Oaxaca reflections

Nuestra Señora de la Soledad, Oaxaca

“No one behind, no one ahead.

The path the ancients cleared has closed.

And the other path, everyone's path,

easy and wide, goes nowhere.

I am alone and find my way.” 

― Octavio Paz

We returned to Oaxaca for the first time in nine years, though truth be told most of my memories of both the city and state are far older and mostly concern coffee farmers and coffee buying. In retrospect how fortunate it is that the best Mexican coffees are grown in Chiapas and Oaxaca, which are for me by far the most interesting parts of México.

Our visit this time was far too short - just five days after a long stint in Mérida and Valladolid. More traffic and more people of course but the biggest thing I noticed was the proliferation of chef-run restaurants offering daring and often world-class fusions of native recipes and ingredients with European techniques, as well as an absolute explosion in other artisanal food and drink, with mezcal and coffee leading the charge and microbrewery beer not far behind.

The highlight of not just our time in Oaxaca but our entire 2+ week trip was connecting for the first time "in the flesh" with a Facebook friend who is a professional translator, language teacher and devout Mexico-phile. I'd had high expectations of Jody based on her acute and often hilarious online observations but they were thoroughly blown away by her depth of perception and utterly contagious love of México as experienced in the moment.

Jody has lived all over this country going back decades and visited much of the rest. She describes herself as an immigrant not an expat and one of the things she pointed out to us is that expats who do choose Oaxaca tend to not only live there year-round but also to really identify with their new home as home. This is certainly in quite sharp contrast not only to our own ambivalence about being full-timers in México but what we have seen time and again both at Lake Chapala and in San Miguel de Allende: Mexican residency with asterisks. Not only are more than half of those in these expat havens snowbirds who live elsewhere for six or more months, but even among the full-timers there are many who constantly fly back to the U.S. or Canada or who return home for good as soon as the first health crisis or plea from grandkids makes itself known.

For a prospective expat resident the allure and challenges of life in Oaxaca are pretty easy to discern. Culturally and culinarily there's endless depth but not the kind of breadth one takes for granted at, say, Lake Chapala. There are a zillion moles and other Oaxacan specialties but nary a cheeseburger or jar or box of a foreign "must have" food to be found. Functional Spanish is a necessity from the get-go (just check out all of the whining on TripAdvisor about how even the hotel and restaurant staffs usually don't speak English). Running out of water from time to time, dealing with the incessant protests called bloqueos that frequently shut off access to main streets and turn the central square into what looks like a  homeless camp and embracing the literal groundlessness of living in a highly earthquake-prone zone are other factors to be considered.

On the other hand, this is a place that attracts expats who really love México and who want to embrace to at least some extent the challenges of being in a state where indigenous people are the majority. That is where the artistic, culinary and cultural richness comes from, and of course it is also the source of the poverty and discrimination that fuel the state's deep-rooted political activism. Trying to live in a gringo "bubble" anywhere in México is ultimately going to be a lost cause but in  Oaxaca it's a non-starter - just ain't gonna happen. Learn enough Spanish to function, maybe even become semi-fluent and you'll start to notice the sound of clicking consonants flowing out of the mouths of the people selling produce or cooking your meal at the comedores in the mercado: they're speaking one of the 16 or more primary native languages - making you realize that you'll truly never do more than scratch the surface when it comes to understanding where you now live.

Trio of moles at Las Quinces Letras

I've often referred to living at Lake Chapala or San Miguel de Allende as "México with training wheels." This is particularly true at the lake, since not just the gringo scene but the local Jalisco culture are very "white bread" (or meat-and-potatoes, hold the mole and chapulines) by comparison to, say, Oaxaca, Puebla or Chiapas. I find myself haunted once again by a comment from our Oaxacan guide Jody (paraphrasing here from memory): "why go through all that it takes to live in this country without really living in it?"

Much to think about. I don't know that we have what it takes to live in such a large city but I do know we'll be back to hike the Sierra Norte and spend not just weeks but months soaking up the riches of this incredible part of México that challenges and inspires us like very few other places we've been.

Of Deities and Denial

Back in the early 1970's when I began practicing in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, Herbert Guenther's turgid translations and commentary were a hugely challenging - and welcome - alternative to the Theosophy-muddled murk of Evans-Wentz and Lama Govinda's flights of fancy, which were just about the only other English language books available. Some of Guenther's work has actually aged quite well, and if nothing else, he and his friend Agehananda Bharati set the bar so high for linguistic mastery and  scholarly depth that it has probably not been equaled since. 

For those like myself who came to this tradition through the gateway of scholarship and of looking for the "ultimate" in philosophical and psychological sophistication this was truly heady stuff. In my case it not only got me to meditate much more seriously, it also inspired me to study Tibetan while scrambling to catch up with Heidegger and Wittgenstein and the basics of depth psychology so I could make sense of Guenther's translations.

