Chimulco Aquatic Park

We're staying for a couple of days at the an aquatic park in Villa Corona, just south of Guadalajara. This is an amazing place built to take advantage of thermal springs in the area. The water is a constant 39 degrees and it's used to fill three big pools and several smaller ones (fresh water every day). In addition, there are two water parks for little ones and something called the Lazy River which is about half a mile of cement built river banks that they send the water through so people can float down it on inner tubes. We have access to all of this with our trailer park fee of $19 a night. The grounds and the buildings are really beautiful. Mature plantings of palms and banana trees as well as other flowering trees, purple and pink and yellow, and in between them the lacy pine trees of this area and others. The place was designed by an architect and the buildings and design are very beautifully done.

When we arrived on Thursday afternoon there weren't many people in the pools, but today is Saturday and the first day of the Mexican holiday week called Semana Santa and there are many Mexican families here from Guadalajara. Semana Santa is the week between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday and it's traditionally a time when everyone takes off to the beach or the balnearios (swimming pool complexes). It's fun to see but it's also kind of noisy.

Apparently the little village has a fireworks display and it seems that the people organizing it take whatever opportunity they can to practice for it. The past two nights they were setting off fireworks between 5:00 and 7:00 am--as well as at odd times throughout the day and evening. Needless to say the dogs are in deep trauma. The only thing that makes it good for them is that we're camping in a huge empty field of grass and trees and they can go out and play ball any time. Geordie spent the night crammed into the space in front of Mohita's toilet and wouldn't come out at all until we asked if he wanted to play ball. With that he leapt out and stood at the door wagging his tail.

Yesterday we took a little drive along the north side of Lake Chapala as far as Ajijic and had lunch at a little lakeside restaurant. Today we're going to enjoy the warm pools and we'll decide whether we'll stay for the Palm Sunday procession in town tomorrow or head towards Zacatecas when the traffic may be less as the big trucks won't be on the road.