Posts filed under 'Mazatlán'
Be sure to read Lawrence Downes’ piece in the travel section of the New York Times (from which comes the illustration above. My favorite paragraph:
But Manzanillo then was jungle outpost, a nowhere port town on a two-lane road from Guadalajara. It was a place where a gringo — even a famous novelist gringo accompanied by family and friends, an abundant supply of drugs and an International Harvester school bus covered in Day-Glo paint and blaring music from a sophisticated loudspeaker system — could reasonably expect to hide out for a while.
Interest in Manzanillo remains extremely high. People interested in homes in Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta often mention Manzanillo also, along with better known Pacific Coast locations like Acapulco. But Downes’ access to novelist Robert Stone’s memories makes his article extra special and worth the 3 full pages.
“In the moments after dawn, before the sun had reached the peaks of the sierra, the slopes and valleys of the rain forest would explode in green light, erupting inside a silence that seemed barely to contain it. When the sun’s rays spilled over the ridge, they discovered dozens of silvery waterspouts and dissolved them into smokey rainbows. …
“All of us, stoned or otherwise, caught in the vortex of dawn, would freeze in our tracks and stand to, squinting in the pain of the light, sweating, grinning.
“We called that light Prime Green; it was primal, primary, primo.”
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March 22nd, 2008
From Hotel Newswire, another airline gets in to the market for the flood of people coming into Puerto Vallarta and other points along Mexico’s Pacific coast.
The AOC gives Republic Airlines the authority to operate EMB 170/175s on several routes to Mexico, including: Denver to Puerto Vallarta, Los Cabos, Mazatlán and Zihuatanejo; Sacramento and San Jose, California to Los Cabos; and Albuquerque, New Mexico to Puerto Vallarta.
Those Departure Cities will join the already hefty list that the Puerto Vallarta airport lists:
- Atlanta - Aeromexico airlines, Continental Airlines,Delta Airlines
- Chicago - Mexicana Airlines, Continental Airlines
- Cleveland -Aeromexico airlines,Continental Airlines,American Airlines
- Dallas -Aeromexico airlines, Continental Airlines, American Airlines
- Denver -Mexicana Airlines, America West
- Detroit - Northwest airlines
- Houston -Aeromexico airlines, Continental Airlines
- Los Angeles - Aeromexico, Continental, Alaska,Mexicana
- Miami -Aeromexico airlines,Mexicana Airlines
- Minneapolis / Saint Paul - Northwest airlines
- Newark - Continental Airlines, American Airlines
- New York -Aeromexico airlines
- Phoenix - Aeromexico, Continental, Alaska, America West
- Portland -Alaska Airlines
- San Antonio -Mexicana Airlines
- San Jose - Alaska Airlines
- Seattle -Alaska Airlines, Continental Airlines
- St. Louis - Continental Airlines, TWA
- San Diego - Alaska Airlines
- San Francisco -Alaska Airlines, Mexicana Airlines
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October 5th, 2007
Some months you just get lucky. Lot’s of people are moving, but most of them do it in the dead silence of the non-internet world. Maybe we hear about it months later. They pack their things, drive off, go through incredible adventures, landscapes that bring tears to your eyes - and the world is none the wiser. This past month not one but two avid bloggers have packed it up and moved to Mazatlán.
For almost a year, Nancy & Paul at Moving to Mexico have been counting down the days. What they’ve built has become an invaluable reference to the whole process of finding a place to live, buying it, all the paperwork and some trips back & forth as well as the challenges of pulling up roots in the old country. It’s just culminated in crossing the border and driving into Mazatlan. So not only big welcomes to them both, but big thanks go out as well. Here’s to hoping the blog stays online a long time and continues to document so many personal decisions and choices with so much class and style.
Tina’s blog, Making a Run for the Border at Midlife, is shorter on the practicalities. But it makes up for that with a longer take on some of the frustrations, and some of the thinking of people who can do the whole thing in just a few months. Making a Run only started on July 20 with a post called “Oh My God! You’re Doing What?” A few days later, in another post, Tina continued:
A lot of folks ask how many times we visited Mazatlan before making a decision to move there. Actually, we didn’t visit at all. We first heard about Maz through a client who wanted us to sell her house so she and her husband could retire there. That was a year ago.
I’m always astounded by the particular character of people who do things like that. Like Nancy’s blog above, Tina took some time to examine packing up the old place:
[…]there HAS begun a glimmer of lightness. Almost unnoticed. Spaces in our home have been relieved of what filled them. In their place, is only openness. Undimished by a vase, or a lamp or photo, the space contributes a clearness…clarity, glimpsed as I pass through our rooms. Does all our stuff diminish our emotional space? Will more clarity result as we empty our past into various piles for discard? Memories and momentos accumulate and fill us until there’s no further room, and then no further time. We easily can forget about creation and instead busy ourselves as caretakers of who we were.
That’s from July 28. The blog continues through mid-september, Three Weeks ‘In Country’. I urge you to peruse the posts over the 3 month life of Making a Run for the Border, re-creating yourself as the caretaker of who you ARE.