As I look back though, an equally compelling inspiration was the resonance of innumerable figures like the ones on the cover of this book (which was published in 1976, by the way), along with equally striking images of Tara, Machig Labdrön and others.  In contrast to the renunciate austerity of Theravada and the military masculinity of Rinzai Zen (my first Buddhist experience having been sitting rohatsu sesshin with Joshu Sasaki Roshi at age 15) Tibetan iconography and the description of advanced practices involving the subtle body's energy system suggested a Buddhist path where sexuality would be honored and transmuted. I was 17 years old and not about to dive into a Buddhist path that said all that was raging within me needed to be suppressed or excluded.

In retrospect wanting this to be so quite thoroughly clouded my ability to see the tradition in historical and anthropological context, let alone looking into its underlying power structures, politics and economics. Having grown up deeply wounded by a father who announced to his wife and family that he was gay when I was 15, while also being utterly lost socially due to having skipped 8th through 11th grades (thus missing all of the normal socialization about dating) it was all-too-easy to substitute fantasies of spiritualized sexuality for any fumbling forays into reality. Throw in the chaotic cultural environment of the late 60's and early 70's with all of the established role models male and female in flux and I supposed I ought to forgive myself a bit for being more than a little lost.

From 1974-1980 I was a dedicated student of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche in Boulder, where I worked menial jobs but managed to do two month-long retreats and a three week one, sit a couple of hours a day, study diligently and acquire a very basic knowledge of Tibetan (long since forgotten). I was much more drawn to visiting teachers Dilgo Khyentse and Dudjom Rinpoches than I was to Trungpa himself but never had the money to run off and practice in Asia. The wildness of the scene around Trungpa - was always deeply unsettling to me, but the final straw was his appointment of Ösel Tendzin (aka Thomas Rich) as his regent - a guy I knew all-too-well as the sleazy guy who was always trying to pick me up in the checkout line at the supermarket where I worked. 

I stopped practicing entirely for the better part of a decade, putting that energy instead into athleticism (high-intensity cycling) and a career in coffee, but I'd done enough practice - and met amazing enough teachers - that I was always looking for a way back to the Dharma. When I began again it was, auspiciously, with a retreat at Tara Mandala taught by Tsultrim Allione, one of the great pioneers and role models for women in the Tibetan tradition, and the topic was the 4 Immeasurables (Brahmaviharas) - just the healing balm I needed.  In the course of sitting several retreats with her and teachers she brought to her center I met many women who shared their stories of abuse by the likes of Swami Muktananda and assorted Tibetan and Zen teachers for whom Tsultrim represented a desperately needed lifeline. And because of Lama Tsultrim the entire environment for practice was infused a nurturing quality I had not experienced before. Little things that weren't so little: practicing in a circle rather than facing the shrine; as much time devoted to sharing of experience as to absorbing didactic teaching. 

I never consciously sought out female teachers, but over the years I read books by and received teachings from many: Judith Simmer-Brown, who blew me away during the early days of Naropa Institute (now University); Lamas Tsultrim Everest and Chagdud Khadro under the auspices of the wonderful lama Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche; the superb translator Lama Sarah Harding. A bit later on, having long since been dazzled by her writing,  I had the good fortune to meet the great scholar-practitioner Anne Klein in the context of her translating for the phenomenal lama Adzom Rinpoche, and later still I was lucky to receive a few teachings from Jetsün Khandro Rinpoche, as fiery and eloquent a teacher as I have ever met. In retrospect my particular experience, inspiring as it was, lulled me into thinking that misogyny and teacher-student power dynamics had been addressed much more thoroughly in the broader Tibetan tradition than was actually the case. 

Needless to say, as a male student I was the beneficiary of the accomplishment of all of these teachers without having the capability to understand more than a fraction of the obstacles they had transcended to get there. Reading Rita Gross and Anne Klein helped a little, but my conditioning and gender blindness meant I really saw very little of what was going on behind the scenes. 

Fast-forward to 2017 and there has been what feels like a painful and hopefully cathartic release of long-simmering issues regarding the treatment of women in this tradition. This blog is the most comprehensive resource I know of for getting caught up on not just the deeply disturbing revelations regarding Sogyal Rinpoche but the equally disturbing reactions to it from the likes of Dzongsar Khyentse and Orgyan Topgyal Rinpoches and deafening silence of most lamas in the tradition in the face of what is clearly deeply-ingrained structural abuse.

One would think that a broad cross-section of senior Western Tibetan Buddhist practitioners would have long since been holding emergency meetings to come up with a universal code of conduct and serious proposals for structural reform, but instead what has surfaced this week is yet another screed by Dzongsar Khyentse - this one a "humorous" teacher-student sex contract offered with a humble-brag intro. 

