polonovia

Last night I took a brief tour of Cancun hotels that are in various stages of rebuilding. Our hotel looks lovely after three months of being closed to rebuild, but the Hyatt right next door is in gut rehab phase and nowhere near completed. The other Hyatt at the opposite end of the strip is too unstable and is being torn down. The swimming pools haven't been drained, and the stench from the water is like nothing I've ever smelled. Apparently they had some floaters in there, which is knowledge I truly cold have done without since I my walk to and from my room has the swimming pool as scenery.

The tennis courts at the Krystal -- which lost ALL of its windows so furniture was flying out of the rooms -- are filled with mattresses, desks, couches, chairs -- all too water-damaged to salvage so they await transport to dumps far away form the pretty of the strip. Most of the main strip in Cancun is fine -- the beaches have been rebuilt and filled with the most beautiful white sand. One local estimated 70% of the beaches and sandbars were destroyed.

The best part so far has been watching the artisans hand-tie the palm leaf hut roofs. They crawl on a grid of bamboo with dried palm fronds and weave away. It's a long process, but the repetition of the work is meditative. Heres what theyve finished so far:


It has been interesting to see the damage (a bit of morbid curiosity), but I thought Id attach a photo of me and the view out of my suite window:


(Thanks to RandomCrap for photo hosting while I'm away from home!)