Village In The Sun

Veteran Canadian writer, journalist, and broadcaster Judy Waytiuk moved into freelance writing in 1994 following more than 20 years of newsgathering and writing as a reporter, commentator, documentary writer, researcher, producer, senior news editor and on-air anchor for newspaper, public radio, and CBC national and regional television.
The first woman in Canada to become a news director in private television (in 1987 when she joined Global Television's Winnipeg operation to assume responsibility for TV news and current affairs programming), she retired from TV news seven years later to get back into what she loves most--writing. Since her return to print as a specialist in travel, environment, lifestyle/service, and business journalism, she has had hundreds of feature-length articles published in dozens of publications.

Bruno and his daughter Victoria have the week sawed up nicely between them.

On the highway that runs through the small Mexican village of Ajijic on the north shore of Lake Chapala, his hole-in-the-wall restaurant opens five days a week from six in the evening until nine-ish. That's when Bruno serves up perfectly seared cuts of beef and pork from a smoky grill parked in a stone fire mantel by the front entrance.

The simple food is popular with Canadian and American retirees who have moved here-- some thirty-five thousand seekers of sunwashed tranquillity. Victoria's little spot around the corner, 'Bruno 2', remains open when Bruno the original is closed. Victoria seats patrons herself, but, unlike her father, doesn't guard the grill personally.

Both establishments bake their potatoes by burying them in a clay pot filled with rock salt, then leaving the whole contraption in the oven for hours on end. Bruno and Victoria are Canadian, originally from Ottawa, now fixtures on the Ajijic scene. But Bruno only does a few dozen meals every night before he closes the place to go dancing in one of the small discos at the edge of town, a respectable distance from the quiet centre of the village that has been here for at least six hundred years.

Bruno has floated into the slow, easy pace of the place an early British writer with the pseudonym Dane Chandos dubbed some fifty years ago the "village in the sun." Chandos fell in love, stayed, and built a home. The book's second edition, published by tiny Tlayacapan Press in Guadalajara, was printed during the 1996 rainy season, with a thousand-copy run. By early 1997, Regina Potenza's bookstore on Calle Constitution had run out, and she began directing inquiries to the nearby Lake Chapala Society, where they still had a small box of books.

Regina, an ex-pat American from Florida, opened her used bookshop, Porta Libros, as a hobby; the little corner building in Ajijic soon had used books and magazines stacked to the ceiling in a system only Regina understands, with more books piled in corners of her condo. But despite increasing multitudes of North Americans, Ajijic still dozes, contented and quiet, in the sun.

A half-hour south of Guadalajara at driving speeds paced to dodge potholes and wandering cows, burros, or goats, the pastel village with its sugar- white, butter-yellow-trimmed central church has been ignored by major resort developers. Even though Ajijic and neighbouring Chapala, Jocotepec, and San Juan Cosala sit beside Mexico's biggest lake, Lake Chapala, there are no sweeping beaches here. The lakeshore ranges from swampy to submerged, depending on the season.

But the lake it serves as weather control, exerting a moderating influence on the microclimate. This hollow in surrounding mountain ranges and high plateaus possesses the second-most temperate climate in the world, say locals-- next only to Kenya, they add proudly.It seldom drops below sixty degrees Fahrenheit. It never soars to the flesh- steaming high heat of Puerto Vallarta in July or August.

On Wednesdays, Calle Colon gives itself over to the farmers' market. Burros or horses still clatter daily down worn, 12th century cobblestone streets. Plodding under sacks of sand, firewood, or laundry, or carrying children or adults, the animals ignore gawking tourists who whip out their cameras, fumbling to catch a frame of authentic old Mexican charm. Chunky dark-eyed women with braided hair and long skirts use twig brooms to sweep high, narrow sidewalks outside adobe-plastered homes painted the pale, crumbly colours of soft dessert mints.

These sights are routine in the old village's tableau, as solidly secure as the three- table, family-run La Fondita on the highway strip. Dinner for two with cervesa runs seven dollars here. The pozole is very good. So is the beef stew-- more like a massive bowl of soup, full of extravagant chunks of meat and vegetables.

