Posts filed under 'Photography'
Believe it or not, Guadalajara is exactly what a lot of people are looking for. A huge city, yes, but a city that never feels like the over-extended and polluted metropolis. It’s a real treat to be visiting and writing about it again!
Sometimes I tend to think of Guadalajara a bit like Queretaro, in terms of sleek world-class infrastructure surrounding a gem of a colonial city center.
But really Guadalajara like the capital in exhile, Mexico’s second big claim to a world class city. It has all of the advantages of a metropolis, but without the indifference that visitors feel in the capital. Guadalajara is visitor friendly and it’s navigable - you can learn your way around, safely take the metro, it’s clean and and people-friendly. There’s some excellent and pretty comprehensive photos of the city of Guadalajara and the surrounding areas here.
And in addition to the excellent health care system and the all the shopping and the culture, you always find a team of cutting-edge designers, dedicated to sleek, modern-feeling craft and architecture. You might put down one of these houses in cities all around the world, but they feel right at home in Guadalajara. You can visit when ever you like.
Click here to tell us about Your Ideal Home!
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March 11th, 2008
While the New York Times covers the difficulty of getting back into the states, (get your passport!) the LA Times is going the completely different direction. Easily my favorite part of Saturday’s LA Times special “Your Money” section on Retirement in Latin America, is the slide show & audio interview with Grant Spalding, (click the image above), on his late decision to leave Mexico and head back to the states. The photography is excellent, but the quality of voice and sentiment for Mérida is what is really striking. Funny, Spalding ends up saying exactly the opposite of what I am always telling people, namely, move to Latin America, but I think if you listen to it you will see exactly what I think makes the piece so worth it. He insists several times that in fact Mérida is a better place than it was 20 years ago.
Still, I spent part of this morning, again, talking to some one about the difficulties that foreigners are having finding agents willing to talk to them in Mérida. For that, I still think a Livtopia Rep is the way to go.
This one section of the LA Times has something for just about anyone interested in the region. This piece on the ins and outs of Escazu, in Costa Rica, is also telling.
About 20,000 Americans, Canadians and Europeans have legal, long-term residency, according to government figures. Thousands more are believed to live here on tourist visas that can be renewed every 90 days by leaving the country for 72 hours. It’s a practice that the government doesn’t condone, but it cracks down on it only occasionally.
Again, the little bit of photography in the piece above is terrific, and it’s sadly rare coverage for what is an incredible country, landscape and people. Just about every angle I try to cover is covered in the LA Times section. The Judy King Audio and Slide interview is also quite telling. Her advice, do it for the adventure, not because it’s cheap. “Mexico is not for everyone.” And the photos, this time of the Chapala area do not lead one to believe that the area is watered down and saturated with gringo influence. It’s still very much a Mexican place, and thus, something to be enjoyed.
I’ll also recommend these two advice lists: “10 major tips from people in the know” and “Things to know before you move.” Among the most savory bits of advice from the first list:
9. Relax, and quit whining.
If you do relocate, you’ll be much happier focusing on what you like about your new community rather than obsessing about what’s wrong. Latin America’s languid pace can be exasperating when you’re in a hurry, but the whole point of retirement is to get off the clock.
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October 21st, 2007
Scanning the news today, it’s easy to see that Spencer Tunick has captured the world’s imagination again. I am working on adding content to the main Livtopia pages introducing some neighborhoods and developments in Mexico City to the English language world. And reading the commentary from all over the world about the major photo shoot, Tunick’s biggest ever, is a little heartbreaking.
There were probably at least 18,000 reasons to go down to el Zocalo in the city’s center to be a part of this event. Some of the pictures, especially of people coming and going, look like the participants are just acting crazy, like little children. And it’s easy to assume that people don’t do that everyday.
There is every reason to celebrate peace and humanity where ever and however it comes about. Tunick and his 18,000 to 20,000 collaborators deserve credit for that.
The photo above is from Spiegel’s Quite Excellent Online Gallery.
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May 7th, 2007
Gwyn was good enough to update us on the photo-tour, and as our comments section is not running at full speed yet I thought I’d try to highlight the info here:
The poll closed last night and the most popular choice by far was the tour on Saturday 28th April.