About the only bright light in all of this dismal dreck has been this clear statement by Mingyur Rinpoche, who seems to be alone in the wilderness in suggesting that ahimsa and foundational "Hinayana" precept practice might be good things for anyone who represents themselves as a Dharma teacher to take to heart.

One thing's for sure, this is not a tradition that is going to reform itself from within. The Dalai Lama's response to the crisis has been lukewarm at best, other lineage heads are largely silent, and perhaps the most prominent of the globe-trotting teachers, Dzongsar Khyentse, is so thoroughly part of the problem that he can't possibly be part of any solution. 

The problem is of course that sexual abuse is just one very visible aspect of a tradition that is so deeply invested in patronage, patriarchy and feudal models of transmission.

Scholar-practitioner Ian Baker neatly summarizes the depth of the challenges and the history that's caused them in this recent Facebook post:

"Since its inception in pre-medieval India, Vajrayāna Buddhism has always been an alluring, multivalent, and highly commodified phenomenon. Its innermost practices among close-knit, often elite, communities represented radical and highly contested recastings of Buddhist thought that often sought transcendence of caste-determined societal norms. While deeply liberating – for those who were ready – the emancipatory social transgressions that once served proud and uptight Brahmans – such as Naropa – may have less relevance in a pluralistic 21st century world. Contemporary social values, egalitarian ethics, and human rights – at least in theory – surpass their 8th to 12th century equivalents in India and Tibet. Tantra will continue to offer a powerful loom on which the tapestry of non-dual awareness can be woven, or artfully spun. But by all accounts, Tantra is subtle. Vajrayāna was therefore, in its innermost circles, a secretive, initiatic tradition that was never designed for pod-casts, social media, or mass empowerments. Confusion and misappropriation of the teachings are all too easy. If enlightenment is arriving at a stranger's door in a G-string and with a live fish protruding from your mouth, as Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche amusingly implies, maybe we are better off with the 18th century Western 'Enlightenment' that overthrew the tyranny of religious institutions and opened a new era of intellectual inquiry and scientific discovery. The dazzling ritual, pageantry, and vested power of Vajrayāna reflects in many respects an unacknowledged nostalgia for everything that preceded the Enlightenment in Europe – a subjugation of the self to a 'higher', and often abusive, authority and subscription to self-serving institutional power. Letting go of outmoded tyrannies and traditions ushered in the modern age, both for better and worse. Although Vajrayāna, at its best, promotes a democratic mode of awakening that embraces, rather than rejects, the world as it is, many of its forms are transplanted anachronisms that, in absence of historical perspective, can instil existential confusion more readily than enlightenment. Vajrayāna in the 21st century is an ongoing experiment that challenges reified beliefs, but also inherently aligns its adherents with socio-cultural ideologies of pre-medieval India and feudal politics of China, Mongolia, and Tibet. The irony, however, is that Vajrayāna’s rituals developed as a means for transcending ancient caste-bound identity and consequent self-limiting modes of thought and behaviour. In its origins, Vajrayāna was a bold and creative vision of human nature and possibility that challenged early Buddhism’s more renunciatory disposition. The discomfiting question that all those who have been ‘brought up’ within the Vajrayāna world must now ask themselves is how Vajrayāna’s ritualized, and often reified, narratives of transmission, power, and practice can best be adapted to the contemporary world. These were the same questions that Vajrayāna’s famed progenitors – such as the Mahasiddha fisherman Tilopa – asked in their own time, leading to vital distillations of the Tantric Buddhist teachings that transcend time, place, tradition, and teacher. Beyond all such socio-cultural and historical formulations, however, there is always the breathing of the wind, the flowing seas and rivers, and the inescapable illuminations of our most intimate human and transhuman communions. It's in these ever-present, adamantine realms that we dwell in our truest nature as interconnected beings of infinite light – whether we have received an Amitabha empowerment or not. As the oral teachings of Vajrayāna make clear, empowerment doesn’t come through being bonked on the head with a gilded vase by a spiritual preceptor who may not even know our name, but by waking up to our essential nature and manifesting it in all our actions. Rather than perpetuating guru-disciple relationships based on outmoded models of students as empty and receptive vessels, Vajrayāna in the modern world might be better served by the Socratic method, in which the teacher is merely an enabling catalyst for bringing forth the disciple's indwelling wisdom."

A handful of leading Western scholars (Donald Lopez, especially) have offered this kind of informed iconoclastic perspective on the tradition, but what's more common these days are practitioner-translators so thoroughly invested in the Tibetan tradition that they are nearly as blind to its excesses as the lamas they serve.

