~ The uptake – as update ~ Summer of 2022
It is now 7 years passed since I left Lago de Chapala. Aside from coming in every couple of years for a celebration of life as a memorial or a house sit, the seven year gap from my time as a regular resident here now appears to me as a different place. Just as in all the evolving world, it is drastically quite easy to see the muchos cambios aqui in our communities. Places that were open green meadows with flowers and cattle or unhewn forest now sport modern glass lined condos, townhomes, luxury lotes and promotion sale planned subdivisions. Where yesteryear, a stroll had you picking up highly aromatic pollo asadero, buganvilia, and the occasional casual chat with cows, donkeys, maybe a goat standing on top of someone’s car.
Now awaiting an impossible taxi, in a place where Uber once thrived and has now died, we get a wonderful offer from a local. He calls to us, “excuse me, if you need a ride, I am going to Chapala. I am happy to give you a lift if you want. No problem.”
Pablo is the very generous local native, born and raised in Ajijic. He shares his thoughts on the changes here. It’s much more active. It’s busy. Yes, the place has changed, because it was always mucho tranquillo. Very small towns, a beautiful, wonderful place to live. He says, that was then, this is now. But it’s still a wonderful place to live, yet now with so much development, everyone here has so much more work available. It isn’t as if they all have to go to Guadalajara or other seek places to work. Now there is plenty of work right here, and plenty of money to be made. Of course, it is more expensive to live here as well he says. So the more you make, the more you spend. But at least there is more to make. This sounds so familiar to ears that were raised in north of the border territory and metros in places known as booming economies with booming opportunities. Ah, the American Scheme. Go get it while you can. Earn higher numbers with more zeros. Then spend higher numbers with more zeros.
Another ride we have caught with German. He is a quiet, happy, taxi driver. With his number on our cell, when we need a ride, he is always happy to pick us up for the lift. He has been here for 25 years. Another who notes nothing here is the same, not even as just three years ago. This ride, the sky is blue, there is no traffic, repeat, no traffic on the carretera. As we sail down to Riberas like “the old days”, we both recall how open and spacious the place and routes were. I asked him about Uber. I told him Uber was working just fine here three years ago. But now, it’s just dead. I suggested maybe that was good for him. German replies that Uber never had a license for all drivers needing to be licensed as transit by the Federal Government. That was the premise. Uber as a global ride share concept business plan was all about not needing traditional taxi medallions or permits. But just as it isn’t nice to fool Mother Nature, you can’t get around a country’s government. If a government in charge wants their nation working the way they want, then licenses and permits under its control are the way of the orderly for them and that is what’s on the menu.
Many northerners are by now flocking from the USA, Canada, many points for that matter. The only issue with Canadians is that they always feel lessened or cheated that the Canadian dollar appears to short them at 30% below the US dollar. So when it comes to buying real estate or looking for exit strategies south, they are much more meticulous in timing their buys to be on par with some equitable standing between the MXN Peso and the USD dollar – and then they attempt to squeeze timing at best rates for conversion on their Canadian currency.
It’s rather a shame that people used to come down to experience the charm of these 14th century rustic artsy Mexican villages or a major quintessential village like Chapala, just to buy a new major tract home with all the amenities of what they left in Glendale, California and WhatthephocNewtown in My Urban Renewal suburban community. Just like hone. But cheaper. Yeah? Until the speculation of the developers know who is coming. Then it is no longer, as they grab every inflated peso from the new inbound real estate buyers.
When I left this lake as a home some 7 years ago, I remember talking with a long time favorited adoptive son citizen and friend to Ajijic, poet Jim Tipton. I told him, “You know, this place is like Neverland. My concern is that by the time I ever return it will be gone.” Jim replied, “You know Ron, by the time you ever return, many of us will be in EVER land.” Jim was right and Jim is now gone. What I do see here along the shores of Lake Chapala is not only the colorful, tranquil and easy in the air wellness of the lakeside villages, now replaced with the massive inflation that has occurred - not only since I’d last departed in 2015 – but a highly escalated development pattern that has stepped on the gas for the boom in real estate. Oddly, that the pandemic spurred. In this region, it is highly affected by the four points or four squares on a round sphere of influence, which has also dominated the world. I’ll attempt to get all four, but let me start with the first.
Californians. Hold on. Wait a minute. I’ll get to the Texans in a bit. But California, that 5th largest global economy and a country in its own right with its own largest ocean front ports under its operational control, has grown an exodus of real estate owners taking their highly flatulent and inflated sell off of real estate profits; escalated speculation created paper assets wealth to cash out. Spreading it around the globe as they go look for “the cheap”, balanced by promises of Better Living Somewhere over There. They come to places that were once or always value propositions. Quality of life, cost of living, cultural arts and community, heath care costs, good eats. Now fed by social media wanna-be stars with nothing more than proletariat level broadcast skills, these modern day influencers with access to the social media platforms make everything and everywhere famous on YouTube. A burgeon can’t be contained to even continue the reasonable health care system, without everyone in the system reducing services to exchange for even more pesos charged, as here, they see you coming. Too many expats now mean no more Universal Healthcare as this nation use to know it.
Tourists now replace real communities with “tourons”, blowing their money on the now highly escalated price real estate which was unheard of even three years ago. Because “it’s So Cheap!” Everywhere they go. Restauranteurs and hospitality may love it after a pandemic, but traffic along glutted 14th century streets just means a 45 minute crawl along a carretera for what used to take 8 minutes, and the unfortunate idea that preserving quaint 14th century cobblestone streets, albeit in the ‘newly adorned’ “Pueblo Magico” designation, just means communities rip out the charm and the quaint to make room for larger paved boulevards, to make room for the now new congestion, traffic, populations, and infrastructure. Then soon – and here’s the potentially sorrowful laugh, the Magico is gone.
