Site search
sponsored by
News
Sports
ENLARGE
|
ENLARGE
|
Dillon's Herb Hazen in Ajijic, Mexico
|
|
ENLARGE
|
QQInn's Rob and Lorri
|
Dillon condo owner Herb Hazen — even at 70 — continues living quite large.
A retired Delta Airlines pilot, and before that he was with Western after six years with the Air Force, Herb is living in Ajijic (Ah-hee-heek), Mexico, on the northern shore of Lake Chapala.
And like his Timberline condo on the shore of Dillon Reservoir, Lake Chapala is
a high mountain body of water, lying just south of Guadalajara, in the state of Jalisco. It sits at 5,000 feet above sea level, runs 15 miles wide
and 55 miles long, making it Mexico's largest lake. It is ringed by mountains soaring to 10,000 feet. Large raspberry farms dot the lake's southside.
“I'm a mountain kinda guy,” he says of his Summit County residence for 27 years. “I'd be happy to never go below 7,000 feet.”
We chatted with Herb recently while he was running his Ajijic restaurant and bar, Ole Ola — Tapas y Mas. He owns the corner yellow building and the two condos above it, with intersecting narrow cobblestone streets keeping traffic very slow.
Herb has lived in Mexico for 11 years, and learned his international cuisine creation skills in Paris, Madrid, San Francisco and New Orleans. And like his culinary artistry, his Spanish flows like a smooth fluid.
Being a pilot for 32 years afforded Herb the opportunity to attend cooking schools all over, and now he's offering a school with the Lake Chapala Society, a powerful group
of American and Canadian ex-pats, which numbers some 7,000 who have chosen to retire South of the Border.
“The appeal of ‘tapas' is the option to try several dishes instead of one entree,” Herb explains. “It allows friends and family to share a number of cultural dishes in the Spanish
tradition — olé, olá.”
Herb's website: www.oleolatapasymas.com Email: MalagaH39@hotmail.com
While in town we cruised a few shops like New Yorker Diane Pearl's Colecciones, and Italian photographer-turned gallery-owner Maria Di Paola Blum, who used to do journalism in Rome and now does artsy things like her book, “Ajijic — An Enchanting Village in Mexico.”
To get to Ajijic, we took a “panga” (boat) trip from the nearby town of Chapala, about four miles along the shoreline.
Chapala is much more “real Mexico” than neighboring Ajijic, which is about a 50-50 Anglo-Latino mix.
Greeting us on the pier was “Pedro,” a 65-year-old Gringo, decked out in a flower-adorned sombrero, and metallic gold-painted Crocs and fingernails to match, and Vino Blanca, his mellow burro.
We had flown from seaside resort Puerto Vallarta to Guadalajara on a 50-passenger jet, which took about 30 minutes.
A taxi van took us the 20 miles to Chapala and our accommodations for three nights, a walled-estate compound B&B, the Quinta Quetzalcoatl Inn — Inn of the Plumed Serpent. Email: qqinnchapala@yahoo.com
Yep, this is where D.H. Lawrence lived and wrote his colorful book, “The Plumed Serpent,” in 1923.
Now owned by Rob and Lorri Cracknell, an Englishman and Australian, who are very good tennis players, the inn is but a block from the boardwalk and water's edge.
Rob was an industrial photographer and now he paints, and Lorri was an interior decorator and former model agency owner.
A few days before we arrived, their heavily foliaged place was host to a Belgian water skier competing in a Lake Chapala international event. And the day we left, racing boats were slated to be roaring around the lake.
Hey, Spike! first learned of the Chapala region from lawyer Ed Turrou, a retired Army JAG colonel who worked with the David A. Helmer's law office in Frisco.
Recently, we gleaned from my mother, Medith, that my newspapering dad, mfpiii, had driven from Rocky Ford, Colo., to the Mexico lake back in the 1950s.
Then, in 1968, together they drove from Denver, down through Mexico City, to Costa Rica and British Honduras.
••••
Miles F. Porter IV, nicknamed “Spike,” a Coloradan since 1949, is an Army
veteran, former Climax miner, graduate of Adams State College, and a resident of Summit County since 1982. An award-winning investigative reporter, he and wife Mary E. Staby owned newspapers in Summit County for 20 years.