The most insightful voices about these issues, in my experience anyway, are coming from practitioners who know the tradition well without being wedded to it. Matthew Remski, who blew the lid off of the notorious Geshe Michael Roach scandal, gets to the root of cult abuse better than anyone else I've read, while his equally brilliant friend Sean Feit Oakes, who practices in the Theravada tradition but is deeply knowledgeable about Tantric forms, articulates the way forward in such a beautiful and inspiring way:

"Part of what's heartbreaking about #MeToo is that anyone who's been even a little awake to patriarchy and power in this culture already knows that sexual harassment, abuse, and assault of women are so pervasive as to be the assumed norm. Does anyone actually think that every single woman couldn't post a "Me, too" if she chose to??

And yeah, the fact that is so endemic means that every single man could post an "I'm complicit" story as well. Sexism and misogyny are core ideologies, and no amount of good intentions saves a man from being steeped in harmful ideas about women, sex, and power for his whole life here. As I learn more about allyship and how to enact the egalitarianism I believe in, I become ever more aware of these forces in myself and in every facet of this culture, including the places where well-intentioned folks try to do otherwise.

Sexism, racism, and all the cultural shadows I was raised to reproduce operate in my psyche every day. I'm grateful to the activists and wise humans who have helped me to start seeing through the white-cis-het-passing-class-privileged blindness these forces gifted me and be able to say even this much. But this isn't a post about me personally: no matter how mature any one of us manages to be, it's important to keep the spotlight on the system. Systems create individuals, not the other way around.

Ultimately, if we want to talk systemic oppression, we need to call out not just sexist creeps and abusers (though it helps), but the system that poisons all of our lives and relationships. So here's the hashtag I want to see men posting: #Patriarchy.

I hope these high-profile outings advance our national conversation about sexism in the way that media and activist attention on the norm of police brutality against black people led to #BlackLivesMatter and opened up a new chapter in the national dialogue on racism. Changing this will continue to be a long, slow process, but Goddess willing, folks are starting to wake up."

The current scandals and deathly silence from the Tibetan establishment are deeply discouraging, but then I read Sean's post and think that Machig Labdrön is dancing and burning brighter than ever if we can find the eyes to see her. 

Homeless, perhaps country-less, but not joyless

The 4 Great Bodhisattva Vows

Sentient beings are numberless; I vow to save them all.
Desires are inexhaustible; I vow to put an end to them.
The Buddhadharma is boundless; I vow to master it. 
The Buddha’s Way is unsurpassable; I vow to attain it.


While I'm not a Zen practitioner, one of the sanghas Erin and I have benefitted from sitting with during these past two weeks of election madness and post-mortem is affiliated with Roshi Joan Halifax and the Upaya sangha in Santa Fe. 

Yesterday we sat with the well-known teacher David Loy, a lovely man who has long been at the epicenter of Buddhist engagement with climate change and social justice, as well as local Tucson teacher Sensei Al Kazniak, who while not as well-known as Loy seems to me to be equally accomplished. 

Both of these teachers have a default mode of deep listening and curiosity that's clearly anchored in compassion and a steely determination to not only be of benefit but to bring life's most difficult challenges onto the path of practice and liberation.  

I quoted the four great vows from this tradition because they embody so much of what seems called for at this time. They're all about intention and aspiration - about (one could say) aspiring to do the impossible because it's what's necessary. At a more subtle level, such vast altruistic aspiration also undercuts clinging to outcome - something that was made so much more poignant when listening to Loy (who turns 70 next year) talk about his intention to focus ever more clearly on altruistic activism in his own limited remaining time on earth despite being fully aware of how irreversible catastrophic climate change already is. 

Moving from the big picture to our own very small but still real challenges, we've been confronted lately with just how much clinging to security, stability and control of outcomes we're still invested in. We've really appreciated being back in the U.S. for the better part of three years now, but our ability to do so has been entirely contingent on Obamacare. And while there are far more unknowns than knowns about life under Trump and the Republicans over the next four years, repeal of the Medicaid expansion and slashed subsidies in the individual insurance market are pretty much guaranteed to be among the first things that occur. 

So...having only just recently put so much energy and emotional investment into the early stages of becoming part of the community here in Tucson we're faced with the very real, perhaps inevitable, possibility of resuming expat life in Mexico with no plan to return. The question then becomes how do we embrace that situation joyfully and fully, and how can we structure our lives so as to be of benefit? 

It's really interesting, albeit unpleasant, to walk through our cozy but comfortable 70's mobile home and see the clinging arise as we try to summon the energy for one more move after way, way too many previous ones (and to see how draining and unhelpful it is to hold onto that story/tape loop too!).

