Ajijic, Jalisco

We are parked on a small cobblestone street that leads to Lake Chapala, between the houses of 2 friends. The houses here are huge with enormous gardens and high walls, what we'd call an estate in the US. This is one of the big ex-pat centers in Mexico, the weather is close to perfect. Flowers spill over the high walls a riot of bougainvillea and other flowering vines. Cows like this one nibbling on our friend{s gate, wander up the street from the lake and keep the flowers trimmed. The enormous Jacaranda trees are covered in blue blooms and the streets are blanketed with purple and blue from the fallen petals.

It has only one big drawback, but for me it would be a deal killer, the cobblestone streets here are really poorly made and just a disaster. The ex-pats love to say that they add charm and character, they're full of it. There are cobblestone streets all over Mexico and none of them are the pitiful mess that they are here. I don't know why but these Jaliscans just don't know how to build a cobblestone street that is usable. I could not live where I had to drive on these POS roads. The stones aren't even vaguely the same size, they are not even vaguely level, they will kill your kidneys and the suspension on your car really quickly and they don't even look good. They just look dumb in my mind, like a small child was trying to build a street out of a bunch of big and little rocks. They need to either send their road builders to Querétaro or Leon or Zacatecas to learn how to build a proper cobblestone street or they should give up and pave the suckers.

Outside of the crappy streets, they also have some serious traffic problems - actually those 2 are probably related. They have one paved road and everyone wants to drive on it to get off the cobblestones so it is always bumper to bumper.

I like it here though, to visit.