Mexico: La Joya

"We all have a fear of the unknown, what one does with that fear makes all the difference in the world." I've been in Puertecito three weeks now. As I sat at the station in Tuxtla awaiting the overnight bus that would bring me here I felt something I hadn't felt since I was at that terminal in Mexico City twelve weeks ago awaiting my flight to Chiapa de Corzo; fear. Traveling alone, all my possessions on my back, navigating a transportation system I'm not too familiar with in a language I still only have a basic understanding of, to a destination I knew relatively nothing about, with an email address as my only form of contact, and a handwritten map as the only thing to guide me. It's good to be afraid every now and then, it just means you're doing something that's pushing you outside the boundaries of your comfort zone. If everything in life were simple, easy, and comfortable we wouldn't learn or grow much. A question I challenge you with, when was the last time you were afraid? Anyway, ten hours on a bus and I would cross state lines and enter the Oaxacan coast. I wasn't entirely sure what the nature of my work was going to be or where I'd be staying exactly but then again that was the same situation I walked into when I first entered Chiapas. I knew I was heading to the beach and that was that, another opportunity, another adventure. 
        My contact was a man named Arturo and through our emails he shared with me that he was working on building an ecologically sustainable home beachside in Puertecito fittingly named; La Joya (the jewel). Addresses more or less don't exist in Mexico, at least in the smaller towns, and given that Puertecito doesn't even show up on google maps I think that gives you an idea of how easy it is to find La Joya. I had GPS coordinates from Arturo and a hand drawn map based off that location to guide me. The bus ride went smooth enough and a short taxi ride later down some winding dirt roads following my map brought me to the gate of a residence surrounded by 10 foot adobe walls. When I walked through the giant wooden doors and saw what lay beyond I thought I must have arrived at the wrong location. Beautiful gardens, giant palm trees, multiple adobe buildings blending in with the landscape, hammock cabanas, and an empty beach with the ocean less than 200 feet away; this was my new home, this was La Joya.  

        Arturo is a middle aged Dutchman who came to Mexico for the first time some ten years ago in search of his own Eden. After scouring the beaches of France, Spain, and Portugal Arturo looked across the ocean to find the location to begin construction of his dream home. He searched the Yucatan peninsula to no avail and eventually stumbled upon Puerto Escondido on the Pacific coast. After two years of living in town he found a plot of land for sale 30 km east in the tranquil village of Puertecito. Three acres right on the beach, land that would probably cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in the States or in Europe, and Arturo was able to buy it for a very affordable price (and pay next to nothing in taxes on it). After traveling different parts of the world, working in mechanics and construction, and experiencing the generosity of others who gave him opportunities to work, learn, and enjoy life - La Joya was Arturo's way of expressing his passion for simple and sustainable living while also giving back to other travelers and the local community. He's been here for eight years now and has hosted dozens of volunteers who have helped him build the complex that is now his home. Eight bedrooms, a kitchen, eight full bathrooms, a juicing station, a tool shed, work station, garage, gardening shed, apartment across the street, numerous cabanas with hammocks, fruit garden, vegetable garden, herb garden, ornamental garden, an irrigation system to water these gardens,  a third story deck that's great for yoga, a dining room courtyard, a porch area for tea, a rooftop jacuzzi, fire pit, a 10 foot wall to surround the property and a series of walkways and paths that tie everything together (and that doesn't even include his property in the mountains). Arturo is cheerful, relaxed, and selfless but he is also precise and exact in everything he does. There are systems in place everywhere on the property all of which stem from his extensive experience designing and fixing cars and his trial and error with green construction over the years.  As a young man of action who normally tackles a problem with the first thought that runs into his head, Arturo's well thought out logical explanations for everything from how to properly pull a weed to how to juice carrots has been welcome. 
       