In the past we've always hedged our bets at least a little: renting a small storage locker "just in case," stashing a few boxes with relatives for future sorting and schlepping. We're beyond done with that, and are instead seeing what it looks like to give up our deep clinging to real physical books in favor of Kindle-able everything, let everything from home-roasted coffee to microbrews go, and make plans to get on a plane with a couple of checked bags and a carry-on apiece as our sole worldly goods. That's still a hell of a lot more stuff than a Thai forest monk with two sets of robes and an alms bowl, but we do try to keep in mind the liberating potential of the Buddhist definition of homelessness. 

Years ago we did a retreat in Albuquerque with the wonderful vipassana teacher Eric Kolvig, at the height of the '08 financial market meltdown and while there were grave doubts about whether Obama could win. Eric wisely shelved the planned retreat topic and instead made the whole time together about turning towards fear, panic, uncertainty and desire for control while culitivating the mindstates of equanimity, compassion, lovingkindness and empathy that are our true nature and refuge. Early on in the process he offered this teaching from his own teacher Sayadaw U. Pandita:

"Why do we do this practice? To develop a heart-mind that is ready for anything." 

May it be so. 

Mexico at Thailand prices

We're just a few weeks in to what we hope will become a regular annual cycle of 3-4 months in México with the rest of our time spent in Arizona. Given the insanity of U.S. politics and health care that plan has a lot of asterisks associated with it.

We'd just arrived here at Lake Chapala when the Brexit fiasco caused the largest one-day loss in the history of the stock market, and along with it a spike in the already-amazing U.S. dollar:Mexican peso exchange rate to almost 20 pesos to the dollar. Things have settled down a bit since, but we're currently at 18.50 pesos to the dollar.

During our 3+ years of full-time living down here we averaged 11 pesos to the dollar, and felt rich during occasional spikes above 14. Today's exchange rates are an amazing, perhaps once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for savvy expats and tourists, while they add unwelcome and untimely hardship to the already tough circumstances of everyday Mexicans.

Yesterday one of the trucks that regularly circulates through the villages here offering fresh produce direct from the coast was offering peak-season Paraiso mangoes. They're the ones that look like this:

The price? 3 kilos for 20 pesos. That's US$1.08 for six point two pounds of perfectly ripe, headily aromatic fruit.

Tacos are still 9-10 pesos - not cheap at all for locals earning 40-50 pesos an hour, but with three of them making a full meal for one it's a $1.50 main meal of the day for us.

Seasoned expat friends report being able to buy new and used cars now for thousands less than U.S. prices, instead of paying a substantial premium as is usually the case, and many folks who planned to be renters for the duration of their stay in México are taking a hard look at buying modest places since rents remain high while peso-denominated properties are up to 40% cheaper than normal in dollar terms.

I don't expect this situation to persist long-term (and for México's sake hope it doesn't!) but for anyone who's contemplated a visit or long-term stay here there's never been a better time. Let's just hope Faux News and the rest of the U.S. fear media machine continue to portray México as a scary place to visit (unlike the firearm and violence free country up North) - otherwise we might be faced with the prospect of this amazing country building a wall to keep the gringo hordes at bay.

AriMex: Our Next Chapter

View of Tucson from the front porch of our mobile home

This July will mark two years since our return to the U.S. from Mexico. We've appreciated the easy pace and access to wilderness in our current small town of Cañon City, Colorado, but have also found ourselves spending more and more time away.

A good friend advised me to seriously check out Albuquerque and Santa Fe before we moved here since they have so much more going on in areas like Buddhist study and practise, the arts, local food and other areas of interest but what kept coming up for us instead were things in and near Tucson, Arizona. Arizona, given its politics alone, was never on our radar screen as a place to live, but a couple of Dharma teachers we love live in and around the city, and we've also found ourselves captivated by the subtle beauty and silence of hikes in the desert.

Daytime view from the covered patio

Environment aside, what's really sold us on Tucson is the vibrant, feisty and very welcoming progressive community, from local food and microbrew fanatics to a very diverse and socially-engaged subset of the Buddhist and Christian contemplative communities. Both Erin and I see many opportunities to serve and to make a difference, and after spending years in small towns the chance to be part of thriving, age-diverse communities in the real world (rather than relying mostly on the internet!) is very exciting.

I've written at some length about the financial aspects of what we're doing, in part in hopes of helping others avoid mistakes we've made and in part to give a bit of hope to other folks faced with semi- or full retirement on very modest incomes - knowing that such situations are all-too-common. While Tucson certainly isn't as cheap as Cañon City it's still very affordable by U.S. standards and a good 20% cheaper than Albuquerque (and probably more like 50% cheaper than Santa Fe, given the crazy housing costs there).

