palapas
Palapa
September first, 2006 at East Cape was a day to remember. Hurricane John came ashore as a moderate storm but we learned the hard way it was carrying
some formidable power of another kind. Tornados in the eyewall, skipped and jumped with the same deadly caprice they move in Kansas or Oklahoma. Los
Barriles wind gauges marked winds of 217 before they were destroyed.
The storm destroyed a lot of structures – palm thatch roofs, porches and shades of every kind were shredded and pulverized in seconds. Some of the
palapas had withstood scores of hurricanes with more murderous numbers but fell to the tricky John.
I heard a lot of damage reports on my boat radio when I got temporary power to it and was surprised and saddened to hear most who lost palm structures
were not going to rebuild them. Most said they would do without or make solid concrete shades that would require no maintenance and live through most
hurricanes that might come our way in future seasons.
My umbrella patio palapa snapped off at the base but stayed put in my seaside patio area so I made another hole, hired a loader to pick it up, drop
the big palm center post and made the structure live again (a foot and a half shorter than before). The next beach walker whose great quiet eye rolled
right over us left the palm post but tore the roof apart while it sent it flying over a hundred meters out into the dirt street.
Later this summer I will have another smaller, cheaper one built in the existing hole and hope I can use it a while. Why would I do that, knowing more
storms will come this way to destroy the thing again? Good question.
On my very first land trip to the southland I camped at the beaches of Bahia Concepción and found a whole new way of life just lazing away in my
hammock strung in the shade of the handy palapas. I felt at ease, relaxed, somehow lulled into another dimension staring at the palm vigas and the
clever thatch that make up this necessity for even the shortage stay in the tropics. Perhaps this thatch time machine exists because what we all
stared at before the light went off NOB was so jarringly dull and different. Maybe it was the buzzing of the big black carpenter bees or the sound of
the palms swishing and creaking with the breeze that made the things the absolute core of the beach experience.
The day after I stashed all the stuff on my trailer in my newly purchased retirement home in East Cape I tore down the ugly skeleton of a tired old
palm shade on the lee side and got ready for my new one. All the materials were local and it didn’t take me long to make a rough plan and pick out the
makings: red palm structure, palo Amarillo posts, palo de arco cross pieces, datil tiedowns. After 15 years it’s still standing – has a few storm
whiskers but I just leave em’ for conversation sake. When there’s a big one coming I criss cross the thing with my big boat ropes and I think that may
have helped to keep it in place a time or two.
Now, with 15 years of thousands of pilgrims moving here, building palm structures like mine, we are running out of material in this part of Baja
California. That’s one of the reasons my $2,000 palapa would cost me about $15,000 to replace but the materials would not be the same, not as strong
and resilient. There’s a special joke living inside all of this. Visitors to my place love the tropical, “Mexican” look of the patio and peg it as an
absolute icon of the time and place. I wait until their second Bloody Mary to tell them the truth: palapas here are the clever invention of aceraderos
and palaperos who have found ways to use palm and other natural materials to make very good money off the likes of romantics like me.
I’ve been to their homes in the mountains, sat in the shade of huge guaymuchil trees, shared some beers and some laughs about the fact that they have
no palapas. Their thatch roofed homes have as many as 30 layers of palm fronds laid down over whatever kinds of solid hardwood they could muster in
the beginning. Some of the ranch houses have withstood the torment of 150 years of hurricane seasons without being destroyed – the weight of the palm
thatch defies the strength of the swirling beasties. These are practical people and their lives demand function over style when it comes to things
that could kill and destroy.
I marvel at the ingenuity they have acquired in just a couple of generations; the good palaperos have learned to design palm shades for every style of
gringo home, to make it fit, they use and hide flashing to make it all work in the rain. They know the placement, the pitch, the load and I don’t know
of a soul in these parts complaining about their palapas if they hired the good guys, used good judgment about design and materials.
I have invented panels of plastic palm fronds for the future. I gave my palaperos a file with all the specs and drawings for that fateful day they get
orders they can’t possibly fill. They like the name Palapas Plasticos but I don’t think they really cotton to the idea yet.
|
![[*]](images/xmbforum/default_icon.gif){kind=icon}