Email your social info to milesfporteriv-@aol.com
A retired Delta Airlines pilot, and before that he was with Western after six years with the Air Force, Herb is living in Ajijic (Ah-hee-heek), Mexico, on the northern shore of Lake Chapala.
And like his Timberline condo on the shore of Dillon Reservoir, Lake Chapala is
a high mountain body of water, lying just south of Guadalajara, in the state of Jalisco. It sits at 5,000 feet above sea level, runs 15 miles wide
and 55 miles long, making it Mexico's largest lake. It is ringed by mountains soaring to 10,000 feet. Large raspberry farms dot the lake's southside.
“I'm a mountain kinda guy,” he says of his Summit County residence for 27 years. “I'd be happy to never go below 7,000 feet.”
We chatted with Herb recently while he was running his Ajijic restaurant and bar, Ole Ola — Tapas y Mas. He owns the corner yellow building and the two condos above it, with intersecting narrow cobblestone streets keeping traffic very slow.
Herb has lived in Mexico for 11 years, and learned his international cuisine creation skills in Paris, Madrid, San Francisco and New Orleans. And like his culinary artistry, his Spanish flows like a smooth fluid.
Being a pilot for 32 years afforded Herb the opportunity to attend cooking schools all over, and now he's offering a school with the Lake Chapala Society, a powerful group
of American and Canadian ex-pats, which numbers some 7,000 who have chosen to retire South of the Border.
“The appeal of ‘tapas' is the option to try several dishes instead of one entree,” Herb explains. “It allows friends and family to share a number of cultural dishes in the Spanish
tradition — olé, olá.”
Herb's website: www.oleolatapasymas.com Email: MalagaH39@hotmail.com
While in town we cruised a few shops like New Yorker Diane Pearl's Colecciones, and Italian photographer-turned gallery-owner Maria Di Paola Blum, who used to do journalism in Rome and now does artsy things like her book, “Ajijic — An Enchanting Village in Mexico.”
To get to Ajijic, we took a “panga” (boat) trip from the nearby town of Chapala, about four miles along the shoreline.
Chapala is much more “real Mexico” than neighboring Ajijic, which is about a 50-50 Anglo-Latino mix.
Greeting us on the pier was “Pedro,” a 65-year-old Gringo, decked out in a flower-adorned sombrero, and metallic gold-painted Crocs and fingernails to match, and Vino Blanca, his mellow burro.
We had flown from seaside resort Puerto Vallarta to Guadalajara on a 50-passenger jet, which took about 30 minutes.
A taxi van took us the 20 miles to Chapala and our accommodations for three nights, a walled-estate compound B&B, the Quinta Quetzalcoatl Inn — Inn of the Plumed Serpent. Email: qqinnchapala@yahoo.com
Yep, this is where D.H. Lawrence lived and wrote his colorful book, “The Plumed Serpent,” in 1923.
Now owned by Rob and Lorri Cracknell, an Englishman and Australian, who are very good tennis players, the inn is but a block from the boardwalk and water's edge.
Rob was an industrial photographer and now he paints, and Lorri was an interior decorator and former model agency owner.
A few days before we arrived, their heavily foliaged place was host to a Belgian water skier competing in a Lake Chapala international event. And the day we left, racing boats were slated to be roaring around the lake.
Hey, Spike! first learned of the Chapala region from lawyer Ed Turrou, a retired Army JAG colonel who worked with the David A. Helmer's law office in Frisco.
Recently, we gleaned from my mother, Medith, that my newspapering dad, mfpiii, had driven from Rocky Ford, Colo., to the Mexico lake back in the 1950s.
Then, in 1968, together they drove from Denver, down through Mexico City, to Costa Rica and British Honduras.
••••
Miles F. Porter IV, nicknamed “Spike,” a Coloradan since 1949, is an Army
veteran, former Climax miner, graduate of Adams State College, and a resident of Summit County since 1982. An award-winning investigative reporter, he and wife Mary E. Staby owned newspapers in Summit County for 20 years.
Email your social info to milesfporteriv-@aol.com