Katja, Myself, Efren, Marcos, and Yves

 I was joined at La Joya by Yves and Katja, a French Canadian couple that is currently six months into their year long journey of exploring western Canada, the western US, and Mexico. They left Calgary back in October and have been traveling North America by van, volunteering and working at different locations along the way. While this sounds like an epic journey they both tell me this is one of their easy trips. Five years ago they biked from Cancun to Argentina (some 6000 miles) and they were both in their 50's at the time. They both try and take a year's vacation every couple years to explore a different part of the world together. It's always nice to meet some older folks that are spending their money and years traveling together and having new experiences instead of buying vacation homes and playing golf. Yves runs his own handyman business back in Canada and he has been able to do numerous projects on his travels since he brought most of his tools with him in their van. He's also an unofficial chef, constantly making food in the kitchen (and I'm constantly eating it). Humus, lentils, beans and rice, smoothies, lasagna, fruit salads - everything vegan or vegetarian and all of it delicious; arguably the best food I've had in my life, or at least for as long as I can remember. I was doubly spoiled since Arturo was also one heck of a cook, one day we returned from work and he had laid out a four course meal for us complete with soup, salad, pasta, dessert, and even wine. For me it confirmed that more people would be vegetarians if they simply knew how to cook or had someone offering them worthy alternatives. It's easy to just throw meat into the center of our diet when it's so widely available and it's so easy to cook - real cooking is an art form, one that I got to see in action. Yves and Arturo have no formal training, just years of experimenting in the kitchen, and They make it all look easy. They know how every spice in the kitchen will affect every type of food and how each cooking method will alter the flavor. They also know which kinds of salads, wines, or cheeses compliment each dish. They would open an empty fridge with a random zucchini, pineapple, two eggs, and some rice and somehow be able to make a full meal for us (okay okay there were more things in the fridge than that, but these guys could take anything that was lying around and create something delicious). It's a skill set that I aspire to have one day. Yves' wife Katja is a nurse back in Canada. I mentioned before that they were both French Canadians but technically Katja is Danish since she was born in Denmark, was raised in France and moved to Canada later in her adult life. She met Yves on a ski trip out west and they hit it off and got hitched. They ended up moving from Quebec to the mountains of Alberta where they currently call home. I guess their whole story is a setback for my theory of hatred between the French and French Canadians from my previous post since these two ended up getting married- though I do want to point out that my other Canadian theory is still valid - non French Canadians don't go to Mexico. Three months in Mexico and I have met nearly a dozen French Canadians while still not meeting a single Canadian from another province! Anyway, Yves and Katja's stop in La Joya marked the furthest southern point of their trip and the halfway point of their travels. They have another 6 months to explore the Mexican Pacific coast, California, and Vancouver before heading back to the mountains for fall. 
     

Apart from us traveling volunteers, Arturo also has three local hired hands that work daily on the property. Efren has been working for Arturo for years now and he is more or less his right hand man, taking care of the property whenever Arturo returns to the Netherlands. Immediately upon meeting him I was reminded of Marco, my basketball coach from my last post, same sense of humor, same strength of character, and same ability to mentor and guide. Efren is extremely intelligent as well. No University or real formal schooling, but he has a natural mind for construction and engineering. He makes furniture, builds homes, fixes machines and although I can't do any of those things, a piece of paper might say I'm more intelligent/qualified because I took two years of college level calculus and trigonometry (I could go on another education tirade but I'll save it for later). He tells me most of what he's learned has just been from watching other guys and copying what they're doing (a simple strategy that I think most people who are novices in something try to employ). The difference between someone like Efren and I though is that while I may try and copy an expert's methods the results inevitably turn out like that of a novice while Efren's work actually turns out like an experts (case in point being the day the two of us were plastering a wall next to each other, it was both of our first times, but the result was night and day, luckily Efren went over mine again for me ha). While Arturo is technically my boss and is in charge of the big picture it is Efren who oversees our work on the ground and gives us our assignments and instructions in the morning. Yves and Katja are fluent in Spanish so they have no problem following Efren; however, I sometimes get lost in the directions and Efren and I use a lot of gesturing, pointing, spanglish, and laughing to get our points across. Efren speaks a little bit of English since he has been to the States on three occasions; all of them illegally. 
            While I've probably already unknowingly met dozens of other people who have overstayed their visas or worked illegally in the States Efren is the first person I meet to open up about his experience. At 15, not knowing a word of English and having never left his small village, his father and him traveled 1,000 miles to the border where they paid a coyote some 5,000 dollars to get them into the States. They worked in a paper factory for a year and came home with enough money to support their family... once again his story speaks to the narrative that represents the vast majority of "illegals." Folks temporarily working in the States to earn money that they can send back to their loved ones because there are no jobs and there is no way to support their families back in Mexico. What we make in an hour with minimum wage equals what the average worker in Mexico makes in a day (at least in Oaxaca and Chiapas). So think about that for a second. One days work in the states equals an entire weeks pay and then some in Mexico. So about a month and a half of work in the States will equal their regular annual salary and that's if they can even find stable work down here to begin with. Like I've written in a previous post my three months of living down here have equaled less than two weeks pay (and I don't make that much money back in the States). So of course people are going to come or stay illegally with numbers like that. So all those illegals are murderers and rapists right? Let me ask this, why would they go to the States when it's so much easier to get away with those crimes down here. So no that's fear mongering, these are hard working men and women who see an economic opportunity and a chance to improve the lives of their families and their children. They risk imprisonment, deportation, losing their coyote money, or even death because the opportunity for economic advancement is so good. It's why Efren returned two more times; first as a restaurant worker and then as a pipelayer. Efren worked his way up from the bottom of the latter company from a grunt to the assistant foreman and earned a wage most Americans would even be happy with. He was given opportunities for further promotion but he chose to return to Oaxaca to be with his family. When he found work with Arturo, his need to go to the States to find work ended, thus confirming that if Mexicans could find stable well paying work in their own neighborhoods they wouldn't ever go to the States in the first place. 
       