The key for us was finding a comfortable, well-maintained 2 bedroom, 2 bath older mobile home in a spectacularly-situated 55-and-over community on the West side of the city. We have miles of great hiking right from our door, yet are an easy (and lightly-trafficked) 8 minute drive (or pleasant 20 minute bike ride) to the heart of downtown. With $15,000 tied up in the home and the monthly lot rent of $455 including access to a year-round salt water pool, gym and clubhouse we'll be able to continue to live a decent lifestyle during the 8 months each year (October-May) we plan on being in town. Given the summer temperatures in Tucson we wouldn't have considered moving there without a viable way to escape, and we're fortunate both in having family in the Pacific Northwest and, decisively, in loving our "second home" of Lake Chapala, Mexico, where we plan on spending at least 3 months enjoying the very best time of year there, the rainy season.

Lake Chapala sunset

Given the crazy political situation in the U.S. and the fact that our ability to be here at all is entirely dependent on the continued existence of always-under-attack Obamacare we know we need to keep our footprint light and our options open. For now and for the foreseeable future spending two-thirds of each year in Arizona and a third in Mexico sounds just right.

Linda Vista trail living up to its name

Guatemala as a tourism & snow bird destination

Lake Atitlán at dawn

In my years of working in specialty coffee I visited Guatemala more often than any other country - which makes sense, given that it produces a wider range of high-quality regional coffees than all of the other countries in Central America combined. 15+ years later, my trip this year was a chance to experience the country as a tourist rather than for work, for the first time. 

When I first visited in 1990, the civil war was still in full swing. Someone had been machine gunned on the front steps of the swank Camino Real hotel days before my arrival, and every visit to farms entailed riding in a Land Rover with a shot gun under the seat and other weapons in the hands of armed guards. Over a hundred local villagers had just been massacred in the village of Santiago Atitlán, producers of one of the certified organic coffees I'd been buying. The political realities of Guatemala (one of the original Banana Republics), and the U.S. role in undermining democracy and supporting murderous dictatorships there, was impossible to ignore. While still at Starbucks I began a lengthy correspondence with a professor of political science who'd devoted his life to telling the "back story" of life in Guatemala, and he shared with me a quote (I don't know the source) that has stayed with me ever since: 

"Beauty cloaks Guatemala the way that music hides screams."

25 years later the civil war is still a fairly fresh memory. The huge disparity between rich and poor and the oppression of the indigenous majority by a tiny ruling class are the same as ever, and the abundant supply of guns has shifted into private hands, with many in use by gangs involved in drug dealing, kidnapping, extortion and human trafficking. Guatemala continues to be one of the most dangerous and violent countries in the world, as this State Department report makes abundantly clear. 

Having lived in México for 3+ years my wife and I had adapted to living in places where rule of law is essentially non-existent, but there is of course a gradation in actual and perceived risk, from the relative safety of such gringo retirement havens as Lake Chapala or San Miguel de Allende, to the chilling atmosphere of Ciudad Juarez or the wilds of Michoacán. Guatemala City, even in the nicer and safer areas, feels more like the latter Mexican locales. 

As for the beauty of Guatemala, the fact that the country is awash in tourists despite high crime, poor infrastructure, expensive airfares to get there from any country and a strong local currency ought to tell you all you need to know. The natural beauty and cultural riches are off the charts. My wife and I, on the other hand, naturally see Guatemala through a México expat's lenses, and from that perspective it's hard to think of anything, culturally or culinarily, offered by the country that isn't offered by Oaxaca or Chiapas at 30-50% lower cost and with infinitely better food. 

We'd bought the most current guidebooks available for Guatemala prior to departure as well as consulting online resources such as expat forums and found all of the information on costs available to be way out of date. Not only has it been 6-8 years since these books were revised but the real surge in Guatemala tourism has occurred only since 2011 with a significant increase in prices due at least in part to many more European tourists (enough of a factor that almost all tourist-oriented restaurants charge 10% service automatically). 

For anyone contemplating a visit or (like us) thinking of Guatemala as a possible longer-term winter respite location, here are a few observations from our just-concluded trip:


Lodging: while hostelers can do just fine on $7-10 a night, costs for hotels and guest houses in Guatemala are 30-50% higher, apples-to-apples in terms of amenities, than in México. A $25 hotel room in Antigua or at Lake Atitlán is generally going to be like a $15 room in México, which is to say rock-hard bed, not particularly clean, with well-worn polyester sheets, lumpy pillows, marginal security, etc. We (too) often found ourselves spending $40 a night for still very basic but more livable accommodation. 

Anyone contemplating a longer stay (say for language study or volunteering) would clearly be better off renting a furnished apartment or the like, and we saw plenty of these on offer at prices comparable to what you'd pay in touristy areas of México. 

Transport: Guatemala doesn't have anything resembling the deluxe buses that make long-distance travel in México such a pleasure. Chicken buses are an interesting one-time cultural experience but that's it: they're dangerous, hot and crowded and your chances of being permanently separated from your luggage are quite high. Minivans holding up to 12 people are the best option between popular sites and are quite affordable. Once at your destination their are tuk tuks like the one below that can take you anywhere you need to go for a couple of dollars. 

