You are the largest inland lake in Mexico. Your waters were once bustling with fishermen and pleasure boats, the center of all community activities. The natives drank from you and laundry was done at your shores. All was well as your majestic Mount Garcia stood guard over you. Then "progress" caught up with you. Many people came to bask in your beauty. There was a great need for your resources. The rains came and replenished what man continued to drain from you.

But "progress" continued and you no longer could satisfy the hunger and thirst of many. You grew weak and tired and shrank from this new responsibility that had been forced upon you. Death was imminent.

So much for the observations of a pessimistic gringa. The truth of Lake Chapala is far greater than we mere mortals watching over this beautiful body of water know. True, the waters have receded over the years. True the lirio has choked the very breath out of the marine life and also true that pleasure boats are few and far between.

But the soul of the lake is still apparent. You need only to take a short boat ride to the other side to see the resurgent of life everywhere. The rains come in abundance some years only to drop off the next but the lake continues to survive.

On a good day the winds come up over the mountain range and stir up tiny whitecaps as the lake tries to imitate its big cousin, the Pacific Ocean. The children still play along its shores, daring to wade in waist deep as we doubters stand in awe, knowing full well the pollution that abounds there.

The secret of the lake is very simple: it is there for us. No greater joy can be experienced that walking its shores and feeling the breeze that floats across the land. It can be a truly spiritual moment if you succumb to it. Worries of the day vanish as you partake of the local daily comings and goings of the natives. A herd of cattle here, a mare and her colt there and always the dogs and children playing and laughing with the whisper of music in the wind. Lake Chapala is Mexico. Never to be changed by the "progress" of time but always to be exactly as God intended it to be when it was formed millions of years ago. We are but observers of this marvel of nature, to enjoy but never to abuse.