 Marcos is another one of Arturo's workers. We're the same age, both enjoy riding bikes, and both like listening to music while we work. Our differences; well to start off with Marcos has never left the state of Oaxaca or even the coast for that matter from what I understand. At lunch one day I began to ask him more about traveling. He tells me its all a matter of time and money. If you don't have work then you can't afford to travel. If you have work you can't afford to risk losing your job to take a vacation to travel - it's just the way things work here. It's during this same conversation that I put together the numbers about wages in America vs Mexico. I share the results with Marcos, telling him about how cheap it is to live here for me and that's when my privilege just hits me in the face. Here's a guy who's barely gone 100 km from his birthplace because he's been working his tail off day in and day out since he was a kid and now some white dude from the States is pointing out how superior the American dollar is to him as he's traveling the country that he, Marcos, may never have the opportunity to see. Hell, I know I'd resent me.  But once again there's no hostility, no jealousy, just a nod of the head and a smile as Marcos heads back to work. But damn, this game is unfair, rigged from the beginning so that folks like myself have the ability to travel the world if we so choose while others can't even leave their state if they wanted to. 
     

Fernando, aka the monkey machine, is a 5 foot tall Zapotecan from the nearby mountains of the Sierra Norte. The man is small but he packs a punch. This past week Efren partnered me with Fernando for the day and I witnessed firsthand how effective of a worker he was. We had to dig a pit for compost and yard waste that was 2 meters deep and 2 meters by 1.5 meters wide (for those who don't know metric, this was a big hole). We began in the full morning sun shoveling the heavy sand/dirt and prying the large rocks out of our way. Within ten minutes I was drenched with sweat and taking my first water break. Fernando would go on to work for an hour straight without even taking a sip of water or sweating for that matter - he's not human - hence the nickname of the machine. Our next project together was to start gathering materials for a new batch of compost - carbon rich brown items (dried grass and old leaves), nitrogen rich green items (fresh leaves), and earth (in this case we used a nice blend of soil and goat poop). The dried grass and earth were easy enough but the fresh leaves we needed were in the trees, 20 feet up. Fernando put his machete between his teeth and promptly scaled the trees and then proceeded to rhythmically slice entire branches with a single stroke of his blade. Even more impressive then the wielding of his machete was the fact that he could channel so much strength into it while precariously balancing on smaller branches from such a large height. To him it was effortless as he jumped from branch to branch, hacking and slicing (he could have been an extra in the Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon bamboo forest fight scene). This is how he got the monkey nickname from me. Fernando's village is in the mountains but every couple weeks he descends the highlands to spend a week or two helping Arturo. Fernando harvests most of his food from the mountain jungle near his home and does some construction projects for his village but he still needs money from time to time, hence his presence at La Joya. He is a simple man. Although there are a half dozen open rooms he could stay in on the property he chooses to sleep on the roof of the tool shed. Spanish is a second language to him as well since his entire village speaks the indigenous Zapotec language, so in those regards he and I have something in common as there are times where neither of us know what everyone else is talking about. Strange to think their are whole villages and even cities where Spanish isn't the first language in Mexico, I don't think the same could be said for anywhere in the States.  