We´ll start at the Cantina La Cava, on the corner of Herrera y Cairo #285 and Belen, Colonia Centro, (about 5 blocks from the Panteon de Belen) to wait for everyont to arrive. I’ll be there at 1pm and we’ll head off to the Cemetary at 1:30, probably spend an hour or so there, then wander to various parques and possibly end up in another cantina (to be decided). The last tour was great fun and the more people there are, the merrier. There’s no charge for the tour, but there’s a minimal entrance fee for the Panteon, around 50 pesos I think.
Hope you can make it, sign up at http://www.flickr.com/groups/vivirguadalajara/discuss/72157600086414328/ or email me in any language you like 
Photo, again, used by permission from Gwyn’s Flickr Photostream.
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April 20th, 2007
The photogrpahy tour of Guadalajara that we announced last time is back on. This time, Gwyn, of Gwyn’s Blog, is conducting a poll to decide when exactly and where, with choices between the 21st of April ranging to the 29th. All of the locations are within the city of Guadalajara, and like last time the tour is
expected to be informal, conversational and likely to end up in a cantina. That said, you can really learn a lot roaming around a city as beautiful as Guadalajara with a camera and a few fellow shutter-bugs.
Photo above is used by permission from Gwyn’s Flickr Photostream.
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April 18th, 2007
We’re in the middle of another complete and total site-overhaul, so I really have not been able to do anything close to the reading I would like to. I have narrowed my list of good blogs Mexico and Latin America Blogs to read, and it definitely includes the following, and soon enough the complete list will appear somewhere here in these pages. But for now, these were among my favorite posts from the past week or so:
From Countdown to Mexico:
For some reason I really want them (and some others) to understand that our decision to move isn’t just because we want change, or to live better on the income we’ll have than we could up here….that the slowness, and the sociability, and the chance to really connect with ourselves and each other is more possible there.
I can understand those reasons perfectly. Nancy’s post is about the documentary film, Lost and Found in Mexico.
A spate of happy posts at My Life Back in Mexico,give good glimpses into 30 year old Jose’s return to his native country, including, finally settling in Puebla and job searching and interviewing and getting a job.
Blah Blah Blah Ginger found that Ajijic was remarkably like her old home town of Santa Barbara, with lots of witty insight, and photos, of shopping and poking around the artisans booths. “It’s way too early for me to be buying lamps, I don’t even have any furniture to put them on.”
Go-Oaxaca blog seems to be posting a bit more in Spanish than in English, but their photos always make stopping by worthwhile. Maybe it’s just that Oaxaca is Mexico’s most photogenic state.
And Yucatan Living brought news of a Bookstore and other events in Mérida, and just today this comprehensive interview with new Mérida resident Lorena Pacheco.
Billieblog’s masterful account of busy-ness should be required reading at our next seminar in the “what-to-expect” category.
I always want to write a post about how those of us from more northerly parts of North America end up with this invigorated taste for the heavy cultural and architectural history of Mexico and even for the whole western world. From Xico satisifies that longing with a couple of solid posts on the history of San Juan de Ulúa in Veracruz.
Normally from the same part of Mexico, the Ruminating Expatriot travelled much further afield to Cabo San Lucas and has been providing the same insightful and photo-laden posts. I was personally glad to see that his commentary translates to a west coast environment with no loss of acuity. Cheers !!
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April 14th, 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
Just passing this along… as part of our photography run-down, sort of a barhop and photoswap in Guadalajara this coming weekend. Seems from Gwyn’s post the event is conducted mostly in Spanish (?)
In addition to the blogroll that I keep saying is in the works, we are also going to be featuring the best of the Flickr (and similar) photo collections we keep coming across. The photo above is from (and copyrighted by) Gwyn’s excellent Mexican Flickr Photostream. Maybe it is just my anglo-mundo eyes, but Mexico looks better and better in the more and many photographs I keep coming across. That’s another contagious response that crops up in people moving to Mexico, and even those just visiting. We’re in the process of updating and re-working many of the photos on MexRetire.com right now, too. And gathering photos to which we have proper rights and can use legally has been a real challenge.
Watch for more, and if you have a Flickr photostream, let us know. We are happy to feature more in the future.
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January 24th, 2007