Food: the staples in Guatemala are refried black beans, hand (never machine) made corn tortillas, queso fresco and an abudance of fresh fruits, squash and other vegetables. Indigenous stews such as pepian are worth a try as well, but (again) through a Mexican lens Guatemalan cuisine (like that of Nicaragua, Costa Rica and anywhere else in Central America) is about as bland and boring as small-town dining in the American Midwest - which probably goes a long ways towards explaining the endless choices of foreign cuisine in all of the tourist hot spots. 

While you can find a complete meal for $2-3 in local comedors, it's not likely to be a satisfying long-term choice unless you're truly prepared to "go native" in terms of adapting to local bacteria and getting used to the food-as-fuel reality of eating a dozen or more tortillas in lieu of more diverse but costly cuisine. $5-7 per person per meal is more realistic, and in any place offering international cuisine you should expect U.S. plus prices but with lower quality cooking and abysmally slow service. Don't expect to find anything remotely resembling the paradise of street food one gets used to in México: instead of glorious 75 cent tacos you'll see fried chicken and french fries, at KFC prices but with third world sanitation. 

We did stay at a few places with shared kitchen facilities and bought fruit and veggies at local markets, but here again learned in short order that the only way to avoid paying 2-3 times the actual local price is to shop at a supermarket, where there are fixed prices but of course much lower produce quality. This kind of price gouging for foreigners is certainly something we've experienced from time to time in México but never with the consistency we found in Antigua and at Lake Atitlán. I'd guess a retiree living in such places might eventually be offered the real price - or they could resort (as friends of ours in San Miguel de Allende once did) to having their maid do all of their food shopping!

Recreation: in Antigua there's a nice moderately hilly short walk to an overlook of the city called Cerro de la Cruz, plus some gyms, plenty of dance studios and some yoga classes. At the Lake it's easy to rent kayaks. Of course given the natural beauty and abundance of trails and dirt roads what one really wants to do is hike, but it's dangerous to do so given the rampant petty crime, and both the local and long-term expats we talked to advised either only going with guides or making sure to only carry items one was prepared to lose. This reality alone, in my view, is pretty much the kiss of death for Guatemala as a potential long-term stay or retirement destination. 

Medical care: there are plenty of doctors and dentists catering to wealthy visitors in Antigua but there as at the Lake any serious medical emergency is going to involve getting to Guatemala City (an hour from Antigua, 3.5-4.5 hours from the Lake). In short, it's no country for old (or infirm or handicapped) men. 

On a day-to-day basis, cobblestone streets, sidewalks with metal protruding from them and/or holes that can swallow an ankle and (in Antigua) air pollution from diesel-spewing buses, heavy and entirely unregulated traffic and ash (cineza) from Volcan Fuego are the main hazards.

Lake Atitlán (outside of the tourist trap village of Panajachel) is much less polluted, but Antigua though it only has a population of 50,000 has air quality that doesn't seem like any improvement on Guatemala City, a filthy and dangerous city of 4 million that most visitors do their best to avoid entirely except for the airport. 

I concluded my visit to Guatemala with a day of coffee cupping and conversation with one of the bright young lights of the trade, a wonderful young man who is improving quality and creating export markets for hundreds of small farmers. Tasting great coffees from Antigua, Lake Atitlán, Huehuetenango, Fraijanes, Cobán and up-and-coming regions I'd never heard of was a wonderful experience, and it made me realize that if I ever do return to Guatemala it will be for volunteer work in coffee. Other than that, it's a nice place to visit, but.....

(mobile) Home Economics

"Chez Mobile" - our Cañon City abode

This past summer we moved into a late model (1999) two bedroom, 840 sq. ft. mobile home in Cañon City, Colorado. We've owned other mobiles, including one in pricey Boulder, Colorado that was the most comfortable, quiet and energy-efficient of all of the places we lived in our 2+ decades there. 

Our Boulder home was a real eye-opener for the two of us, as we like so many others were prejudiced against mobile homes to begin with, but felt forced into one due to financial constraints. The insulation and tight window and door seals in our mobile there translated into peak winter gas and electric bills under $100 combined, and our neighbors, much to our surprise and delight, turned out to be a mixture of Naropa and CU professors, savvy budget retirees, and Mexican immigrant families. 

We'd owned a conventional ranch house and a condo in Boulder and so were very familiar with typical operating and ownership costs, and were astonished at both how much more peaceful our mobile was and how much money owning it freed up for actual living. 