There is a lot that is very good here, if you like a form of serenity that settles on your shoulders and soaks into your bones. A dozen artists' studios and galleries dot village streets. Some are local-born, others imported gringos who've "gone native." The villas or condos around the villages now line the lake's north shore almost to Jocotepec at the west end before the road loops around to the south side, where more villages, small local communities of fishers, artisans, and farm workers, dot the lakeshore.

Up in the mountains to the south, the village of Mazamitla, painted white with chocolate-frosting trim on pine and adobe buildings, sits among high pine forests. But more people are interested in the populated north side of the lake. Along the highway between Chapala and Jocotepec, upscale walled developments like La Floresta, Chula Vista, Rancho del Oro, or Vista del Lago are insulated suburbs of walled villas, overflowing with bougainvillea and laced with jacuzzis, pools, and outdoor wet bars.

Chapala, with thirty-five thousand people, is the commercial centre, the first village you reach running down the highway south from Guadalajara, and the most popular weekend getaway for that huge city's residents. Most of the area's major shopping and entertainment is here. The town is jammed with Mexican families on weekends, left to retirees during the week. For shopping with local flavour, the public market adjacent to the old town square overflows with the smells and sights of a Mexican market. Everything from fresh meat to pastries, and mountains of locally-grown fruit and vegetables, is here, but for recognizable chain store names or home-style treats like peanut butter or cheddar cheese, Americans and Canadians drive into Guadalajara.

Further along the highway in Ajijic, it's quieter. Bruno competes with a dozen other restauranteurs, among them La Nueva Posada, run by the Eagers, a Canadian couple who took over this comfortable, upscale bed and breakfast with attached garden restaurant a few years back. Los Telares, a walk just up the hill from this spot by the water, serves some of the best upscale dining in town. Rose's Cafe, down a block on the highway from Bruno's, tends to vegetarian needs. Like their Chapala counterparts, most of the six thousand retirees or part-time Ajijic residents have taken up residence in the gringo compounds that skirt the village of five thousand locals.

The original villagers in the old centro go about their lives much as they always have. There are a few more shops specializing in gauzy Mexican cottons, pottery, weaving, or lacquered giftware, but storefronts blend in respectfully with the pastel neighbourhoods. The new inhabitants do business at tiny local groceries, and most study Spanish; the effort is appreciated by the villagers, many of whom still have virtually no English.

There's golf nearby, and tennis. Bridge clubs have proliferated, and drawing, painting, or writers' groups meet regularly. Theatre is big here, with live performances of old hits done by local amateur troupes. And many of the Ajijic retirees sell property to keep busy. They may decry the growing invasion of retirees, but, still willing to share this place with others, they eagerly squire prospective buyers around Spanish-tiled villas and condos, or undeveloped lots.

Builders and contractors' offices have taken over the dusty main road cutting across the north edge of the village, and kitchenette-equipped motels along the highway strip cater to long-term vacationers or temporary residents seeking more permanent digs, as do a few bed and breakfast spots in the village centre.

In the restaurant-bar at the Ajijic Bed and Breakfast on Wednesday afternoons, half-a-dozen visitors sip Coronas and chatter about the villas they've viewed. A price of $48,000 U.S. price for a two-bedroom, furnished condo with pool can easily run another ten percent once all the fees are factored.

But if that discourages a few, the agents say that's fine with them. They don't want much more growth. They like Ajijic as it is now; you can still wake up in the morning here prodded into consciousness by church bells, crowing roosters, and burros clattering down the cobblestones. A hummingbird or two might be nuzzling over-ripe pomegranates about to fall from the tree beside your patio door. On Saturday nights, you can go sit in the town square, the zocalo, and watch the dogs romp with local children while nearby residents dish out meat, rice and bean dinners for sale and consumption from card tables set up outside their front stoops.

Besides, if there were many more people, it might bother the burros.