Properties Vacation Rentals More Properties Living in Mexico Mi Mexico Chapala History in Murals Reviews External Links Contact Sandi REVIEWS

AJIJIC, Mexico-And so, you see, wife Anne gets up at 6:00 every morning and goes out on her one-hour power walk, all alone on the beach and through the empty streets, fearing no one. After that there is tennis, at any one of three or four beautiful clubs with immaculate courts and courteous staff. It's not long to lunch, in an outdoor restaurant where there are always some Canadian or American friends to bump into. After spending an afternoon conducting business, (thanks to modern technology) it's surprising how soon cocktail hour arrives, then dinner with other friends. As we wind down to the end of a month here, we discuss how much our daily duties here duplicate our lives in Toronto. The only change being sunshine from dawn to dusk and the 75 F. temperature. In our 16 years together, Anne and I have roamed the globe, holidaying in 26 different countries. We come to a unanimous conclusion: this is the most comfortable, peaceful place we have ever encountered. Two weeks ago, Maclean's (where this scribbler once toiled for 27 years on the back page) printed a startling five-page article under the heading "Why are so many Canadians vacationing amid a drug war?" Well-researched, it detailed that more than 1,000 members of the drug cartels were murdered over the past year in Acapulco, a popular vacation spot for Canadians. Since 2006 when President Felipe Calderon took office and pronounced a crackdown on drug cartels, an incredible 35,000 people have been murdered. At least 14 Mexican mayors were murdered last year. At least 17 Canadians have died in Mexico since 1906; six murders and 35 assaults last year. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, more than 30 Mexican journalists have "vanished" since 2006. What is going on? How did there get to be two Mexicos? The answer may have been given-unwittingly-by the new Canadian Ambassador to Mexico, Guillermo Rishchynski, in a speech in Ajijic to the local Canadian Club the same week the Maclean's article appeared. Ajijic is in the mountains a 10 hour drive north of Mexico City, on the shores of the largest lake-45 miles long-in the country. With just 25,000 residents, it has only one paved street, all the rest is cobblestone. It calls itself the "Riviera" of Chapala Mexico and has miles of restaurants and bars stretching along the lake. The local joke is that the real name of the town is God's Waiting Room. More than 100 of the residents, in their shorts and sandals, arrived on the beach to hear the ambassador, perhaps because the "social hour" was advertised for 3:30 pm, 60 minutes ahead of the speech. The speaker announced that the Ajijic area was now the largest gathering of Canadian "ex-pats" in the world with 11,000 bodies. And then ruined it by trying to spank his listeners, complaining that only 500 of the 11,000 had bothered to register with his office. The poor fool didn't seem to realize that the other 10,500 led such peaceful, comfortable lives that they felt no need for Mother Ottawa and its paperwork. There's a blind diplomat. Along with its murder rate, Mexico has another surprise. Forbes magazine's rich list has just told us that Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are no longer the richest men on earth. They are just second and third, behind Mexico's Carlos Slim, the telecommunications magnate who is now worth $74 billion. In fact there are 11 Mexicans on the list of 1,210 billionaires around the world. (And notorious Mexican drug cartel boss Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman remained on the Forbes list, with an estimated fortune of one billion bucks.) No. 1 Slim has just opened a stunning new museum in Mexico City to show off works from his 66,000-piece personal art collection that includes works by Rubens, Monet, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Picasso, Dali and so on. Ho hum. And our pad? It is Casa de las Flores-Boutique Bed & Breakfast. Best in town. Only seven rooms, suspended over a beautiful small swimming pool. Breakfast lasts until 10 am. and is actually brunch. Orange juice, a fresh fruit dish so big as impossible to finish, giant Spanish omelette, bacon, toast, coffee or immaculate English black tea. It is such that it lasts a grown man until cocktail hour. All for a magnificent $85 per night-which is the reason those 11,000 Canucks are here. The owners, two 40-years-olds, could be right out of Shakespeare. Steve is a rural boy from Ireland, who cannot utter a single sentence that does not contain wit, pun or satire. Fernando is from a high political Mexican family and has conquered a problem with drugs, alcohol and now (with hypnosis) chain smoking. They are hosts without compare, with a magnificent staff that is on call willingly for 24 hours. They are coming to Toronto later in the year to get married, and we have promised to throw a well-deserved party for them The unofficial mayor of Ajijic is Rob Parker, a former executive from Montreal. He and his wife Terry Kelleher, a retired CBC official, have lived here for eight years. By the time we arrived, Rob had arranged so many parties for us as to collapse a man's liver. There is Allan Gregg, the well-known Canadian pollster who has a huge home and spends those dreadful Canadian winters here. As does Lou Clancy, the veteran Canadian journalism guru. There is a weekly Literary Gathering. Wherein 10 Canadian or American tired authors are given 10 minutes each to display their most recent writings and then are demolished by the large audience that loves to eat the victims. In all, what would be the conclusion after spending a month in the most murderous nation on earth? Where more than 1.5 million Canadians will visit this year? It is that God's Waiting Room, as it should, is very quiet. Allan Fotheringham's memoirs will be published for the fall 2011.

sallin@laguna.com.mx