Hey everybody. Tuesday was a quite day for us. We went out with Thomas and Catherine to look at a few house that are up for sale here in the Ajijic area just to give us a feel on real estate values. We looked at about six homes, funny that they were all priced for exactly the same dollar amount. It didn't seem to matter how big or small, how big the lot was or if there was a view or not, it was all the same price - the only thing that seemed to change around was that some units were furnished and some were not. I've attached a couple of shots of the winner - it's in La Reserva Yacht Club which is just on the shores of Lake Chapala in San Juan Cosala just a few minutes west of Ajijic.

Today is Rosie's return date -another four hours to clean up our mess, thank god Deb was able to clean the casa BEFORE Rosie arrived at 9:00 o'clock this morning. Again, we've been told that we have to leave to let her do her thing so we gobbled down some breakfast and headed out on foot to Ajijic market (always on Wednesday's). Funny you know, walking through the tianguis (spanish for market) we ran into John, Barbara and Rasa on separate occasions albeit there is always 100's of people walking the narrow street in the tianguis, mostly expats.

Today was our first market purchase, we feel that we've settled in enough to give this a try. I still can't do the warm meat or chicken sitting in the sun, but we did buy quite few vegetables (mushrooms, green/red peppers, mango, cantaloupe and tomatoes), as well as 1 kilogram of (about 75 huge shrimp) that was on ice. This purchase simply amazed me at $100P or $8.00 for this huge amount of shrimp. I couldn't wait to get home to get these cooked up.

One other purchase in the market was software package that I'd been looking at in Canada for that priced at $700.00 in Canada but I was able to secure here in the market for much, much, much less. Plus my Mexican guitar CD music that was $20P or $1.60. What a country !

Tonight we've been invited to go with John Gonzalez our neighbour to his weekly restaurant tour so we'll be heading to a restaurant again in San Juan Cosala with apparently 30 - 50 expats, depending on who decides to show. More updates on this tomorrow.

Overall a great day again, blue sky, with nothing but sun with temperatures in high 80's and much less haze over the lake. The haze we've told is referred to as "happy gas", and apparently is the bromide gas that comes off the lake. Thomas the real estate guy told us that the haze is caused for a few other reasons, more specifically a dry lake bed just west of Lake Chapala combined with the burn-off of the sugar cane farms again west of Ajijic.

When the rainy season comes in June, this haze will all but disappear and will be clear skies and cooler with the exception of the nightly rain deluges that come each night. Everyone who lives here is looking forward to the rainy season - cooler and not hazy. We've just now finished our lunch comprised of butterflied shrimp sauteed in butter and garlic with cantaloupe for dessert. Just simply amazing for eight bucks.

Stay tuned, the amount of check marks on the plus side of the equation seems to get larger and larger with every passing day. As always, your comments are greatly appreciated.

Bob & Deb