Lake Chapala is a BIG lake, the third largest in Latin America after Lake Titicaca in Peru and Argentina Lake in Argentina (?)
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| From the Malecon shore walk |
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| The view at sunset from our abode |
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| Another view from our balcony |
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| The view from the top of a mountain close to the lake |
You can see the beauty of the lake from the pictures in this posting, but we wanted to share some facts about it too.
(1) First — its size. It’s big. It is about 50 miles long from east to west and about 10-15 miles wide from north to south, thus covering about 420 square miles. Oh, and its about 5000 feet above sea level. Yes, that’s almost a mile up, and that’s about the same distance up as Denver, CO. Oh, and it supplies 55% of the drinking water for Guadalajara.
(2) It’s a shallow lake, with a mean depth of 23 feet and a maximum of 34 feet. Actually, around 2001-01, Guadalajara and other areas of the country were taking so much water from the lake that it started to go dry. The lake was at 15% capacity. Panic ensued, and fortunately, they were able to get the lake back to about 60% capacity, which is where they expect it will remain.
(3) It is fed from four rivers (Rio Lerma, Rio Zulu, Rio Huaracha and Rio Duerno), and it’s drained by the Rio Grande de Santiago. The water then flows NW into the Pacific Ocean. Is it polluted? Well, yes, but it’s getting better: “The water entering the lake from the Lerma River is highly polluted with heavy metals and other toxic substances as a result of insufficient wastewater treatment by many industries. Additionally, many of the towns around the lake release their sewage and waste water into the lake without treatment” (from globalnature.org).
However, recent studies indicate that the lake is in decent shape, with decent water quality (you can swim in it, but we haven’t seen anyone in the water in Ajijic) and you can eat the fish from the lake.
(4) The lake has three small islands: Isla de los Alacranes (visible from the town of Chapala), Isla Mezcala (the largest and one which we hope to visit later in our stay), and a small one called La Isla Menor. Contributing to the overall beauty of the area is the mountains and sierras that surround the lake: five different ranges.
(5) And we can’t forget all the towns surrounding the lake, including Chapala (Ajijic — where we are staying), San Antonio Tlayacapan, Jocotepec, SAN Juan Cosala, San Luis Soyatlan, Mezcala de la Asunción, Tizapan, El Alto, La Palma, Michoacan, and Ocotlan. We will be doing a tour around the lake toward the end of our stay here. Actually, it was supposed to be last week, but Julie’s back injury meant we had to postpone the trip. Grrr.
(6) The combined population of those towns around the lake is large, but I couldn’t find any reliable number of people. I did learn, however, that the cachement area for the lake has about 11 million people. But the number of expats is around 30,000, but I have heard that at times there are 50000, depending upon the time of year.
You can see the fishermen, especially busy during the weekends.
Lots of birds by the lake. There is a Lake Chapala Birders association which monitors the bird numbers and which is an active bird watching group. They found 177 difference species of birds in the December of 2019 bird count, 40 more species than they found in December of 2018.
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| This is a huge nest of green parrots on the Malecon walkway |
On one of our many walking treks on the Malecon, there was a boat for rent. We decided to go for it, and here are a few shots of the shoreline and the mountains from the water.
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| Hard to see, but that is the view of the skateboard park along the Malecon. It was getting heavy use on this day. |
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| If you look at the Ajijic Hiking Group post, you will note that on our first hike, we hiked up to the chapel. That little yellowish blob on the hillside is the chapel. There is an up close picture on the Ajijic Hiking post. |
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| This is apparently a hotel, according to our driver, who only spoke Spanish. I suspect it is a resort because that green space appeared to be a golf course. |
