that'd be awesome) - here it is. Set in stone pretty much until we land in Europe, and can be fleixible then if folks are interested in meeting in a particular country during a particular time:

May - Oct. '25 - Mexico (2-3 months in Chapala and then 3 months in Oaxaca - we'll be there for Day of the Dead! Yay!)

Nov. ' 25 - Jan ' 26 - Ecuador (Quito)

Feb ' 26 - repositioning cruise from Buenos Aires to Rome. 25 days! and after a couple days in Rome, it's off to:

Mar - May ' 26 - (S) Portugal (Porto)

Jun - Aug '26 - Ireland or Scotland or Wales

Sep - Nov '26 - (S) Spain - probably Valencia

Dec. '26 - Feb. '27 - Morocco

Mar - May '27 - (S) Bulgaria

Jun - Aug. '27 - Macedonia/other Balkan state

Sep. - Nov. ' 27 - (S) Romania

Dec ' 27 - Feb. '28 - Georgia (this could be longer and thus push everything else back as you can stay in Georgia up to 1 year on a U.S. passport)

Mar - May - '28 - (S) Estonia

Jun - Aug. '28 - Ireland/Scotland/Wales

Sep. - Nov. '28 - (S) Poland

Dec. '28 - Feb. '29 - Croatia/Bosnia/Montenegro/Albania

Mar - May '29 - Another city in Spain or back to another Shengen country I really liked to explore more or try another city.

By this point, DJ will be almost 18 and depending on a variety of things, we may then head to SE Asia and bounce around for a year or so to Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, and who knows where else.

So make your plans now to join up or meet us somewhere along the way! Or if you are interested in any of those places, let me know anything in particular you'd like me to pay attention to there.

Resist!

Where to start?  How about some judgement (including self-flagellation) all around for how we've been partially responsible for bringing this current hell down on ourselves and how we may have fucked ourselves right out of a functioning republic. 

I was going to do a recap of all the horrible things that have already happened, but how to choose? There's just SO much! Instead, I'll focus on the "one" thing we should ALL be doing - and doing a LOT better on: punishing the oligarchs and willfully ignorant voters who unleashed this hell on us.

Firstly, if you don't completely understand what an oligarchy is, google it (no wait, don't use google - those craven pieces of shit are renaming the Gulf of Mexico). We are currently living under an oligarchy quickly trying to transition to a dictatorship.  How do you punish oligarchs? By going after the one thing they love above all else: their money.

Here's a fun little fact: The average consumer funds politicians and PACs about 3 times more through their purchasing decisions as compared to their direct political contributions.  So you made a feel good $25 donation to Kamala last year?  Aww, sweet, give yourself a pat on the bac....oh wait, then the next day you spent $25 on lunch for you and a friend at Chick fil a or however it's spelled? Congrats, not only was your $25 bucks to Kamala wiped out, but you basically gave that and then another $50 to Trump.

NO self respecting American citizen who cares about equality, decency, Democracy etc. has ANY excuse to still be eating at Chick fil a, to still be shopping at Wal-mart (exceptions for those isolated rural folks with no other option), to still be buying on Amazon, to still be on Twitter, reading WaPo, etc.  I could go on and on. And it's not hard to find the evil.  Start here:

https://www.goodsuniteus.com/

And fucking commit! I admit I've been bad/made excuses, but no more. Boo hoo, you'll miss their lemonade, boo hoo, you might have to pay 25 cents more for those socks, is that REALLY so much more important to you than your neighbors getting deported so their sobbing kids come home to no parents? Is the "convenience" of Amazon worth your LGBT friends and family being persecuted? I KNOW some of you are going to say, "Oh well, just ME stopping won't change anything." Congrats, you bought in to their propaganda and you've been cowed. just like the sheep who listen to and believe Fox/Newsmax.  

You find these companies, you stop supporting them, and go one step more by writing their CEO and explaining why. Tell your friends and family. Organize "buy ins" like Sharpton did with some folks at Costco to reward the good businesses, and write and tell THEM as well. "Oh, I'm so busy, I can't write businesses, my congressman, etc" says the person who ten seconds later blathers on about the reality show they spend their no time they have watching. Well, good luck finding that show in our future dystopian hellhole.  

NEXT: the folks who brought this on us. I read somewhere once that Democracy dies when folks who do wrong aren't punished/suffer nothing for their support of fascism. If you are still hanging out with Trump voters, then stop. Just stop. I don't care if it's your long time friend, neighbor, family member, etc. Every single person who cravenly voted for this BS needs to be ostracized. And while I wouldn't say you MUST be mean about it, I encourage you to do so. Otherwise, a simple, "Sorry, your values don't align with mine and we are in a very horrible and perilous situation that your choices helped bring about" is sufficient.  Or similar.  Seriously, there is no excuse any more.  Maybe, just MAYBE, if these propaganda-infested tools suddenly started losing their friends and family members, they'll re-think, try to educate themselves, etc.  

We're supposed to be teaching our children that bad choices have consequences. Going to lunch with your Trump-loving brother just because you shared an incubator is inexcusable at this point. They feel they're still "a good person at heart" because, otherwise, why would Kamala-voting Aunt Peggy still be hanging out with them? Just stop. Before it's too late.