Our Life in Chacala . . .

On this "Fall" day, it is 92 degrees outside and 88 degrees inside, so as I write to you, the fans are blowing and the sun is shining. I'm having a hard time welcoming in the new season without much evidence of change, except for the few Fall decorations we brought with us, but such is life in the tropics. We can live vicariously through all of your photos & tales of the changing seasons!

As some of you might be curious as to where we have landed, after uprooting our lives in Escondido of 13 years, I wanted to share with you what our life looks in Chacala through a "tour" of sorts. Now that we're settled in, the school year is in full gear, and we are gearing up for our next pastor's conference here in Chacala, there's no time like the present.

Here's the village of Chacala, on the north end with the beach on the north side. This is about 2 hours north of Puerto Vallarta via automobile.

Here is the main "street" with a few hotels, restaurants, street tacos, and tiendas (groceries & gift shops).

Here is the Plaza with the Chac Mool restaurant in the background.



Here is the fish market, where fresh fish comes in daily from the nearby harbor (below). 
Fishing is one of the main occupations of local residents, next to tourism.

Here's the local market where we buy the basics: bread, fruit, veggies, milk, yogurt, chips, soda, and ice. Anything more, we need to go to the nearest town, Las Varas, which is 20 minutes away. Most other things, we shop for when we go to Puerto Vallarta (2 hours away); at Costco, WalMart, or other big chain grocery stores.

Then it's off to Alistair's kindergarten . . . just a small walk towards the harbor from this store.

This school is for 3, 4, and 5 year olds. The classroom is the light orange building (below). The purple building is where the teacher sleeps and lives all week. His home is a ranch an hour away, so he commutes by bus on Monday and Friday (this reminds me a bit of Little House on the Prairie). The tiny red building under the tree has a tiny kitchen and bathrooms for the kids. The families of the 6 students are on a rotation to provide a substantial snack for the students & teacher each day at 10:30am. School is from 9:00am to 1:30pm. The salmon colored building in the background is a vacation home/rental house.

Below,  a student is given a book to "read" (describe what they see) as they look at the pictures. Amazingly, Alistair is really enjoying school now after a few really rough weeks.

Back in town, don't forget our favorite pizza place . . .



And our favorite hotel & restaurant, Las Brisas . . .

Now leaving "downtown",  you head up the hill towards our house. Here in the foreground is a small lagoon filled with lily pads (dark green). Then in the distance is another lagoon that is light green, where the local crocodile lives. Then beyond that, where the palm trees are, is a campground right on the beach and amongst the coconut trees. On the weekends & holidays you will see a handful of big tour buses lined up here. In the very far distance is a hill of mango groves, which was once a volcano, and you can hike up to see the crater.

Back to the main road, where the clinic is on the left (pictured below) and the turn off for our house 
is to the right.

If you continue straight here for another 100 feet on the main road, you would come to this great park.

If you were to turn right from the clinic, this is what you would see, our road. After the rains, it has become more of a 4 wheeling practice course, great for mountain bikes. The house you see here is not ours, but our neighbors, we are directly across from him to the left.

Here's our place . . . built on the rocks.

And if you were to come visit, you might find this guy waiting to greet you. 
Alistair calls him "Brown Guy".

These are our neighbor's bananas, almost ready for harvest.

And of course Sydney and Ethan working hard on their schoolwork.

I hope you enjoyed your tour of Chacala!  

With all of these sights, please don't forget the wonderful people that live here (more introductions to come later) along with the plethora of mosquitoes and other exotic insects and animals all thriving amongst the heat and humidity.