Roca Azul and Lake Chapala

The year is 1969 and Maria is on vacation at a beautiful lake side retreat and it is here she must choose between the dashing, rich Javier and the passionate revolutionary Marco.  Will the comfort and confines of society win or the passion and adventure of the revolution?

Or…

A young couple risks all that they have on restoring a fading lakeside retreat to its former glory. What they don’t know is the horrible tragedy that occurred here, a horror so dark and deadly it threatens not only their future but their very lives.

If you have the script I have the place. 

Roca Azul is a fading early 1950’s to late 1960’s yacht club, that is spending it’s retirement as a RV spot, with weekend campers from Guadalajara and permanent residents from Canada and the US paying for it’s up keep.  We meant to stay 2 nights (which would have been about ½ a day too long) and ended up spending 3, the last one working on the rack on the truck.  I can’t say it is horrible, but I can’t say it is nice either, if you have an RV it would be perfect, but dry camping is a bit different and the coolness of the showers (and lack of toilet seats) made night 3 a little hard.  The grounds are beautiful but the lake is a bit of a walk, the pools are cold but I bet in the heat of summer they are a welcome relief.

 

 

Roca Azul is a very short distance but a fairly long ride from Jocotepec on the “Mexican” side of Lake Chapala.  Jocotepec is a quintessential Mexican town with a Xocalo, Church and dusty roads. 

 

On the other side of the lake is the largest (they claim) US expat settlement in the world.  You will find a Wal Mart and cute restaurants advertising both Mexican Food and European food.  We didn’t do much exploring there, just a drive in and out to the end of the road and back.  We did contemplate going out there for the chili cook off on Saturday, but decided street tacos and fewer Topes would work better for us.  We had an early drive to Guanjuato the next day after all.     

Sometimes you just get lucky

Guadalajara besides having a plethora of “a’s” in the name is a huge city. It is the second largest in Mexico, with 1.4 million people living in the main city and 4.3 million living in the outside area (if I am wrong blame Wikipedia).  Driving Moby our petite Ford Excursion can be challenging on empty roads but getting to a huge city, where we have never been (I am not counting when I was 5), and then trying to find a hotel is next to impossible. 

Before we left Tequila I did a quick search for hotels, which accept doggies, in Guadalajara and came up with 7, 3 seemed woefully expensive, and one was next to the airport which left 3.  Two were on the way into to town and the 3rd was a hostel right in the center of town, with no parking.  Our first bit of luck was having purchased and downloaded the Garmin Mexico Maps.  It took me a while to figure out how to enter the names of the streets but the first hotel finally made its appearance after about 5 tries.  Our next bit of luck was being able to understand Ms. Garmin… “Turn on cal Fred Rick O deli Valley”.  But she still faithfully led us to our first hotel, which luckily was sold out.  We couldn’t locate the address of the second one and so off to the 3^rd one this one a hostel, with no street parking...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We found it easily enough, I entered into this...

 

 

 

 

 

Love at first sight. And this little paradise is located a 5 minute walk from the historic center. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Parking well that is also a lucky story, the senora told us there was parking a block and ½ away, not thinking we would fit, we drove for about an hour and a half being turned down at all the other parking lots in the town, we were too tall, at night it isn’t secure, they have tenants that take all the spaces at night, etc… only to return to the one she recommended, fit and have locked secured parking overnight… Now that is what I call luck, dumb luck!

 

Tequila… it made this town better

Leaving the beach and driving through the hills the change in landscape is as slow as the winding road we are on.  We chose not to take the pay road but instead to follow the curvy slow ruta libre.  While the cuota would have been quicker we would have missed the cute little towns that marked the hillside and the amazing flowering trees along the side of the road.

 

 

 

 

We entered the town of tequila at either 1 or 2… we aren’t really sure what time zone we are in, but quickly found a hotel that would take dogs.  One slight problem that I fear we will run into more and more is that our truck is too tall for the parking and we had to stow the boards in the truck to fit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After settling in, we strolled around the town that Cuervo built.  Surrounding the Xocalo and Church is the Cuervo distillery.  The company advertised their social responsibility program and the Cuervo Foundation built a music school and an amphitheater and seems to be doing a lot for the town in general.  We even saw a banner that showed that they are partnering with Micosoft and some other companies for a technical institute.   It will make me feel a bit better about my love of margaritas to know that drinking Cuervo is doing so much for the town of Tequila.

Bucerias we like you so much we decided to stay… Until Monday

After our first night staying in the hotel we woke up early and took the doggies for a walk.  Being the good American Tourist with dogs, and not wanting to get sand all over our room, we then bathed them in the outside shower you use before getting in the pool. Unfortunately that upset the owner of the hotel, who didn’t realize that our doggies were quite as big as they are.  We negotiated with him to move out of our room and into the vacant lot next door.  A lot filled with coco palms right on the beach.  We also had exclusive access to a bathroom with two showers, a toilet, a urinal and a sink.  All together the location suited us much better than a hotel room would have as we were able to spread out and enjoy the “camping” life we wanted.

Anyone looking to camp in Bucerias should check out the Corita Hotel just north of town.  Not only do they have the site that we used they also have RV hook ups.  All and all the staff has been very accommodating and we could be happier with our situation.

 

The first two days we spent getting little errands done and taking the boards out in the mornings.  Our truck broke an arm, something that I didn’t know trucks had but apparently are very important to the steering of the vehicle (I guess its correct name is the drag arm.)

We celebrated Valentine’s day with a dinner of steak and potatoes.

 

 

 

 

Fritz met the neighbors who invited him to play a game of Botchy Ball, I don’t think he did very well as they didn’t invite him back.

The third day was spent resting on the beach, bird watching swimming and enjoying coco locos, a drink of coconut water, rum and lime which Fritz is very good at preparing. We also went into town where we were instantly recognized as the people with the stand-up paddle boards…  I guess we can never join the CIA as we seem to stand out where ever we go.  

  

 

 Basically life in Bucerias has been slow and wonderful. Today we will get everything reorganized and ready to go, so in the morning we have an easy departure for Tequila and then Guadalajara.We are still debating if this jaunt inland will take us to the pyramids of Teotihuacan or if we will swing back to the coast through Barre de Navidad.Either way it is time to get moving because if we stay any longer we may not ever leave.