# La Barca: They don't just LOOK dead



## HolyMole (Jan 3, 2009)

This is for Hound Dog, and your post on the Iguala situation. 

Borderland Beat: Search results for La Barca

Don't mean to play oneupmanship: I recall the mess in La Barca only because we'd been planning to drive through there on the way south this winter, but the recollection of these stories from a year ago changed our minds.
We're running out of areas to travel in Mexico that haven't been shown to be the mass graves of dozens at one time or another over the past few years.


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## Hound Dog (Jan 18, 2009)

HolyMole said:


> This is for Hound Dog, and your post on the Iguala situation.
> _
> Borderland Beat: Search results for La Barca
> 
> ...




Cute, Holy Mole. Your tongue-in-cheek post was not lost on The Dawg.

I don´t quite get this. We have lived on Lake Chapala in the Ajijic área for 14 years and in San Cristóbal de Las Casas for eight years. We often travel to Chiapas and Oaxaca, Veracruz and many other points south and, since the autopista long ago bypassed La Barca and only skirts the place, we have never had occasion to go through there nor have we ever met anyone who exited the Guadalajara-DF autopista to visit that place. Not that La Barca is a bad town but it is no longer even remotely on any direct route south from anywhere except, maybe, Jamay. Stay on the autopista heading toward Morelia. If you do have the urge to spend the night in La Barca, be advised it´s reputation is unsullied. Actually, I´ve thougt of exiting the freeway to visit that town but am always in a hurry to make it to Orizaba before nightfall where I know a really nice hotel in a beautiful park where I can walk my dogs and have a nice meal.

If there are any mass graves in La Barca. it´s the old folks driving through there from Lake Chapala who expired along the way from natural causes.


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## HolyMole (Jan 3, 2009)

Hound Dog said:


> [/I]
> 
> Cute, Holy Mole. Your tongue-in-cheek post was not lost on The Dawg.
> 
> ...


On our way south from Tequila, we thought we would try Guad/Ajijic/Chapala, then east along the north side of the lake, to La Barca, then connect to the Guad/DF Autopista southbound. But recalling the stories of La Barca's "narcofosas" nixed that idea.


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## coondawg (May 1, 2014)

Actually, Dawg, we used to go that way to catch the toll road to Morelia, but after the discovery of those graves a few years back, and the publicity therein,we just go into Guadalajara first now. Actually ate downtown once, and was not memorable. Few extranjeros go that way anymore.


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## Longford (May 25, 2012)

La Barca an the violence which has taken place there is a bit too close for comfort for many expats Lakeside (particularly for those who live on the "other side" of the lake) who pay attention to what's going on.


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

Longford your knowledge about the feeling of the expats Lakeside is amazing..I am sure glad I do not read the same papers or I may have to leave and find a safer place...


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## Longford (May 25, 2012)

coondawg said:


> Actually ate downtown once, and was not memorable. Few extranjeros go that way anymore.


I have expat friends who visit La Barca regularly; they have family living there. You will find, in La Barca, a variation of _birria_ that's not widely seen throughout Mexico, nor in the USA, from what I've seen. It's called - _Birria Tatemada_. It's the best birria I've eaten.


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## Hound Dog (Jan 18, 2009)

_


Longford said:



La Barca an the violence which has taken place there is a bit too close for comfort for many expats Lakeside (particularly for those who live on the "other side" of the lake) who pay attention to what's going on.

Click to expand...

_Sincé we drive between Chapala and Chiapas at least four times a year and usually six times, we pay_* A LOT *_of attention to what´s going on over that entire 1,500 or more kilometer journey, one way. Perhaps we have never been apprised of La Barca´s bad reputation because we normally drive from Ajijic and enter the Guadalajara-DF Autopista at Ocotlán thus bypassing La Barca altogether. We never drive from Ajijic to Guadalajara to access that autopista since we consider that route to be impractical and more time-consuming from the lake. Thus, in years of driving that route, we only view La Barca as a freeway exit. It has never even occurred to us to attempt to drive through the town which you folks make sound like a hellhole.

I, for one, have never paid heed to what people on _"the ´other side´ (of the lake) who pay attention to what´s going on_.¨ have to say. I mean no disrespect by that but I can´t figure out who over there in the boonies would be attracted to La Barca as a destination. Is there a good Burger King franchise there? We now know they have good birria but is that worth a detour between destinations?

There are three logical routes to get from Lake chapala´s Chapala Municipality to the Chiapas Highlands at San Cristóbal de Las Casas. The shortest and least time consuming route is to drive from Chapala to Puebla over the Guadalajara-DF Autopista to the Arco Norte and then the drive down through Veracruz State through Minatitlan and on to Tuxtla Gutiérrez before ascending the escarpment. The second alternative calls for a detour into Oaxaca City from Puebla and on to Tehuantepec, Juchitán, Arriaga, Tuxtla and up the mountain. The third alternative and much less practical is to drive from Toluca down toward Acapulco (on the Autopista Del Sol) skirting now notorious Iguala and some other Guerrero crapholes, down the Guerrero and Oaxaca Coasts from Acapulco or thereabouts into Chiapas. 

We have driven these routes numerous times over the past eight years and I can think of a lot more dangerous places en-route than La Barca through which it is uneccessary to have driven in the first place.


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

Longford just because you have a few expat friends who visit La Barca and have family there does not make you an expert on the area and I repeat what is happening in La Barca has nothing to do with Chapala and Ajijic.


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## Longford (May 25, 2012)

citlali said:


> Longford just because you have a few expat friends who visit La Barca and have family there does not make you an expert on the area and I repeat what is happening in La Barca has nothing to do with Chapala and Ajijic.


From Hamlet, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks".

:boxing:


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

You think your thought are the only correct one and I do too but I live here so I have a whole beter idea of the situation than you do,
I am not worried about realestate values, we have a house here and we will die here , we have no kids so we do not care what happen to the market. We made a deal that we would not invest in Mexico more than we could afford to lose so be it.
Yesterday when a friend told us that some houses were burning , my reaction was we still we have the lot and we will sell that or just forget it. As long as my husband or friends are fine , I do not worry a whole lot about property values.


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## Longford (May 25, 2012)

citlali said:


> You think your thought are the only correct one and I do too but I live here so I have a whole beter idea of the situation than you do,
> I am not worried about realestate values, we have a house here and we will die here , we have no kids so we do not care what happen to the market. We made a deal that we would not invest in Mexico more than we could afford to lose so be it.


I belive you've misunderstood or misjudged what I've said about La Barca throughout the couple of discussions about it (or I've failed to clearly communicate). It's seems to me that it's always just about _you_ and impacts on others ... well, that's not very important to you.


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

You are right, what some one from Chicago is saying about Lakeside or La Barca does not have a whole lot of weight for me or many of us living here but do not presume to tell us the way it is here.


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