Ajijic, what will the new day bring?

From the Ya Learn Something New Everyday File:  

Ajijic is pronounced Ah-he-he not Ah-he-heek. At least that's what our cook told me this morning and I'd follow her anywhere.

Hmmmm......I have heard many a Mexican local call it Ah-Hee-Heek. Perhaps they went to a different school........Jeje.

I was having a dinner at an authentic Mexican restaraunt in northern Virginia a couple of months ago. I met a waitress from Guad and we chatted for awhile. I told her we were going down to Ajijic (3/21-30). She said they call it Gringo Town. Everyone should get one of those, white, oval, decals for your bumper with GT on it.

My wife and I will be arriving in Ajijic March 21-30 and we are staying at the Adobe Walls B&B. This is our first trip to the area and would not mind hooking up with people in the know.

RoyD

Some people are just too lazy to pronounce the hard C at the end...or maybe they learned to pronounce the word the lazy way and believe it to be correct. If you have trouble pronouncing Ajijic, try saying it with two syllables rather than three...Ahee-heek.

RoyD wrote:I was having a dinner at an authentic Mexican restaraunt in northern Virginia a couple of months ago. I met a waitress from Guad and we chatted for awhile. I told her we were going down to Ajijic (3/21-30). She said they call it Gringo Town. Everyone should get one of those, white, oval, decals for your bumper with GT on it.

My wife and I will be arriving in Ajijic March 21-30 and we are staying at the Adobe Walls B&B. This is our first trip to the area and would not mind hooking up with people in the know.

RoyD

We live about 1 1/2 blocks west on 16th de Septiembre from Adobe Walls. If you want to stop by for a chat let me know.

Roy - Good choice of Adobe Walls. We know the owners and were actually their very first guests. You will be in the heart of Ajijic and can walk to everything.

Mexicans say that people who speak in that manner (dropping letters from words) as hablan mocho. Mocho comes from the verb mochar, to cut off.

It is usually heard from people with little formal education and is more prominent in certain regions of this country and very common in other countries such as Panama, Cuba, Puerto Rico etc..

Ajijic, what will the new day bring?

Above was the topic. Right now where I live, it is a Beautiful SUN SHINY DAY and 75 degrees F in the shade.  

Where I used to live is 27 degrees F with 3-6 inches of snow overnight and another 3-6 inches tomorrow. 

Your cook is dropping the hard K sound as many Spanish speakers do. But the hard K is the proper way to pronounce it.

Apparently so Gamina, our housekeeper set me straight this morning. :-)

I often hear the final "c" semi-pronounced, the tongue touching the roof of the mouth but the sound stopped. I was led to understand it comes from the native Nahuatl pronunciation, "Ajijic" being an indigenous word not Spanish.

The local indigenous people do something similar in the pronunciation of the word Nahuatl. They say "Nahuat."

As a memory aid, I think of it as "now-what."

CanuckBob - We would love to chat. We will spend a day with El Sid viewing real estate possibilites. We will be meeting up with John & Kimmy and visiting the LCS to meet folks. We really don't have any definite plans other than going where our feet take us.

BarbieCheesecake - It was a hard decision, a toss up between Adobe Walls & Estrellita's. Both were highly rated by folks down there. We are very excited that we are coming, having been looking at the area from the internet for over 18 months now.

RoyD

RoyD

Interesting we are going 2/8 through 2/16. Have same agenda for first visit El Sid and John. We throwing in golf. Will give you our impressions after our visit.

PS. It's 8 tonight in Oklahoma. Gotta go SOB

Sam

Sam:

As you know, it is all about choices. Our home here in Albuquerque sits at just under 6000' and we are having some snow but nothing is sticking on the roads and it is currently 28 degrees. As far as I am concerned, you can have OK! We too arrive on the 8th and are looking for to the weather in Guanajuato and Guadalajara!

Hehe have lived here for 20+ years and if it wasn't for the job I wouldn't have turned the car off in the first place. Am hoping to make a better choice for the next 20

Sam,

I did an overnighter with the homeless at our church last night so, I slept in this morning. I'm self-employed so I can do that.

I would be interested in your impressions. I'm not much of a golfer now, i was OK in my youth but was never great at it. I only play in Florida Best Ball tournaments where I can contibute on the green. I am an excellent putter but I need someone to get me from the tee to the green  

RoyD

RoyD,

Will do, am excited as we now have 6" snow and it's 7 degrees outside...Am looking forward to seeing if my mental vision of Lakeside matches reality in any way.

Sam

We're having a heatwave in TX. Sleet snow freezing rain.. Can you say "Frizzle" 

it's only 21 here won't go into the wind chill factor.  Grrrrr.

And that is why we don't live there either.........jajaja.

2 days from now everyone will be in shorts and drinking beer, margaritas and  while complaining how hot it is! 

There's an old saying, if you don't like the weather in Texas wait 5 minutes. Furthermore,  it's the truth!  

CanuckBob wrote:And that is why we don't live there either.........jajaja.

But not anywhere near the only reason, or even the most important one.

Roy

We are back NOB now, and I promised to give you my first impressions.

1) El Sid is nice and somewhat helpful, but we were disappointed with his tour of homes. He really didn't have any homes to show (except for one new one), but did drive us around for a whole day and showed us many home that he had sold in the past ??

2) The village is noisy, dirty, and seemed crowded due to the small streets and high walls. Not sure I could live in the village

3) Everyone Canadians, Americans and Mexican were nice, helpful and friendly

4) Not everyone spoke English

5) Weather was perfect

6) Walmart has 90% of what we would normally buy NOB (Meat was ??, but Walmart's meat is ?? NOB) IMHO

7) Not all ATM's have English - the one on the Plaza was all spanish and that bank won't change Dollars

8) Go ahead and get 300-400 changed at Guad Airport. It won't make 10.00 difference and you won't be pressed to find an ATM right out of the gate.

9) the ATM by Dominos - out by Walmart was good.

10) Golf - disappointing. Chapala Club appears to be a real clique. Also $100 for a round on a 9 hole course was a rip-off. They wouldn't let us tee off until 3:00 pm even though there were only 3-4 groups on the course and  nobody in sight...Didn't finish round, and the clubhouse was locked even though people were inside having drinks/dinner ??

11) Housing - not a huge bargain from Oklahoma prices - probably would be from the coasts

12) If you don't know Spanish it is real intimidating

13) Tango is a great place to eat

14) El Jardin in the Plaza is good also. Strong Margaritas

15) El Uno was probably our favorite for breakfast and dinner

16) Wish we had rented a car.

Not sure if Ajijic is for us, we are sleeping on it. If we feel ok about in it May will probably make another trip, rent a car, stay somewhere different, try to find an available translator for when you really need one, try to find a rental agent or real estate agent, but it appears they only show their stuff. Couldn't get into some of the gated places without a) spanish b) some specific house to see.

All in all it was a fun trip and we enjoyed it, the weather, people, but it's still a third-world country.

Some days I feel good about it and others, well maybe I'll just put up with the Texas weather and move to the Hill Country (our original destination)

My two centavos

Sam

PS we were not able to hook-up with John, so missed that. Will try to next time as I think knowing someone would make the whole process much easier.

Sam