PV - Tues, 22 Jan 2013

It's early morning...well, 09:30 am...and I'm getting ready to find the 'lounge chair of the day'.

The sun doesn't come fully up here until about 7:45 but there's lots of activity around the resort. The little restaurant opens at 8 am and the boys are here setting up tables and making coffee. There's never a big rush for breakfast...there's never a big rush for anything here...but there is a steady group of people all day. Now that there is Wifi throughout the resort, there are always people sitting there with iPads or computers, checking their email, either with coffee or a drink, depending on the time of day.

Los Tules was the original site of a coconut plantation many years ago and even after the resort was built, there are some impressive palm trees. I'm not sure when coconuts are ready for harvesting, but there seems to be a routine whereby a group of guys come in to clean up branches and harvest the coconuts. It's a process that I never get tired of watching as the guy who goes up the tree does so with nothing but a loop around his waist and a length of rope tied between his feet. I watched him scurry up a tree this morning...about 60 ft high...in less than 10 seconds. He loops a piece of rope around a bunch of coconuts, makes one or two swipes with a machete and then lowers them to the ground. This clean-up is also needed for the safety of guests as one of those things could do some serious damage falling that distance. I nearly had a heart attack last night when one came down not far from where I was standing in the dark.

What amazes me is that everything is done by manual labour. Mexico simply doesn't have the financial conviences for all those mini-machines that we routinely use at home...but it sure has the manual labour. While the one guy up the tree cuts down coconuts and huge palm branches, the boys below use wheel barrows to load the coconuts and haul them away. Another couple of boys pile about 10 palm branches on top of one another so that they fit together, lift them onto their backs and drag them to a truck.

There's a small army of gardener's on the site to maintain the beautiful grounds of Los Tules. While we would employ one person driving a big sweeper to go up and down the many paths, Mexico has many people with brooms, rakes, and wheelbarrows. The housemaids start arriving around 8 am with buckets and mops...no housekeeping carts here...and start cleaning the patios and outside walkways until the old folks are out of bed. I'm one of those people who cleans before the maid comes in so she won't think we are pigs (???) so our girls has it easier than some. Yesterday she had to tear apart my made bed to change the sheets.

I'm really ticked with blogger for not having fixed their photo attachment issue! I'm going to vent on the user forum along with a few hundred other people...really, this is 2013!