In Part 1 I focused on my first eight years here in Mexico.

When I returned from Leavenworth last fall, I had some health issues to deal with and found myself in Guadalajara for a couple of weeks. Next I went back to Mazatlan for a weekend. I then spent a week in Culiacán with my family.

Now fully retired, there was no school or private students to tie me down. I wanted to explore areas in Mexico where I’d never been before. I wanted to live in a Mexican area far removed from all the expats and snowbirds that had been my experience in Mazatlan for three years.

Scrolling through Facebook one day, I noticed some posts in one of the groups I belong to with photos of an area in San Luis Potosí. I messaged Bonnie for more information and we chatted back and forth. Bonnie is from Texas but moved to San Ciro de Acosta when she married a Mexican a couple of years ago. Her mother was around my age and had just moved down there as well. Days later I found myself on a bus headed for San Luis Potosí.

Bonnie and her husband met me in Rio Verde and drove me to San Ciro. They then took me around the town and helped me find somewhere to live.

My plan was to stay for three weeks or so. But I wound up staying for two months. Bonnie, her mother Connie and I all became good friends. We spent Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s together.

It was hard to leave but there were other areas in Mexico to be explored. So I once again turned to the Facebook groups to decide where to go next, making specific inquiries about Aguascalientes City.

I received a text on Messenger one day from someone asking how I liked his hometown. I didn’t recognize his name until I looked back on a two year old thread when I’d been living in Mazatlan and had been looking for an opthalmologist. I replied and told him I hadn’t realized he was from San Ciro. His response was that he was from Aguascalientes and he thought I had already arrived there. I told him I was still in San Ciro but would welcome any information he had to share about Aguascalientes, especially pertaining as to a good area to stay. He put me in touch with his nephew Fernando.

Fernando has a cousin Raul on his mother’s side of the family. Raul has hotels in Aguascalientes. I now had somewhere to stay so off I went.

I had done my research and thought that one month would be sufficient for the museums and churches I wanted to visit. Nope. It turns out three months wasn’t enough and I returned to Aguascalientes at the end of October.

Of course by now I have put down a few roots and made some friends. I also found a church close by. Aguascalientes is my home base this winter until I return to Leavenworth in April.

I hope these posts have given some insight as to how I am able to do what I do. I’d like to add that I’m a single female in my late 60s. It’s a myth that you have to be young to do what I do. I never had the opportunity to do this when I was younger, so what better time than NOW?