In a carbon copy of a telephone scam reported by this newspaper in September 2012, a Chapala area expat’s bank balance is 10,000 pesos lighter after she fell for a hoax perpetrated by a fluent English speaker.

In a crackdown aimed at boosting highway safety during the Easter holiday season, Jalisco traffic police netted hundreds of motorists in the Lake Chapala area for diverse violations of the law.

In February, local Rotarians Barbara and Bill Wilson flew to India to be part of National Immunization Day, when 2.3 million World Health Organization (WHO) workers, Rotarians and local volunteers joined together to administer polio drops to 176 million children.

“Most people do not know how the emergency response system functions in the Lake Chapala area, and many are completely confused and unprepared when a serious emergency arises,” says Chapala Red Cross medical director Sam Thelin.  Expatriate residents often face legal, cultural and language barriers that aggravate the situation, the doctor says. “However the emergency response system worked in your home country, it is probably different here.”

For thousands of years the flow of the 750-kilometer-long Lerma River was sufficient to exchange the entire water in Lake Chapala each year or two.  The abundant excess of water flowed out of the lake and into the Santiago River where it continued past Guadalajara for its 500-kilometer run to the Pacific Ocean.  

The bodies of two women discovered March 24 in the hills above San Juan Cosala have been identified as local teachers related by blood who had been kidnapped in Ajijic on the night of March 13.