I'm not an authority on San Fran, but I'd say it's a world away from GDL in almost every way you could imagine. GDL is big and dirty; I can remember LA in the 60's and Denver in the 70's, both had more breathable air than GDL on a good day. The Mexican's have a tradition, if it can be set on fire it will be! And, the actual “burning season” is coming up when they burn the fields - that applies to all of MX. I personally could NOT live anywhere in GDL due to air quality.

Driving in GDL is a trip; visit my blog at oneblueflower(dot)com for a few adventures. I go there usually once a week to get gringo stuff like Home Depot, Autozone, Applebees, even DQ, Office Depot, Sams, WalMart, Costco and on and on. And, shopping for stuff in Tonala is an experience in all things Mexican.

Pedro is correct about “the village”, it’s charming to visit, DON’T live there. I’m in an area probably 3 miles east between Ajijic and Chapala, close enough to walk if you actually wanted or needed to, but far away from the church bells, when the breeze is right I hear the ones in the distance in San Antonio. Far from the cohetes they set off day night and weekend for any and every reason, they are aerial bombs that reverberate off the mountains. I know people in Ajijic that go to the coast for a week at the end of the year to escape the noise. Actually they’re building a new house next door to me.

Ajijic is overpriced driven by notoriety and “the Jones’s” which brought large sums of money down from NOB and foolishly overpaid to live in the village. Many or most things can be purchased for less anywhere but Ajijic. And most things are available somewhere if you know where like my mailbox is at the pool supply place – it works, I get mail at least twice a week.

The north shore probably has 5,000 gringo’s full or part time, some have lived here for a long time and don’t speak a word of Spanish and don’t understand why the native people don’t learn English.

If you want to live native it can be very cheap, if you live gringo, it’s definitely NOT. I bought a small can of VanCamp’s pork & beans the other day, $1.30. Electricity can be as much as $.295 per KWH depending on how much you use. Gas is cheap by NOB standards, about $2.52 a gal and varies little, unlike NOB.

And, any electrical appliance you dearly love needs to be on a voltage regulator, we get brownouts and spikes to 145 volts (which took out a favorite digital timer the other day) and due to frequency variance electric clocks run fast so you see a lot of batter powered clocks, I have 3 not that it actually matters what time it really is except MX follows the old DST rule so lately we’ve been two hours behind NYC (my TV) and so I have to start watching the 6pm news from Hoboken at 4 in the afternoon.

Is the area quintessential Mexico, yes and no. It depends on where and how you live. Each night I look across the lake at lights from small villages on the south shore, so Christmas day I drove over there – yep, typical small Mexican villages. The Mexican people are gracious and interesting, hard working and helpful and tolerant of some of our bad habits we forget to check at the border. You’ll find a few choice observations about some of our fellow countrymen and their plantation mentalities in my blog.

I often liken it to living in Nebraska in the 50’s and yet within the technology bubble inside my compound walls it’s very much the 21st century. Dish TV (it thinks it’s in NYC so I get Hoboken news?) XM Radio (couldn’t live without it) broadband Internet (which means I have VOIP) etc.

Much of this may sound terribly negative; in fact it’s not at all, it’s brutally honest, Mexico without the sugar coating and things to be considered when making a new place (country) you home. There are two kinds of people, the ones that love it and make it and the ones who hate it and are leaving or gone. I’m one that loves it and managed to renew my lease until June ’09. But, I’m under no illusions, there are two things I strap on each morning when the rooster crows (yes, they’re everywhere) tolerance and patience because those are the two most valuable assets to enjoying what is here, the art, the music, the weather, scenery, flowers year round and on and on including the fact it hasn’t rained since I arrived last Oct and won’t until June so it’s dusty and getting warm, was 90 yesterday, and dry, humidity dropped to 14% at one point, you'll find my weather station at chapalaweather(dot)net.

Good luck.

PS: I forgot to mention the occasional interruptions on the Internet, like now as I started to upload this answer and the net is down, so I went out and skimmed the jacaranda blossoms out of the pool, remember, patience and tolerance.