Camping in Chacala

One of the high points of my day, was I rented a Coke table from Dona Lupe. A Coke table, as in a small four-person table with wooden legs and a red metal top advertising Coke. For some reason I have coveted those tables since I first saw one. No one really owns them. They are for people who sell Coke (half the town probably), and the Coke guys take them back when you stop selling Coke. So Dona Lupe probably isn’t supposed to be renting it to me (for 30pesos/2.80 USD a month), but I am really glad she did. I am using it in my kitchen area.

I set up my old tent this morning, crammed in next to my new tent. I think I am supposed to stay within the boundaries of my palapa roof, which is about 18 by 25 feet, maybe. I don’t think they care if I go out toward the beach/water. I am about 10 feet from the high tide line.

So anyway, now I have a tent for my stuff, like clothes, and this and that, and then my big new tent has my bed and a table and chair for my little office. With my favorite drawing stuff, Spanish lesson books, and my notebooks for lists, and space for my computer. I love sitting in the tent looking out at the ocean and the palm fronds. And now I night I think it will be okay to compute, without the bug problem I hope.

Oh, the other high point today was that the little neighbor boys, six year olds Carlos and Ricardo came back again today to color with my pens. They really do nice drawings and they love the colors.

And I love sitting there with them drawing and watching the ocean, and boats, and pelicans, and people walking back and forth to Mar de Jade, a local small hotel/retreat center.

Here’s another interesting (to me anyway) cultural difference between gringos and Mexicans in Chacala. Mexicans always look and smile and wave when they walk by, even teenagers (unless they’re lost in love). However, guests at Mar de Jade (participants at a Zen retreat this week) seem to either sneakily look and pretend not too, or ignore us sitting here. If we wave they never wave back. I’ll take that back. One lady did wave back and then quickly looked away. I don’t know what they are thinking (maybe not wanting to invade our/my privacy or something.

One way Mexican tourists in Chacala and Zen retreatants are alike is none of them pick up the plastic garbage on the beach. Yesterday a plastic cup was lying on the beach all day and probably 60 people ignored it. Today it was a large green plastic 7-up bottle, and even more people ignored it.