          Together all of us worked on a number of projects at La Joya - building raised beds, painting buildings, installing a chicken coop, turning compost, constructing furniture, weeding the gardens but probably the more interesting work we did was at the mountain property. Arturo acquired 2 hectares of land that he hopes to use as his mountain retreat that will be completely off grid and self sustainable. There, we watered the numerous fruit trees that were transplanted, gathered firewood with the use of a chainsaw, created a new road through the jungle with machetes (arguably my favorite activity, the sound a machete makes when you hit the perfect angle on a vine or a tree is remarkably soothing), and finished the adobe walls of the cabin as well as its roof of palm leaves. There's just something about waking up at 6am and putting in a hard days work, getting your hands blistered and the sun on your face, that feels so right to me. Maybe it's the fact that our work is tangible, you can visually see the progress you've made every day, or maybe it's just the good company and the fresh air but most of the time it didn't even feel like work. One of my favorite things about our workdays in the mountains was the 30 minute drive to get there from La Joya. I love riding in the back of pick up trucks, I wish it wasn't so frowned upon in the States (oh the irony of a cop writing you a ticket for not wearing a seat-belt as he speeds off on his motorcycle...). The back of the truck is full of tools, palm branches, and our giant jug of water for the fruit trees and there is barely space for Marcos, Fernando, and I to fit so we straddle the rusty frame and hang off the back of the car as the wind blows through our hair and we take off for the jungle. (In the video below, I say MOST Americans spend two hours stuck in traffic commuting each day, what I meant to say was SOME Americans spend two hours commuting... still que triste)

     
 So how did I find out about this place? All through HelpX, a website that connects volunteers who want to learn and offer their labor with hosts who need help on projects and offer a free place to stay. It's an awesome tool for travelers that helps you save money while also guaranteeing memorable experiences. With HelpX I worked on a dairy sheep farm in Wisconsin, gardened in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans, laid the foundation of an EarthShip in the Ozarks, and now worked with adobe in Mexico. Katja and Yves have solely been using HelpX on their North American trip so far, six months of HelpX-ing. They've met dozens of other volunteers from around the world, gotten to know the locals at every spot they've stayed, learned about new building and farming techniques, and helped some folks get closer to achieving their dreams. That's what it's really all about, learning, sharing, and building a community. I see HelpX kind of as my version of social security... I'm putting in my volunteer hours now, traveling to other folks properties, gaining knowledge and helping them to improve their land and their home because one day I hope to be a host. Seeing Arturo's passion and generosity to his volunteers and workers just confirms that I want to have my own homestead someday - a place where I can invite friends and volunteers to share my town and hospitality with while we learn, build, and enjoy the simple things in life together. I've shared before on how I'm not a big fan of being a teacher in the classroom per se, but maybe a teacher on the farm - in green building, permaculture, and sustainable living - now that's more of the realm I could see myself in. I just need to build up the knowledge and get the land to make it possible. 

Go Take A Shower You Dirty Hippie

                   After we finished work, the rest of the day was ours. This place was enough of a paradise during work already, making juice in the morning while I watched the sun rise, painting walls with beautiful views of the ocean, or digging in the garden with the rhythmic sound of the waves in the background. So when I finished in the afternoon I usually took advantage of my private beach. Okay so it's not technically my beach, it's public, but because of the numerous boulders that line the shore and others that are just under the surface of the water Puertecito doesn't get many tourists. It's extremely dangerous to swim or surf here and everyone typically heads to the beaches of Puerto Escondido 30 km NW or Mazunte 30 km SE instead. Between these two tourist hot spots are beautiful empty beaches that border farms and fishing villages but are more or less empty. 

