Thursday, October 13, 2005

Construction going on in Chacala

The newest work project is at Casa Pacifica. Juan (the Juan who painted Ana's house last year) is repainting most of the interior walls with beautiful new colors. Noe is building the structure for a new shade/rain fabric-type roof for the cafe. I think it will have cement and brick pillars supporting a steel beam framework for the fabric roof, which will cover the whole area. Noe is also working on a new room back behind the kitchen area.

The building across from Pepe's Koranay hardware store is going up quickly. I like the detail around the windows, which is a little differnet than usual.

When I went looking for the Telmex/phone bill yesterday, Viki at the bibliotecha told me that Lalo was holding mail for the people in town. So I went down to his new fish place and he said, no, Marta, the older woman at the restaurant next to his old fish place has the mail. So I walked around to the restaurant and Marta did have the mail. Marta said they had sent kids out delivering the mail (mainly Telmex) in the morning but they didn't know who Gordon was and they did have my Telmex bill. This may work out better for me because you never know when the bibliotecha is going to be open. The schedule is extremely flexible, which can be annoying. And the restaurant is always open.

Lalo's new fish shop is all set up and the old place has completely disappeared. The new place (kind of uphill and right next door to the Hotel Glorias), is in his mom's front yard. Yesterday he showed me the new place. He has an office area, with a phone. The office is kind of to one side of the place where they cut up the fish. I guess the office area is for his duties as "judico" or whatever it's called (the elected unpaid position in town that officially represents Chacala to the police and government agencies), and attempts to resolve various town problems. He took Cundo's place in an odd election process that I don't understand. Anyhow, it's none of my business anyway. But it is interesting.

There is another water meeting this morning , going on right now. It is interesting to me that the town meeting is scheduled for the exact same time at the weekly mass. Don't know why, but it seems odd. They had about six government people at the meeting last week, but I don't know if anything happened. I got a little water today for about 20 minutes. Too dirty to wash clothes in so I watered all the plants in pots.

Today's meeting is also to plan the Fiesta for the town's Saint Day (San Rafael) later this month. Last year was really fun, and lasted from about 10am to about 2am. Lots of music, food, and drink. A procession, a Mass, a huge potluck, a band, and in the evening a dance with food and drink. Music was so loud I almost became deaf. Maybe three or four hundred people last year. Friends and family mostly, I think.

The two new house projects near the upper end of the paved road are moving along quickly. The one back in the woods has two stories now and looks very nice. The other house, down in the creekbed below the road, was completely surrounded by moving water during the two day rainstorm last weekend. But the second story is going up. I keep meaning to walk around that way and take a closer look. The layout looks interesting. My neighbor Jesus told
me the house belongs to a friend of his who is from Las Varas and has spent many years earning money in the US. He also said the new eijido government, which just took office, is still opening to eventually sell alot of the eijido land to a new developer but that the lots the eijido has already sold will not be included unless the current owner doesn't want to keep his ownership. Who knows what that means or what he really knows about what's going on.

Laura Sura's Techo unit on top of her house is about 2/3's completed. Her brother Paco is doing the electrical, gas, and plumbing. Which kind of surprised me.

The first floor of the house/rental unit of the guy, Paul, from the US who is planning to open a surf shop and gym is about 1/2 done. I think it is going to be three stories, although someone told me that area is "zoned" for two stories. The concept of "zoning" on that road is an little bizarre in my mind. But whatever, and I may have misunderstood.

The big hotel on the paved road is now trying for a December opening date. It looks very nice. A local person told me the owners are marketing it to US/Canadian people. That is kind of reassuring to me because US/Canadian tourists tend to:
  • Not have cars with them. The hotel has 15 rooms and 7 parking slots and I assume the other cars will be parked on the road. Actually parked cars car all along the road may slow down the very, very fast traffic (often huge construction trucks) coming and going from the Marina (the gated community at the end of the paved road). I guess there is an upside to everything.
  • Tend to go to bed quietly and early-ish
  • Do not play their music an maximum decibels (anyone who has been here during Semana Santa knows what I am talking about)
  • And generally don't throw trash on the ground. Litter is on-going problem in Mexico, reminiscent of California in the fifties, when the side of every highway was ankle deep in trash.
I guess that remark has some negative connotations, but it certainly seems to be reality.

The new restaurant down the the non-beach side of the beach road is going to have a second story, apparently for the view? Or maybe there will be rental rooms up there. Different workers tell me different things and often I misunderstand. Any, it looks nice, with rock designs on the front wall.

And Chico's new bar is moving along. I don't quite understand the layout but I am sure it will become obvious soon.

I think I mentioned before that Majahau's new spa is really, really beautiful, and worth a walk to see it, and maybe to have a massage or one of the other services.

The ocean as calmed down about about a week of kind a wild waves. And it has cooled down a little in the evening. Still very hot and humid during the day. Everyone will be glad to know at the bug and spider life is alive and well, and probably propagating madly.

This is another practice at installing an "active link", which directs you to my first little website that is really only a list of Chacala websites.

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