Six Sisters of Bethlehem living in Jocotepec are trying to establish a monastery that could be the largest of its kind in the state of Jalisco.

If a showing of newer or younger foreign faces seems evident around Lake Chapala, it may be due to the growth of a novel way to travel while living more like a local than a tourist.

In 1995, Wendy Johnson was living at lakeside when a young woman who came to clean her house asked if she had heard about the 15-year-old boy who had just hung himself – on his father’s birthday in San Juan Tecomatlan, one of lakeside’s most economically challenged villages, located 20 minutes from Ajijic.

It was a scant six years ago that Carlos Martinez and his wife, Ana Garcia, opened a veterinary clinic on Avenida Lopez Cotilla, not far from the U.S. Consulate in Guadalajara.

While plans to build a modern art museum overlooking Guadalajara’s Barranca de Huentitan (canyon) advance at a snail’s pace, Mexico City offers up a smorgasbord of choices for art lovers to indulge in their obsession.

On May 12, an hour before a group of Mexican students arrived at Ajijic’s Wilkes Center to begin the exercise “Difficult Journey,” 20 volunteers gathered for an orientation, led by lakeside resident Phil Rylett.