Boulder is also the epicenter of the cohousing movement in the U.S., and we've had friends who've lived in such places and visited several others. It's a concept and a lifestyle we find appealing, but as such places are nearly always new construction they are very expensive. Over time we've come to realize that manufactured home communities, especially some of the larger ones with more amenities, are, effectively, cohousing for the real (or at least other-than-upper class) world. Our friends and mentors Billy and Akaisha Kaderli offer a good overview of such communities here. 

View of the Arkansas River from Tunnel Drive in Cañon City

Cañon City is a town of 15,000 on the banks of the Arkansas river, about a 45 minute drive from Colorado Springs. It's a conservative place overall, but with a small, very visible and growing progressive community. Hiking and biking are fantastic, the climate
is the mildest in the state, and the cost of living is about as low as you'll find in any habitable place in the U.S. There are plenty of artists, good yoga teachers, a great deal of agriculture in and around town, a thriving farmer's market, and (important to us) lively Buddhist and Christian contemplative communities. 

Getting back to the economics, here are the basic numbers for our current mobile:

Purchase price: $16,000 (we got a bargain and it's easily worth 20K)
Annual taxes: $80
Monthly space rent: $245
Average combined monthly gas and electricity: $120
High-speed internet + phone: $50
Home and auto insurance (combined) : $60 per month 

We have a couple of excellent all-road bikes for workouts and getting around town on our errands, and our car is a 2006 Scion xA that gets 40 mpg on the highway - one of the (in)famous finance blogger Mr. Money Mustache's Top Ten Cars for Smart People. 

Prior to living in Cañon City we spent the better part of three years in México, and before that tried our luck in such low-cost domestic retirement havens as Silver City, New Mexico and Port Angeles, Washington, while also investigating numerous other options, including Tucson, Albuquerque, Bisbee, AZ and a few others. 

It would be difficult if not impossible to achieve the kind of rock-bottom low overhead I've detailed here in any of these places, due primarily to the much higher value of real estate as well as transportation costs. Mobile home space rent in, say, Tucson or Albuquerque, which are considered U.S. average cost cities, would run more like $450-550 per month. Our mobile home park is an easy 1 to 2 mile bike ride to the supermarket and the heart of downtown, with the Riverwalk off-road trail system and great road riding out our door; we could easily go for several days without getting in the car except during the worst weeks of winter. Contrast that with any of these other car-centric cities where we'd probably need - or at least often want - a car per person, and would be filling them both up with gas multiple times per month. 

We're certainly spending a bit more on food here than we did in México, but being a 45 minute drive from a Costco and Trader Joe's and having fabulous local organic produce from May-October at prices that are about a third of what they get up in Boulder go a long way towards keeping things in check. 

Our biggest concern, financially and in terms of quality of life, in returning to the U.S. from México was health care and insurance, and this remains the one area that lends a major asterisk to our hope to remain in Colorado for the long run. In México we had great catastrophic insurance for a few hundred dollars a year total for the both of us and happily paid out-of-pocket for routine doctor and dental visits at ~$20-25 a pop. Colorado is one of the better, more progressive states in terms of its embrace of ACA/Obamacare and Medicaid expansion, but all we are eligible for, due to our low income, is Medicaid, and that basically means hospital-only coverage with very poor access to doctors. Looking ahead, it's obvious with the Republicans in charge of both chambers of congress that attacks on ACA and Medicaid will continue, so we know that we'll have to continue to monitor things closely and continue to get dental work and other care done during periodic México trips, while also knowing that we need to be ready for a long-term return to life down there at any point, should the U.S. system continue to implode. 

That major "asterisk" aside, our overall cost-of-living in Cañon City is on par with, and probably a bit lower than, what we were spending living a car-less life on foot at Lake Chapala, where we paid an average of $600-700 a month in rent for modest-sized furnished dwellings. The other thing we really notice in the brief time since we've been back N.O.B. ("north of the border," in expat lingo) is that while inflation in food and energy costs as well as residency visa fees was a stark reality in México we seem to be seeing flat-to-declining costs in many areas here, with the current cost of gasoline (we just filled our 10 gallon tank for $20!) being perhaps the starkest recent example. 

Setting costs aside there's the most important issue of all, at least for us, and that's quality of life. In our experience it's really hard to equal the ease of making friends and depth and diversity of people one meets in such expat havens as Lake Chapala and San Miguel de Allende. A lot of this has to do with the fact that those who choose expatriate life are by definition much more curious about the world and adventurous than most. We've been exceptionally fortunate in having a community of friends based on deep common interests in sustainable living, organic agriculture, progressive politics, outdoor adventures and contemplative practices here in Cañon City, so that for us, the México and Colorado options are pretty much on par in terms of quality of life, but with the huge difference of easy access to wilderness, silence and solitude and proximity to aging parents and old friends here in the U.S. that make being here the right choice for us, for now.