Charismatic Characters on
the Courts of Chapala
“Author of ‘The Adventurer’s Guide to Early Retirement’,” read the business card. “Actually, I’m entering my tenth year of early retirement,” I said to Billy, the presenter of the card. “So I guess it’s too late for me to read your book. But I’d love to play some tennis.” Billy and I were sitting with a group of folks on the terrace adjoining the tennis courts in the Parque La Christiania in the village of Chapala, Mexico, located on the shore of the lake of the same name. Lake Chapala is a Mecca for retirees from north of the border, both American and Canadian. These expatriates seemed an adventurous lot—no gated Leisure Worlds for them. They were run-around, serve-and-volley, overhead-smash, work-up-a-sweat tennis players, not lawn-bowlers or shuffle-boarders. I was attempting to infiltrate their ranks during a three-week visit.
The eight immaculately-maintained tennis courts were located at the north end of the park, and could be reserved for a reasonable twenty-five pesos (about two dollars) per hour by giving your name to a woman inside the snack bar, who would write it down in a ledger. “See that round building there, toward the lake?” said Billy. “That’s for cockfights. They’re legal here.” The park had something for everyone. Billy hailed from the States, but didn’t spend much time there. “Too expensive,” he said. “My wife and I spend two or three months down here around Christmas time. Then we spend spring in Thailand. We rent a house in a little village on the beach. You can live there well on mere dollars a day.” Players gathered at the courts every day between eight o’clock and eleven or so. They were an independent bunch. Some cracked beers after a morning match. Some fired up cigarettes. On Christmas morning, I played a set of singles with Gerard, who spoke with an accent. “French?” I inquired. “Good call,” he said. “I was born in France during the War. My dad was in the army. He stayed in after the war and was stationed in North Africa. That’s where I grew up. I moved to Montreal when I was about twenty.” Gerard was an escapee from the deep-freeze of the Great White North. His background was typical for a Chapala Courtside Character, in that there was no typical background at all. Another day I played doubles with a woman named Portia, who owned a house in San Rafael but spent most of her time sailing the world—or at least the Western Hemisphere—with her husband on a 42-foot catamaran.“It’s moored at Vera Cruz, while we flew up here to spend some time in the mountains and play a little tennis,” she said. Nice life. Another doubles player, Gordon, lived two hours north of Winnipeg in Canada. “We have a house on a lake,” he explained. “There’s a single road which leads up to the marina, but that’s where it ends. There’s no road going around the lake. There’re about thirty houses around it, and we all have to boat in and out. Until September, that is. That’s when we have to leave and put the boats in storage for the winter. The lake freezes solid by the First of October. And that’s when we come down here.” I pictured Gordon outracing icebergs in his outboard and escaping to the sunny climes of Mexico. A common thread ran through the tennis players I met in a too-brief visit—the common thread of adventure. Wasn’t “adventure” referenced on Billy’s business card? It was. Who else would choose to live on a lake so remote that it must be fled each year before it freezes? (I can hear the wolves now, howling among the empty houses). Who else would sail the oceans in a (what seemed to me) puny 42-foot boat? Who else would travel the world on a shoestring? I wonder if Billy and his wife are still in Thailand. |