Can someone tell me what is it about Crypto barons that make virtual fortunes in Cyber Space who then put that virtual money into “real estate” to jack up the values, instead of back into Cyber estates where they’ve earned it from and back into that developing Metaverse? Why not put it back into the virtual landscapes where it was monetized and you honed and gained it in the first place?
New developments in vintage agrarian metros like Jocotepec now feature multi modern developments with buy-ins at $350,000 USD. A Lote. We will get to the house on top after that. Of course, what was the Berry Capital of the World, now no longer afford the lake area with the most amazing and abundant berries. Healthy, fresh, antioxidant and bursting with flavor, each berry the size of your thumb, where Driscoll’s would tell their workers and families to take the overages of harvests into the streets and communities, sell what you can at just 20 pesos a pint container, to earn more money for yourselves as compensation for your work. Driscoll’s had enough berries for all grocery, wholesale and export orders. They paid their people a basic hourly and the rest of the worked money earned came from the perk of the selloff of the overage abundance in the streets.
Not now. The selloff of prime lake front views of Mt. Garcia and access to the spas, means build entire new tracts of housing to ‘North of the Border’ Gringos coming in on a higher ground of real estate sales. History repeats itself, over and over again. Hawaii used to grow pineapples. Not after the discovered real estate sales to the Howlies (hoalies). When Pineapples migrated to Thailand and the Dominican Republic, it seemed pretty good to grow the one off fruit bearing plant. But not now. As a same point, Thailand in the Bangkok area alone is adding 30,000 more condos developments.
We will see multimillion dollar properties, but no plant based agriculture or fruits as far as the ready supply for human consumption. Maybe that sounds drastic, but take a look around here. You can’t even find the berries that earned this place the moniker of Berry Capital of the World. Don’t get me started on avocados or whatever happened to the taste and smell of the papayas. (Now Pee-pee yas!)
Those four points or quadrants here Lakeside?
Californians - Texans
Democrats - Republicans
There’s the front, left - right stereo, and the back left - right stereo of the forces at play here.
And the local governments that absolutely deserve to step on the gas and take the gain as what they can in premiere premium values in their home country.
We are guests.
But there’s always this thing about those Americans who Escape from the American Scheme. Much like the British who go on holiday in Portugal, Morocco, even Bangkok or anywhere else the British Empire brought their peoples on work or holidays. Whatever international culture you visit, the Brits have a way of dragging their crap with them. Pubs and Cricket fests with mostly fat drunk red nosed tank top wearing finger pie slugging bird fests in the streets. Even in exotic Asia.
Not so far afield from what we have in the DNA instilled from a mother country. Different but similar, those Americans who Escape from the American Scheme move to the places that sound like International Living, yet they have a nasty habit of dragging their American Scheme with them.
For now, I am driving west of the Lago de Chapala on the absolutely new Cuota expressways that dart for the high ticket pesos on smooth new roads that lead to all points throughout the beautiful country of Mexico. We are heading to Vallarta. Where I know that boom has already become Disneyland and Vegas with the dose of Beverly Hills inspired Rancho Mirage built in since I last was able to see the charm of the village and seaside escape of a romantic past. There, we know what we will get. We know what it’s like to get everything we want and not get gouged 40 pesos for now dry or brown avocados in a lone supermarket where really, by now no remarkable produce is available. For a charming quiet village, these are called growing pains. Adolescence. Coming of Age.
In Vallarta, one can see the massive acquisition of land by the large Mexican Conglomerate Grupo Vidanta that got a single push back from ejido land owners who rightfully hold onto their shrimp eatery shacks along a most beautiful strand of beach on the north shore area of the now new Nuevo Vallarta. It’s all okay to me. Or at least it was.
Most recently, here I can see the economic make over where it’s blatant, overt and open available knowledge right in front of my eyes, by a largest major theme park and destination resorts developer HQd in Mexico. Not the now surreptitious but obvious onesie twosie real estate grabs, selling single gringos on their replacement house for everything they thought they were ready to give up, but really aren’t. So the old village now looks like the all new modern West LA or the valley left behind as Californication.
In Vallarta, I can buy into the systems already way past the head start and beyond the finish line. With magnificent sunsets on a wondrous bay, that to me still tells the stories of Neverland, Pirates, Crocodiles and Fairies, with a real different magic. It’s a way different dance. Yes, it’s a Dance with the Devil. But it’s in abundance, in magnified, mellifluous moonlight.
But also now in Vallarta, overdevelopment. Condominium Towers block the view of the paradise that everyone wanted to come and escape to. Charming village and pueblos areas are now bulldozed, with new cement pouring in the new “Brooklyn” as rapid urbanization of cool, high value added neighborhoods and districts have made non- stop contruction in the very backyards of tropical quiet and charm; which was the landscape of desire for those wanting to be here in the first place. Your birds and monkey howlings are replaced by the constant sound of construction, bulldozers, jackhammers, and rebar grinding as the next view blocking towers go up, and up, and up. Relentlessly.
There are popular attractions popping up all over the world now. They are called Escape Rooms. For a ticket price, people go into the rooms, locked in and have to guess their way out. Guess what? It’s a recurring attraction. As soon as people are out, they get to buy a ticket and go in again all over again.
The Escape Room. Today. That’s the thing.
Today, wherever you go, there is no more Room to Escape.
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