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September 23rd, 2007
We’re polishing up the details in preparation to announce the Free 3-day “On-the-Ground” events in Campeche and Panama City, and we’re learning a lot about what people want from the same 3-Day totally free event we’re holding in Puerto Vallarta in October. That one is filling up fast… and you can click here for more details. It all really comes down to where you want to go.
We’re working on a similar event to be held, for free in Costa Rica, probably in November, and another for Mazatlan and probably in Ixtapa, soon after.
A lot of people have written, mostly in reply to the most recent newsletter, to ask how these can possibly be totally free events. The simple answer is, plenty of people are interested in having you take a look at Puerto Vallarta and at the other locations we’re featuring. Most of these will be 3 day events, some will be 4. We’re talking right now to people who are interested enough to get you 3 nights for free in a nice hotel in Puerto Vallarta so you can relax, get to know the area and then make an intelligent decision that you can’t make just by staring at pictures on the internet.
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August 10th, 2007
That last post really was inspired not only by people that Livtopia reps have been picking up in Puerto Vallarta and in Mazatlan, but also by a few personal friends of mine. People with loads of money but who can not only not afford to buy a house, but worse, when they buy a house they can’t afford to live in it. I have a few friends who have been renting for 3 years with almost no hope of moving into the house they bought. Then again, I have other friends who visited Mazatlan and never planned to move there permanently, but who figure that years from now (or sooner), well, they just might. At least they have something.
I’m not a real estate person really, but reading more and more of the discussion going on out there, it does become pretty frightening. What follows is both an analyisis and an observation proffered in response to that at analysis.
First, from Mike Cook at BloodHoundBlog, really one of the most continually insightful real estate blogs out there:
On the positive side, the economy seems to be holding strong. This is reflected in the strong office market that has persisted despite a tighter financing situation. A bit more neutrally, interest rates are low historically, but are significantly higher than two or three years ago. This affects adjustable rate mortgage borrowers and borrowers who decide not to move because of the higher rates. Finally, the subprime lending situation, the tighter lending standards, and the supply of homes on the market make up the bulk of negative real estate factors.
That inspired this basketball-related response from the Real Estate Zebra.
You need to know the perspective of the person doing the analysis. Is this person a builder? an investor? a REALTOR? Where is the person located geographically? All of these questions help establish a person’s perspective. Once you can do that, you can look at their opinion through the prism of your own perspective.
Fair enough, and a good piece of advice for readers here. Livtopia’s perspective is from that of the Buyer’s Agent. You can read more about that here.
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July 18th, 2007
WestJet, one of Canada’s most affordable airlines, announced a few days ago that they’ve been approved by the Canadian Government to begin regularly scheduled service to San Jose del Cabo, Mazatlan, Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo and Manzanillo from Edmonton and Calgary, and to San Jose del Cabo and Manzanillo from Vancouver.
Travelers to Dominican Republic will also be getting some new service. Sol Dominicana is a new Brazilian airline that is set to start service in July of this year. Phase one calls for weekly flights (and some more frequent) between La Romana and Toronto, Berlin, Buenos Aires and Mexico City, as well as to cities in Brazil. Phase two will see flights from New York early next year.
A personal secret from your blogger… weird perhaps, but I love Airline Photos, for which there is simply no greater source anywhere than Airliners.Net! The WestJet Photo at top is from them, with thanks.
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June 26th, 2007
Backdating a little, Rick Lewis’s comprehensive take on IMSS insurance was updated in December 2006, but just came through the Lake Chapala Information feed today. I’m glad it did. Lewis writes for www.mazInfo.com,and is a frequent contributor to the healthy chatter always coming though from their Yahoo Group. Whether you’re interested in Mazatlan, or in Mexico generally, you can get good information on healthcare there in fits and burst, but Lewis’s take on IMSS is an ongoing account of specific treatments, the character and nature of treatment and what you can expect to pay and receive if you’re thinking of retiring to Mexico or even just spending some extended period of time here.
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March 17th, 2007
I hope not to write a post that is too snide, but this post from Greg at LifeTwo really has me thinking. Ostensibly the point is that the mid-life crisis that people born between 1978 and 1998 (Generation Y) is going to be much worse than anything we’ve seen before. According to the post, many of them are far more Narcisistic and self-satisfied and those particular maladies are difficult maladies to treat:
Perhaps more Gen Y’ers will go through classic midlife crises, and they’ll be deeper and longer than the current norm (a period from a few weeks to two years). Whether they can make the necessary adjustments is questionable — narcissism generally can’t be treated. In forty years we may have a lot of unhappy, but self-satisfied, sixty year olds.
Now, I’m firmly Generation X, though that term seems to have ceased garnering any of the lavish attention that Boomers and folks younger suffer from Marketing newsletters and Publicity blogs and such. But still I’ve spent my life working with, for and about Boomers, now so more than ever, and it bothers me not in the slightest.
