When Friends Come to Visit: Lucha Libre, Scorpion Island, and a Women’s March We’ll Never Forget
One of the quiet joys of building a life somewhere new is getting to share it with people you love. Over the past few weeks we’ve had two sets of visitors from Joe’s hometown of Asheville — Steve first, then David and Julie — and watching them experience this place through fresh eyes reminded us again why we chose it.
Steve’s Visit: Malecóns, Scorpion Island, and Making the Best of a Shutdown
Steve arrived first, and we did what we always do with visitors — walked them through our world. We introduced him to our favorite local spots including the Camaleon Bar, one of those places that immediately feels like yours.
One of the highlights of Steve’s visit was a boat tour out to Scorpion Island — Isla de los Alacranes — sitting about 6 kilometers off the shore of Chapala. The island gets its name not from any actual scorpions but from its shape when seen from above — the outline resembles a scorpion’s body. You reach it by boat from the Chapala malecón — a short, beautiful ride across the lake with the mountains on all sides.
We also got to bring Steve along to our friend Elba’s birthday party at Miguel’s Zona Bar — a great night of dancing with friends that showed him the community spirit that you can’t fully appreciate until you’re here.
Steve was also with us for one of the more memorable unplanned evenings of recent months — a Sunday shutdown in our coto that could have been frustrating but turned into something unexpectedly wonderful. Stuck inside, we ended up making new friends in the neighborhood, playing cards, sharing food and passing tequila.
David and Julie Arrive: Starting with Lucha Libre
David and Julie flew in next, and we took them straight from the airport to Lucha Libre in Guadalajara. No easing in. No gradual introduction. Just — here’s Mexico, all of it, right now.
If you’ve never been to Lucha Libre, there’s no fully adequate way to describe it. It is a complete sensory overload in the best possible sense. The evening had the full range — Mini-Estrellas, the smaller masked wrestlers who bring enormous energy in a compact package, Exóticos — flamboyant, theatrical performers who lean fully into gender-bending personas, flying acrobats launching themselves off the ropes in ways that defy what bodies should be able to do, and female luchadores who were every bit as fierce and skilled as anyone in the ring. The crowd is as much a part of it as the performers — loud, passionate, theatrical. We left buzzing and already wanting to go back.
Lake Chapala: Showing Both Groups the Life
Between the two visits we made the most of our home base, sharing the best of what lakeside life looks like when you actually live here. The three malecóns of San Antonio Tlayacapan, Ajijic, and Chapala each have their own character, and walking all three gives you a real feel for the texture of lakeside life here. One of the standout moments was breakfast at La Vita Bella in San Juan Cosala — an extraordinary setting with a view over the lake that is, without question, one of the best breakfast spots in the region.
Dinner at Alcalde: A Long Overdue Splurge
Joe and I had been wanting to try Alcalde for a while. Guadalajara’s most celebrated restaurant, owned by chef Francisco “Paco” Ruano, has ranked among Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants and earned international recognition for its approach to contemporary Mexican cuisine rooted in Jalisco’s local ingredients and traditions. David and Julie’s visit gave us the perfect excuse to finally go.
It was worth every bit of the anticipation. The service was impeccable, attentive without being intrusive. The food was creative and surprising, deeply rooted in Jalisco but with a sophistication that takes you somewhere unexpected. The open kitchen was part of the experience — watching the staff work with that level of care and precision on each dish, the meticulousness of it, made the meal feel like a performance as much as a dinner.
International Women’s Day in Centro Guadalajara
On Sunday we walked into Centro Guadalajara to take in the street art and stopped into the MUSA museum to see the José Clemente Orozco murals. We were also genuinely moved by a Rocío Sáenz exhibit we stumbled into, right up until the moment the museum staff asked us to leave as they shut the building down early without much explanation.
We walked back out into the street slightly puzzled, and it didn’t take long to understand what was happening. Purple bandanas were being sold on every corner. The streets were filling. A Women’s Day march was coming.
In Mexico, the history behind these marches carries real weight. Sexual violence against women remains a persistent and devastating crisis — disappearances, femicide, assault — and for years the response from institutions and authorities has been inadequate. March 8th here is not a celebration so much as a reckoning. The women who march are naming names, demanding justice, refusing to be silent.
The police presence for the march was entirely female. Joe and David were politely but firmly directed to leave. Julie and I stayed.
What we witnessed was incredibly powerful and strong. Women marching with ferocity and grief and power, holding signs bearing the names of men who had attacked them, raped them, harmed them. Buildings spray-painted with disclosures that had been suppressed for too long. The energy was not angry in a destructive sense — it was righteous, earned, necessary.
And then I saw a woman holding a handmade poster. On it was a photo of herself as a five-year-old child, and written beside it was her story — first raped by a family member at that age. I wept, shaking a bit. Writing this now, I am tearing up all over again at the weight of it all and the strength it took her to share her story.
There is too much of this in the world. These women deserve justice, and the men who have harmed them deserve to be held accountable — removed from positions of power in their communities, their families, their institutions.
Thankful
More than anything, these visits reminded us how grateful we are for friends willing to pack a bag, push past the fear, and trust us when we say — just come. The world they found here was nothing like the headlines they’d read, and watching them fall a little bit in love with this place, with these people, with this life we’ve built, means more than we can say.
Later that day we set off for Tequila — but that’s a story for the next post.
