# Lake Chapala



## Hound Dog (Jan 18, 2009)

It is our habit to walk our six dogs on the beach at Lake Chapala from about the Ajijic pier west to as far as La Canacinta every day, a distance of several kilometers and , while one would expect the lake level to recede at this time of the year, the lake level is now receding noticably every day - much more than can simply be attributed to normal evaporation and some minor drainage. Today, the lake is not nearly approaching the low levels we observed when we first arrived here in 2001 when we could walk along dry, hardened expansive beaches all the way from San Juan Cosala on the west to La Floresta on the east among mature trees, truck farms and large cattle herds, yet this degree of daily drainage is still amazing and we may have as much as a month of continued dry heat before the rains come. 

I suppose the noticable and seemingly rapid diminishment in the lake´s level is due primarily to agricultural irrigation uptream and municipal water usage by the city of Guadalajara - both uses to be expected.

As I noted, the lake level was much lower in 2001 when the lake had receded so badly toursts were taking buses far out into the lake bed to catch launches to scorpion Island and. still, in 2003 due to extraordinary rainfall in September and even into October, the lake refilled beatifully and remained at a much higher level for several years so lake residents might want to keep their fingers crossed or call on the Huicholes and The Virgin to order up more copious rains as they did in ceremonies performed in the 2003 rainy season.


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## FHBOY (Jun 15, 2010)

[/QUOTE]...I noted, the lake level was much lower in 2001 when the lake had receded so badly toursts were taking buses far out into the lake bed to catch launches to scorpion Island and. still, in 2003 due to extraordinary rainfall in September and even into October, the lake refilled beatifully and remained at a much higher level for several years so lake residents might want to keep their fingers crossed or call on the Huicholes and The Virgin to order up more copious rains as they did in ceremonies performed in the 2003 rainy season.[/QUOTE]

Hope it will work, but the lake level, I am told, has more to do with the dam releases upstream from us. Our prayers should be for massive rains not only here, but more so up there. 

Choose your deity and get with it!


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## Isla Verde (Oct 19, 2011)

FHBOY said:


> ...I noted, the lake level was much lower in 2001 when the lake had receded so badly toursts were taking buses far out into the lake bed to catch launches to scorpion Island and. still, in 2003 due to extraordinary rainfall in September and even into October, the lake refilled beatifully and remained at a much higher level for several years so lake residents might want to keep their fingers crossed or call on the Huicholes and The Virgin to order up more copious rains as they did in ceremonies performed in the 2003 rainy season.


Hope it will work, but the lake level, I am told, has more to do with the dam releases upstream from us. Our prayers should be for massive rains not only here, but more so up there. 

Choose your deity and get with it! [/QUOTE]

In Central Mexico the rain god is Tlaloc, Tlaloc - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, while in the Maya area it is Chac Chaac - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.


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## RVGRINGO (May 16, 2007)

In years past, Lake Chapala enjoyed its greatest inflow of upstream water only in seasons where the upstream farmers and residents were in danger of inundation. When such flooding threatened their crops and homes, they would finally open the gates at the dams and allow the excess waters to refill Lake Chapala.
We can only hope that they are threatened with drowning once again.


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## Hound Dog (Jan 18, 2009)

[_QUOTE=Isla Verde;1180279]...I noted, the lake level was much lower in 2001 when the lake had receded so badly toursts were taking buses far out into the lake bed to catch launches to scorpion Island and. still, in 2003 due to extraordinary rainfall in September and even into October, the lake refilled beatifully and remained at a much higher level for several years so lake residents might want to keep their fingers crossed or call on the Huicholes and The Virgin to order up more copious rains as they did in ceremonies performed in the 2003 rainy season.[/QUOTE]

Hope it will work, but the lake level, I am told, has more to do with the dam releases upstream from us. Our prayers should be for massive rains not only here, but more so up there. 

Choose your deity and get with it! [/QUOTE]

In Central Mexico the rain god is Tlaloc, Tlaloc - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, while in the Maya area it is Chac Chaac - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.[/QUOTE]_

Thanks to the both of you and note it was not my intention to disrespect Tlaloc. It is quite interesting that the copious rains came late in the 2003 rainy season after the Huicholes and the Virgin of Zapopan held their rain ceremony on an island in the lake cleverly inviting outsiders to attend the ceremony for a price. Since we have spent our winters in Chiapas ( starting in 2006) there has been no drought necessitating the intervention of the Maya rain god and, in fact, during that time until the last rainy season which did constitute a sort of a drought down there, there has normally been a bit more rain in parts of Chiapas than was absolutely warranted and too much rain in Chiapas with its mountains and jungles and unstable terrain can be catastrophic so rain dances must be performed prudently. 

