Unabashed patriotism and high spirits will grip the lakeside area as traditional Fiestas Patrias festivities get rolling this weekend. Here’s an abbreviated day-by-day list of holiday happenings to enjoy with your friends and neighbors.

With a green light from the Chapala city council last week, plans to put an old caboose on permanent display outside the former railway station are now on course. 

Chapala’s former town hall building reawakened from a 17-year slumber Thursday, August 27 as hundreds of guests crowded in for the glitzy grand opening of the edifice baptized as the Centro Cultural Antigua Presidencia.

Gearing up to take charge at Chapala city hall on October 1, Mayor-elect Javier Degollado presided at a meeting with around 75 local service providers to exchange ideas on boosting the tourist industry.

Zaida Cristina Reynoso has spent just shy of three years trying to bring order out of chaos as head honcho at Chapala’s municipal archives. When she took up the director’s job in October 2012, she was appalled to find a priceless collection of historical documents mixed up with mountains of government records, heaped together in total disarray.

The 2015-2016 academic year kicked off August 24, with Chapala authorities distributing free backpacks stuffed with classroom supplies to 11,033 students attending the community’s pre-school, primary and secondary level public schools. Mayor Joaquin Huerta popped in to the Sor Juan Inés de la Cruz kindergarten early Monday to deliver kits to an eager throng of nippers. The cost of the local Mochilas con Utiles program runs to 876,000 pesos this year, with funds drawn from state and municipal coffers in a 50-50 split.