RATING: ♦♦♦♦♦
The town of Chapala is the oldest, most populated, and the most easterly, of a string of villages known locally as Lakeside. The villages include Chapala, San Antonio Tlayacapan, Ajijic, San Juan Cosala, and Jocopetec.
Chapala is only about 5 miles from Ajijic, but we hadn’t made our way over there to visit until our hosts, Ramon and Sue, invited us to have lunch there one Sunday afternoon. The town was packed with the usual weekend visitors. There is a lot for families to do along the huge malecon, and the town is well established as a weekend getaway destination for inhabitants of the nearby city of Guadalajara. We ate at Ramon and Sue’s favorite seafood restaurant, Isla Cozumel. Margarita’s are free and the food is delicious!
That fun visit inspired us to go back to Chapala on our own a few days later. We took advantage of the regular bus service from Ajijic, costing 7 pesos (approximately 38 cents) per person each way.
We had lunch at a nice little restaurant in town called the Paris Cafe, then we headed down the busy sidewalk to explore the shops and plaza. The current population of Chapala is approximately 50,000, and the downtown area offers the services of any city that size.
In addition to the usual clothing and jewelry shops, we walked by pharmacies, appliance and furniture stores, banks, realtors, and government offices. On the street corner across from the malecon is the former home of the Braniff (airline) family. Built around the turn of the century, today it is a fashionable restaurant called Los Cazadores. We stopped in for dessert, then crossed over to check out the malecon again.
We spent time watching fishing boats and small tour boats make their way out onto the lake. This summer, the lake shore is inundated with a non-native water hyacinth plant that the boats have to motor through before getting to open water. It didn’t seem to deter anyone from having a good time. We continued our walk to the end of the malecon, enjoying another perfect day in Mexico.