Maybe actual boomers recall the first time it dawned on them that people with actual experience are worth knowing and working with? At any rate, moving abroad, one quickly learns that it is a different caliber and personality of person that one meets while traveling and living somewhere where things are less than totally familiar. Sure, I still get stuck in tourist haunts “overrun with fanny-pack wearing gringos laughing too loud,” (as Nancy at Countdown to Mexico so nicely put it), but wouldn’t you rather live somewhere where the midlife and (sigh) quarter-life crises are all miles and miles away?
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February 28th, 2007
Go-Oaxaca Blog has posted some truly extraordinary photos of the Carnaval celebrations near Ocotlan, just south of the capital of Oaxaca, (the rest of the post is must see stuff!). Carnaval is pretty quiet in Mexico’s capital, but outside it is truly something else, as I thought these photos well captured. Veracruz and Mazatlan are best known in Mexico for their Carnaval celebrations. There’s a good Flickr photostream here, if you’re interested in the celebrations in Mazatlan, and some of the big time stuff in Veracruz posted here. But there seems to be a completely different flavor to the goings-on in Oaxaca. Something for everyone?
Update: here’s another nice one from Mazatlan.
And another update: 1st Mate’s photos are also Top Notch.
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February 22nd, 2007
Live Better Mexico is off the ground and I hope you will sign up for what we promise will be the number one email newsgroup about living in Mexico and all the things to see and do. I’ll follow this up with a group just for Panama and later for the next countries we’re exploring. But for now, I hope you’ll sign up to see what folks are saying about Mexico, and living in Mexico. You can join up here.
Just to be fair though, I want to share the full list of other excellent groups that I have been reading for the last couple of months. Some are a bit slower than others, but all of them contain archives of excellent email exchanges and useful information. You can do a keyword search to really try to pull info out of the archives or just go ahead and start interacting with the other members. Each of them is an incredibly valuable source of information.
Groups good for our Featured Locations:
General Mexico Groups:
Panama Groups:
If you’ve got a group, not mentioned here, or you just want to recommend one, please let me know. Thanks a lot.
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February 22nd, 2007
Updated Dec 28
Numerous readers have inquired about the locations and amenities of English language libraries and we are pleased to report that their number has remained stable and may even be growing. In general, it is the locations with the largest populations of English speaking residents that demand such libraries.
Merida English Library is the best known, perhaps due in some measure to their web presence. They serve as a community center and support themselves in part by organizing house & garden tours and tours of local artists’ studios in and around Mérida. See the website for more details.
Of course, with all the folks from abroad flocking to Lake Chapala and environs, the Lake Chapala Society runs an impressive operation with 25,000 electronically cataloged volumes. Part of the society, the LCS Library is also tuned in with the comings and goings of the community, and according to the website they have a regular inflow of new books and materials
For those closer to Cuernavaca, St. Michael´s Library is the little white house at the rear of St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, Calle Minerva # 1. They boast the largest collection of English books and magazines in the area and also lend movies and music recordings. The library itself doesn’t have a website, but as the church is something of a hub for English speaking activities in the Cuernavaca area, it frequently hosts events listed on ClickonCuernavaca, one of the most informative local websites.
Finally, way across the country, The Mazatlan Membership Library serves the Pearl of the Pacific with thousands of English books as well as lots of Spanish volumes. Like the other libraries above, they survive totally on membership fees and donations and the sale of surplus books, so even if you are just visiting, a visit is always worthwhile.
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And San Miguel Allende ? Home to the Biblioteca Pública de San Miguel de Allende, a collection of several thousand books, periodicals and newspapers, and also sharing home with the local community center, and offering a complete computer center. See their website for all the details.
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Late update brings us the cheerful website of the Oaxaca Lending Library.
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November 27th, 2006
Terrific Deals on Houses in Mexico
Of course, anyone can do a survey of the houses available at whatever price range you like in the listings section at MexLiving.com. We started looking because readers have come to us with concerns that prices in the Mexican marketplace are starting to climb. NOT TRUE. We found these amazing bargains and barely had to look. This is not by any means an exhaustive survey. For reasons of space we had to leave some listings out. But we hope it will give a good idea of the options available at extremely reasonable prices.
You can see here a few of the properties we found in just 30 seconds, priced between US$100K and $150K. These are not rarities nor are they huddled together at one or two bargain-basement type locations either.Great prices are available for properties in all our Featured Locations.
The photo at the top is a stunning gated community in Mazatlán on the Pacific coast, not exactly the worst area in Mexico. Mazatlan is very desirable not only for the beachfront but for nearness to the border. The next photo is a property at Tequesquitengo, about 45 minutes from Cuernavaca in some of the most exclusive and visually exotic inland territory. The region surrounding Cuernavaca is famous for being a favorite haunt of discerning foreigners with a taste for truly spectacular landscape.
This next photograph (to the right) comes from a listing for a gated community in Puerto Vallarta. That’s probably among the most sought after beach and vacation locations for tourists and retirees, even for people from all over the world. The asking price ? US$115,000.
And lastly, of course, this photo from a condo development in San Miguel de Allende. San Miguel really has seen tremendous demand drive prices upward. And the foreign population continues to grow there due to the fant