When I mentioned agricultural irrigation upstream from the lake in the Lerma Basin, I meant to indirectly refer to the diversion of Lerma Basin waters during the rainy season for filling reservoirs essential for sustaining the vast farmlands of such places as El Bajio which, of course, must largely be refilled by waters from the rivers diverted from the Lake Chapala sump which would have been their final destination had they not been diverted in the course of their journey. The irony of 2003, a rather ordinary rainy season until its end, is that reservoir managers became greedy in their siphoning off of waters destined for the sump and overfilled reservoirs only to be inundated with rainstorms late in the season which resulted in serious flooding in Guanajuato and other places in the basin when, had they allowed waters to flow more freely to the lake they might have had the capacity to soak up some of the floodwaters that unexpectedly came later causing great devastation They might argue with some rationality that no one really knows how much rain Tlaloc will send our way in any given season so storing water is like squirrels storing nuts to some degree and the masssive mega- farms of the Lerma Basin are more essential to the economic health of Mexico than the health of Lake Chapala.

Which reminds me of the old Dane Chandos book, Village In The Sun dating from the 1940s which, back at the turn of the 21st Century, used to be semi-required reading for expats moving to Ajijic on Lake Chapala who wished to have some prior knowledge of their new community. In that book, the protagonists who were really a composite of the fictional Chandos, took a drive circa 1945 or so. to Lake Sayula which in those days was drying up and back then doomsayers were predicting dire consequences for the famously rich agricultural lands surrounding that lake as a result of untenable climatic changes that would render the surrounding valley a desert robbed of its agricultural heritage and unlivable. As it happens, that lake did dry up many years ago and today, in 2013, that valley is one of the most prosperous and productive agricultural regions in Mexico. The saving of Lake Chapala is a very worthy goal but even in the event the lake is doomed, this will not become the Yukon Territory. 

In the 30 plus years I lived in Northern California with its seasonal climate tending toward drought during this decade and floods during the following decade, I finally caught on. Tlaloc is a funny guy.


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## FHBOY (Jun 15, 2010)

I have learned in my many travels around the sun, 63 5/12ths so far, that I do not offend any deity...you never know. :fingerscrossed:

 RV - yours is like watching your mother-in-law drive off the cliff in your brand new Bentley. If there is flooding, for the sake of the Lake, then I hope it comes without the loss of human life or great sacrifice.

:rain: 
We've got some thunder here in Ajijic again today and there is the tiniest of showers going on. Maybe the gods will be pleased by our offerings...whichever gods they be.


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## Hound Dog (Jan 18, 2009)

FHBOY writes:

_... If there is flooding, for the sake of the Lake, then I hope it comes without the loss of human life or great sacrifice.
:_

Thanks, FH:

I am reminded of U.S. news channels broadcasters gleefully proclaiming about the miracle and praising the lord when hurricanes bound for the Texas coast turned south and hit the Northern Coast of Mexico destroying homes and towns there instead of Texas. The unexpected late rainy season inundations in the Lerma Basin in 2003 that "miraculously" restored past lake levels to Lake Chapala caused great suffering and sacrifice upstream from floodwaters some of which not only wiped out crop yields but destroyed the homes and lives of countless poor people who had established communities in or alongside of long dry arroyos because they had no place else to go. People who had no resources to rebuild their communities and got no sympathy from the Mexican government whose response was, "What the hell do you think you are doing homesteading an arroyo?"*. One can say that water resource managers in Guanajuato and elsewhere were shortsighted in overfilling reservoirs to supply farmers with critical water needs in the upcoming dry season but how would you like the job of predicting rainfall levels into the future? There becomes a point in time when a tomato and cucumber salad or an ear of corn is more important than a view of a lake.

* The same governmental authorities who had, for decades, ignored illegal settlements in arroyos as those settlements developed.


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## FHBOY (Jun 15, 2010)

Hound Dog said:


> FHBOY writes:
> 
> _... If there is flooding, for the sake of the Lake, then I hope it comes without the loss of human life or great sacrifice.
> :_
> ...


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## Hound Dog (Jan 18, 2009)

FHBOY said:


> Hound Dog said:
> 
> 
> > FHBOY writes:
> ...


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## mickisue1 (Mar 10, 2012)

When flooding in the US is reported, it's done in such sweeping terms that it's hard to pinpoint, anyway.

I remember babysitting for a couple when I was 13. The Mississippi was at it's highest stage ever in downtown St. Paul, and it was on the national news.

Friends of my clients called to see if they and their two kids were ok. They were shocked when I told them I was the babysitter; they'd gone out to dinner and a movie. To them it had appeared that the entire Twin Cities was under water.

So...to make a short story long, if the US news DID report extensively on flooding in MX, the vague doom shouting, combined with the incredible lack of NOB knowledge of Mexican geography would lead many to believe that the entire country was being flooded, and that Noah had taken up residence in the DF.


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