Heat birding in Mexico: Merida and where else

[roni]

Hi all,

We are going to move to Mexico in about 20 months.

We really like the Yucatan Peninsula, and I think we are going live in Merida.

Downside: it gets real hot there. After a decade in the Pacific Northwest, I have some concerns about our ability to acclimate to tropical heat again. I grew up in tropical Brasil and we both survived summers in the lower midwest for years, but air-conditioning was probably not as expensive.

Possible solution: live somewhere else 2-4 months a year, or for a couple of weeks at a time several times a year. I know Hound Dog has two houses in different parts of Mexico.

Anyone else doing some version of heat-birding within Mexico, or running away from the heat several times a year for a couple of weeks at a time?

Ron

[RVGRINGO]

Make that 4-6 months of the year and add the cost of hiring people to take care of both properties and it gets pretty expensive; much too rich for my blood and advanced age. I would rather have one home in a comfortable climate with our pets, friends and minimal help allowing us to travel, when we wish, to a variety of places for shorter adventures.
To each his own, but I can't stand heat and humidity, rust, mildew and I really don't like air conditioning anyway; having grown up in the frozen north country.

[roni]

Thank you for your for your prompt and definite response.

Seems like it could be less expensive than snowbirding from the north, but it definitely could be more expensive than just living at one place and staying there most of the time.

Would still like to hear from others.

We had been in the Pacific Northwest for 3 years when we first went to the Yucatan Peninsula. The wife said it was the first time she had been warm since we had moved to the Northwest

[maesonna]

Cuernavaca is known as the land of eternal Spring. Its reputation, not altogether undeserved, is that it has the perfect climate year-round; neither too hot nor too cold.

[roni]

So are you suggesting Cuernavaca as an May-Sept place.

I do not think we would want to go to the same place each year, which is on of the attractions of several escape from the heat vacations a year. It would be easier to explore multiple places if one did not go back to the same place each year.

[maesonna]

Cuernavaca is good year round, you could go there at any time of the year and it would probably be better than what you're escaping from.

[makaloco]

Don't listen to anyone, even me. ;-)
People's internal thermostats vary greatly. I've seen claims of "perfect weather" for places where daytime highs rarely reach the 80s. My area is one in which most foreigners bail out for summer because they think it's intolerable because everybody else bails out for summer. The majority of them have never actually spent a summer here. I don't know Merida, but my advice would be to try it before committing to anything. Have an emergency escape fund in case you find you really can't stand the weather, especially for the first couple of years. But if you like the place, give it a chance.

[El Toro Furioso]

We live from November 1 to the end of June in La Manzanilla on the Costa Alegre about an hour north of Manzanillo and 200 Km south of Puerto Vallarta. We have kept our rental home on Lake Chapala for the rest of the time. We actually ended up spending all of July, much of August and the latter part of September here on the beach (from whence I write now), but we don't want to HAVE TO do this. It is a little too hot and especially humid right now, but we know that we can hop in the car and be back at 5,000+ feet altitude in a few hours. We also have AC (split unit) in one room here on the beach, but we almost never use it. It is good to have, though, from a psychological perspective. You can always bail if you perceive that things are getting to be too much. Right now, just knowing that the bay is a short two-plus minute walk away and the water is always inviting makes cooling off pretty convenient.

We are subletting our rental lakeside. Since we furnished the place, we are charging more rent that we pay. A six-month rental covers all but $650 USD rent for the other six months, so it isn't very expensive. When we only lived next to Ajijic at lakeside, we spent at least $3,500 USD per year on beach vacations to the place we call home now, so one can factor that in as well. All in all, it is cheaper for us to live 9 plus months on the beach and to keep our place on Lake Chapala than it was to live year round on Lake Chapala and pay rent for vacations on the beach for 30 days a year. Hope this perspective helps. We love living and having good Mexican friends and neighbors at both places.

[roni]

Thanks a lot for the replies.

We have talked about giving Merida at least two years to see how acclimation goes. We are also planning to start in a May-June time frame, and we have considered starting in or around Lake Chapala for a few months and doing more exploration around there Pacific Coast, Colima, Guanajuato state etc).

It is going to be, we think, a grand adventure no matter how we do it. I speak enough Spanish and Spantugues to be comfortable where English is not spoken.