Our Palapa is Fixed; True Craftsmanship at Work!

Hi everyone! It's great to be back after a week's hiatus :) There's been a lot going on around here, but one is particular is I got to watch a true craftsman repair our grass palapa; this is the view I'm enjoying as I type this :)

Here's the palapa when we moved in. You can see some holes in the main one, and the little one, which covers the stairs, was in need of some major repairs. Since we only have a studio, the "patio" is definitely living space, so our wonderful landlord, George, decided to fix it for us no problem!

One man arrived and began cutting away all of the grass around the seams ... along the peak and down the sides of the roof.

The first day he actually worked bare feet, but the second day he did wear shoes :)

I climbed up to our roof (there's a ladder in place for that) to get this shot. Most roofs here in Mexio have water tanks on them (the black tanks) where water is held and refilled when necessary. We're lucky to be on a cenote, so it only needs to pumped up from under ground; cold and fresh! The roof also houses the satelite dishes and airconditioners.

Here's a closeup of the seam of the roof once he had prepared it for the new grass.

Speaking of "new grass", it was all brought in on the bed of a pickup truck that George went to have loaded. Apparently it's a huge field of grass that gets cut almost like hay does.

We all helped bring the bundles to the empty lot beside us where the worker then hauled them up by rope to the roof top.

The bundled grass has some already dried but some bits still green,

and then each bundle is wired onto the beams on the inside of the palapa. It really is a work of art!

The little palapa was too much to repair, so he simply stripped it and started over.

He had it finished in about 45 minutes! See the garbage bags filled with grass? I guess the field where it comes from is filled with snakes, and at one point, Buddy, our cat, came running to the apartment with a baby snake hanging out of his mouth. Brian managed to get it away from him, but that evening, we discovered 4 more on the patio. The next day the worker told us to watch because they might fall from the roof over the next few days!!! I wore a hat for three days total! Hate snakes!

This is how it looks today; he trimmed the edge where we have to walk (the stairs are right there.

Not a gap of light from the inside anywhere! It rained today as well and I stayed completely dry. We also had our coconut lights hung too; it's just beautiful at night :)

Although a photo never quite does it justice!

I noticed Buddy earlier today and thought he was admiring the new roof as well,

but as I looked closer...

I saw this little guy! And Brian was concerned that his mama wasn't feeding him enough! :)

I'll leave you with this beauty, taken from my desk before it got dark. It rained this morning and was cloudy most of the day, but true to form, the sun made a short but very sweet appearance, just to say Hi :)

Hope you enjoyed the tour! I know it's only been a week, but I'm really looking forward to re-connecting with all of you :)

Cheers!

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