Thursday, 21 December 2017: Celestun

The last few days have been filled with swims in the gulf and walks along the beach. Justin has been planting and I've been cooking a bit. Our peaceful routine was jolted a bit today when Justin got stung by a scorpion. We learned very fast to wash with soap and water then apply ice to slow the spreading of the venom. Thankfully, Justin was a cooperative patient and he seemed to have no ill effect within a few hours.

We received a quite positive response from Bijan regarding our interest in Casa Maria. We wanted to talk to Peter again to share our news and ask a dozen more questions. I started my research and reading on how to run a hotel and now I feel the need to establish a business plan. We knew from talking to Dan Wood that foreigners can't own land within 35 kilometers of a border (including the shore) so one must obtain a fideo comisio where, basically the bank owns the property. Well, now we've learned that the second option is that the property belong to a corporation and foreigners can own that. Justin and I have talked a lot about not actually running this as a hotel but more of a guest house. I was entertaining the idea of not having a business at all but instead, running this as an Air BnB from our "home." Now, I'm seeing that I'll be up to my gills in not only static vs dynamic pricing of inventory (aka: rooms) and staff wages and benefits but also Mexican tax law and insurance. Hmmm... The spin I'm putting on this is that I'll look at this as going back to work. We could do this and this place could be dynamite. I need to continue to research into other properties around this area to learn of the competition. We need to find our niche and then we'll be a bit closer to determining our price point for rentals.

 We met Cindy on the beach a few days ago. Actually she was in her kayak. Cindy, artist, was an AirForce brat, and while so goes to California when she goes to the states, she calls Celestun home as she has been coming here for 28 years. She told us all about salsa classes. She met me at 5:45 and off we went. The instructor, Sandra, is Cuban. She and her husband Peter own a small hotel down the beach just a few hundred yards. She also teaches Pilates and as much as I think I might like to try that out, the classes are M-F at 8:30am. Even though I might be awake, that is still a bit too early for me. The class was definitely an exercise class but with salsa moves.

Two of Cindy's pieces.  She sent these photos through What's App

I told Sandra at the end of class that white girls just didn't move that way. It was a great workout and I added the T/ Th, 6:00pm appointment to my calendar. Justin, who needs to avoid scorpions, prepared a pasta dish for dinner while I was counting dance steps.