Quality beach time

Each morning, we walk on the beach, before the sun gets too hot. We see pelicans fishing every day, but no other people until Saturday morning. Apparently, this is a weekend beach destination for folks living in Xela. The young men gathered on the beach early, for coffee and a visit.

















The palm trees created the prettiest reflection in the pool. One morning, I watched Alex scatter, by hand, some kind of white powder in the pool. Chlorine, I guess, but I surely could neither smell nor taste it. People action powered the circulation!













Alex, our host. He kept a tab of our daily charges, which included our meals and beers. We helped ourselves to beers, and told him how many at the end of the day. We paid him each evening, he charged us 100Q per day for our room. He told me that the dining palapa, the one with the concrete floor, was just finished in the past few months. The busy season is semana santa, Easter week. So far, we're the only people in the hotel, but he says that week he'll put as many as 10 people in each room, charging 100Q per person, about $12US a night!  I guess they sleep in shift, there are only two beds in the room.  From that week, he makes enough to survive the sparse guests the rest of the year, and he saved enough to build this nice place. The roof, made of banana leaves, costs about 1 Q per leaf, and will last about 15 years. He has a second pool under construction now...he says that during semana santa the pool is so filled with people that it sloshes out much of the water!

Alex's oldest son, who appears to be in his early 20's, told me that the water in the tap is clean...we can drink it.  This would be the first place in Mexico or Guatemala that the water is drinkable, but it makes sense, since they have their own well here.  I'm still drinking bottled water...


One night, Celia brought me this baked fish, mojarra.  We call it snook. She put some herba santa and salt in the foil with the fish, and cooked it over the open fire, her only heat source.  It came with the usual sliced tomatoes, onions and cucumber, and some roasted potatoes.  Celia is a good cook!  Life at the beach is pretty good.