        I engaged the water in a number of ways. On my first morning here I saw that Arturo had a little kayak and immediately made plans for that evening to give it a try. Well nearly three weeks later and I have yet to actually go kayaking because the waves are so big here that I get flipped every time I make a run against them. In my defense the kayak is a sit atop casual kayak designed more for lakes, not a sea kayak designed for the huge waves of the ocean. I've also yet to see it be calm here, every minute of every day there have been huge waves. I've tried going on some of the "calmer" days but the waves are still three or four feet tall and break remarkably close to shore due to the sharp drop off only a few feet in. Add in the rocks and the fact that I didn't have a life jacket and it only took me flipping a few times to realize this was a recipe for disaster. So I headed to the little tidal rock pools and began snorkeling instead. The way the tides work here there are isolated pools full of fish during low tide so you have your own aquarium where you can float comfortably and observe an array of brightly colored species. I also did a bit of boogie boarding in the little gaps where there weren't any rocks although this still proved to be dangerous as the waves and the undertow are treacherous. After some twenty good runs of riding waves on the board I got slammed into the hard packed sand directly on my back on one run and I still feel sore a week later. One of Arturo's friends who is a doctor in Puerto tells me I'm lucky I landed on my back and not on my neck as she's had to deal with numerous patients who have destroyed their upper vertebrae surfing in these waves. For now I'm taking her warning to heart and staying away from surfing and boogie boarding until I can find more friendly waters. Just because I'm not swimming in these beautiful waves that doesn't mean I still can't enjoy them. I've been trying to go on sunset runs every other day, timing it so I run 15 minutes, enjoy the sunset, and run 15 minutes back. I find it remarkable that I can run 2 miles in either direction and often not even see another person on the beach - I really do have this whole place to myself.  
       And that's just it, this place is paradise but often I'm the only one here. Efren and Marcos return home after work, Fernando takes a siesta and hides (maybe in the trees ha), Yves and Katja are cooking, taking walks, or out driving, and Arturo is often in Puerto running errands or visiting with other friends. Yves and Katja actually left last week too so there's been a couple of evenings/nights where I'm the only one staying here, alone in paradise at a private resort. I'm an introvert at heart, I have no doubt about that, but when you're in a place that's so beautiful you desperately want to share it with someone. When you have miles of empty beaches you want to have someone to explore it with. Just confirms to me that where you are and what you have isn't all that important if you don't have the people to share it with. Makes me wish the community of people from Chiapa could come out and visit, luckily a few of them were just crazy enough to make the 10 hour trip by bus and spend some of their spring break with me.

Jesse, Paola, Myself, Preston, and Juliette

          The notion that people and relationships are more important to happiness than material objects should be obvious, and it's something I've always preached but living at La Joya has given me the ability to truly test it. I had an off the grid eco resort on an empty beach in Mexico all to myself for a couple days and even with all that I still know I wasn't completely happy, that there were more important things missing. Most people never get the opportunity to have that experience, to receive everything they daydream about (for others maybe it's a dream house, or a private island, or a certain car, for me I daydream about having a sustainable eco-community in a relatively secluded area, much like La Joya), only to realize that these things don't really change your life in a significant way. Would I still like to own a place like La Joya, absolutely. Would it bring me some happiness, of course. But would it complete the picture and fulfill me, nah. So I think that's my point. That when push comes to shove - I'd rather be with friends and family in a city I hate than on a private beach with no one to share it with. It's funny looking back at the messages I received growing up, watching shows as a teenager like My Super Sweet Sixteen and MTV Cribs, and repeatedly seeing the rich of our society showing off their wealth and how they have bought or received every object they could ever possibly want in life. It's presented in a way as if they have reached the pinnacle of happiness (eight cars, three pools, thirty seven pairs of shoes, gold plated toilets), but little do we know that these celebrities who are showing off their castles and mansions are the same ones who are drug addicted, divorced, depressed, or even dead. What have these things gotten them; nothing. While I know a property alone won't soothe my soul it's safe to say I'd take La Joya over anything you'd ever see on MTV Cribs. And on that note that I thought I'd give ya'll a little "cribs" tour of the place I've called home for the last three weeks. 

         And as I finish writing this blog from La Joya, with the waves crashing in the background, and that sea breeze sending my hair in wild directions - I can't help but feel a tinge of fear. This is my last night here. Tomorrow I'm packing my bags and heading to another destination I know relatively nothing about. I'm not sure exactly where I'll be staying or what I'll be doing there but I have a few emails to go off of and at least this time I don't need a hand written map to get me there. Another opportunity, another adventure, awaits...