It’s been about a week since we arrived in Mazunte, and finally we can say that we are close to being able to start. Since the place had been packed up for the rainy season, everything had to be reassembled from scratch: we made the composting toilet operational again, installed the solar shower in a similar fashion to last time, and set up my versatile Kohte tent as a corner to protect the kitchen from sun and wind. The former two were fortunately not too complicated, so after a couple of days we could meet our most basic hygienic needs. The kitchen, on the other hand proved to be a bit more complicated.
Setting up the Kitchen
Its contents, along with most smaller and bigger items, were stashed away in the unreliable truck, parked up on a steep hill of a friend’s property. What turned this already complicated situation into a real challenge, was the fact that the truck was probably out of gas, its battery dead, and its wheels buried deep in the soil, due to the heavy waters that washed around it this past rainy season. So accessing the gas bottle for the stove, or even just the jar of forks proved to be a formidable undertaking.
Finally, a friend in the village asked us to take care of her truck while she was away. Of course, we would be happy to do her this favor. It came as the blessing we desperately needed. We managed to haul the tables and benches, the stove, all the kitchen items, along with a bunch of other stuff we still need to go through (and probably discard half of it). Now we finally don't have to cook in the bus, which turned the already pre-heated vehicle
Finally, a friend in the village asked us to take care of her truck while she was away. Of course, we would be happy to do her this favor. It came as the blessing we desperately needed. We managed to haul the tables and benches, the stove, all the kitchen items, along with a bunch of other stuff we still need to go through (and probably discard half of it). Now we finally don't have to cook in the bus any longer, which is pre-heated in the sun anyway, but if the kitchen is active it turns into a proper sauna.
Refrigeration
It is always a challenge to keep things cool in a place like Mazunte. Two years ago we already struggled with inefficient coolers, spending too much money on melting ice, and buying only small quantities of food to keep it from perishing. This year, my friends tried to be a step ahead of the game, and making use of the the ample hauling capacity of their bus, brought an American size fridge down with them.
The US can be an effective gold-mine for certain things. Tools, for example, are always cheaper and usually better than the ones sold in Mexico. The same goes for shoes, electronics, vehicles, pretty much anything. At the same time, in the States you can score basic household items virtually for free, which was the case for their refrigerator. The disappointment was considerably great, when put in its place, this beast of a machine refused to work. A brief consultation with the local fridge-man (and the corresponding remuneration) later, we were hooked up with a smaller, but at least working refrigerator.
Kitchen and Shower Plumbing
The simplest part of the camp to re-assemble were the water connections. The “solar” shower consists of nothing else but a water garrafón with a little tap in it. All we need to do is fill it up from the hose, and set it onto the platform above the shower. The hose, by the way, gets its water from the two large tanks firmly installed on a small platform on the highest point of the site, making it the only structure that remains in ints place year-round.
The kitchen sink is similarly simple: A plastic washbowl with a hole in the middle, and a well made drain inside, leads the water… to a second bowl below. From there the gray-water can be dumped on the plants or the compost.
Is This All ???
Looking back at the camp, it doesn’t seem like we’ve done a lot. In fact, most of it could have been done in a day, probably two, if we had not been distracted by other things. Unfortunately chilling on the beach was not among them. Taking advantage of the truck, we went to get tires from the garbage dump, and set them up to be used for the retaining wall at the property in Bahía de la Luna. There, we also had to build a couple of terraces to pitch a tent, dug a composting toilet, prepared a shower, and cleared an area for the solar panels.
This work also does not include all the phone calls (oftentimes filled with misinformation), all the meetings (oftentimes resulting in no-shows on the official side), and fees charged (oftentimes turning out to be more than initially requested) that is part of dealing with the bureaucratic aspect of living and building here. Nothing new in this respect… Though by now, I think we should be almost ready to start with the retaining walls.