Casita Chuparosa

We went back to Cerro to fix up some of the unfinished work left undone by the work crews. First, we wanted to get the rocks, sand and gravel piles (some of which are visible in photos of the wall on our preceding post) out of the road and on to our property. The fact that this construction material has been half-blocking the road for a couple months seems to bother nobody, but we didn’t want the eyesore out front. Plus kids playing in the sand pile and spread it out so it nearly crossed the entire road.

We hired a couple young men to haul everything into our lot, and pile it behind the house along the neighbors wall. I gave them $15 each for the half-day of hard labor, which is the going rate for an unskilled working man.

We also got the electricity hooked up, and hired someone to fill in the gaps under the roof where the laminate didn’t sit down on the cement. They also caulked the gaps between the pieces of laminate — those were closed before, but when the original workers filled in the big spaces under the curves, it lifted some of the pieces off their adjoining pieces, so they had to be filled in to keep the rain out.

Those were some of our goals this trip, but this report is really about the wildlife we have observed on the site. I’ve already mentioned the bats, foot-long lizards that appear to be house geckos, smaller anole-like lizards and bats. We also see plenty of black grackle-like birds, unidentified LBBs (little brown birds) and pigeons. Less numerous, but not uncommon are a small yellow and black bird I have yet to identify, a red-headed woodpecker of some sort, and small black and red birds. This trip we found a dead owl in the former (outdoor) bathroom:

Later we also found a dead iguana, though I don’t have a picture of that. We also see plenty of squirrels — they are medium sized, gray with reddish fur on the back of the head and on the rump.

The most interesting wild visitor came in one afternoon the day after the rocks were moved in off the road — an immature black iguana:

A neighbor has a large wood-pile that is full of the adult form of these guys, and they get big — about 75 cm (not including the tail). This juvenile, probably male, took up residence in the rocks, and could be seen sunning almost every afternoon. They live in communal groups, and have a surprising small territory, rarely straying more than five meters from their shelter. I suspect it is a Ctenosaura pectinata, though it doesn’t exactly match the pictures of those I’ve found online.

A neighbor reported seeing a green iguana in our fig tree a few months ago — we are not sure if it was the green species that lives in this area, or simply a young Ctenosaura pectinata, since the young are bright green, and darken as they get older. The young ones eat bugs mostly, while as adults they eat mostly vegetation, including fruits and leaves. We observed our guest eating leaves off some of the wild plants just beyond the fig tree.

Don’t know if that guy will still be there when we return, but if he is we want to figure out how to get him to move — we want to put the whole rock-pile nearer the back of the lot where we plan to leave one corner for growing wild native plants. We also plan a small pond, and so will probably put that within the five-meter home range of the iguanas. That will make a much better home than where he is now, but it might be difficult to explain that to him!

Speaking of plants, I have already mentioned some of the trees we have — coconut, banana, guamuchil, mango, limes and lemons. The guamuchil trees were in fruit, which is called guamuchili — green pods with round white fleshy parts surrounding black seeds. That white fleshy part is edible — Isabel and I both like them a lot. Here is what the look like:

They are sweeter when the pod bursts open and the white part begins to turn red, but they are also more likely to get wormy. If you look close before eating them, it is easy to separate out any with worms for the compost pile. We were also able to eat some ripe mangoes, though most of those were still green.

There are some sort of bracket mushroom growing off the roots of the fig tree, but they are too tough to be edible:

We visited Casita Chuparosa over the May Day holiday and subsequent week-end, and paid the final portion of the new construction costs. We were somewhat surprised by the amount of work left to be done. For one thing, we understood the agreement to include the floor tiles — but only the shower stall and kitchen counter-tops were tiled. The new cement work is slightly rough and needs to be smoothed to match the old walls. The electric wiring was placed inside the walls as agreed, but the choice of location and number of outlets, light fixtures and switches was rather poor.

Still, we are delighted that the house is now ‘livable’ at least, with indoor plumbing and plenty of light from the large windows. No screens on those windows yet (we had mentioned that, but like the floor tiles it was not in the itemized contract). Our big mistake was relying on the architect to include everything we discussed in the contract. There were almost fifty items listed in the contract — it is hard to see what is missing when presented with such a list.

They did some things that were not in the contract, but we had agreed to, such as filling in the gaps under the roofing. Other things were not in the contract and we hadn’t even thought to discuss, such as a cement floor in the small outdoor service patio area, which they did. Other things that we just assumed would be part of the job were not done because they weren’t listed — like a step under the new door, which is about 18 inches above the ground level. And don’t toilets usually come with seats? We also assumed there would be a base-layer of paint over the new work — but no, it’s not in the contract.

So there is a lot to be done yet, but we are certainly making progress! Here are photos of the new bathroom, viewed from inside and out. The black thing on the roof is a water storage tank. They left a kit that comes with that and has a float to automatically turn on-and-off the water flow — but they didn’t install it! The bathroom is quite large, the photo just shows one side, the other side has space for washer-dryer and large cabinets for storage.

Here is a view of the new kitchen, with its great view of the garden. The tile is very nice, and the shelves are cement. There are spaces for the stove and refrigerator with a small shelf between, where the water garrafon goes. There is plug for the refrigerator and one plug over the counter for everything else electric in the kitchen. The stove area has a connection to the LP gas tank (which is outside in the service patio, and also powers the hot water heater).

Below is the outside front view, showing our beautiful stone wall. The driveway gate is of palm-wood and iron, and has a small entry door. There is a matching small door to the service patio to the right that doesn’t show in this image. They have promised to move the left-over construction materials inside the gate, so we can use them in the landscaping.

And here is the back view. Notice that all the windows are plain rectangles, rather than the nice eyebrow shape we were promised — the architect told us that they could not use the eyebrow windows because they would have to cut steel reinforcement rods in the cement, which would structurally weaken the walls too much (and who are we to doubt it?)

So we are done with the construction phase. The finishing phase will be somewhat more extensive than we expected, but that is life.

The architect sent us a few photos of some of the work in progress at Casita Chuparosa, so I want to post some of my photos of the site before construction, and the architects photos for comparison. Unfortunately, we haven’t been to the site to actually see this work yet, so my photos are not from the same locations and in the same direction as his — you have to use some imagination to see what matches what.

The only exception is this first pair of photos, showing the back view of the main room. You will remember that the entrance was at back, and in the new design that is still the case — but the door has been moved over, the old door turned into a window and another new window has been added on the other side.

—

This also shows the roof. We plan to replace that eventually, but for now it would not fit in the budget. The big problem with that roof, of course, is that it was placed on the flat-topped walls, leaving large gaps underneath where bats, pigeons and other wildlife, as well as copious amounts of dust and dirt, could enter without impediment. The plan includes filling in those spaces, though the construction photo shows that has not been done yet.

In this next photo, you can see the light streaming in those gaps under the roofing. The bright area at left is not the window itself, but sunlight shining on the shutter that swings out into the room when the window was open. The plan calls for a new window here, but this area was not included in photos from the architect. This photo also shows the fuse box and wiring — all tacked on the surface of the wall. All that has been removed and a breaker box installed, with wiring inside the walls where it belongs…

Here we have a view of the rest of the wiring in that room, and the old door. In the new photo that follows it, we see the same area from a different angle — the new window is where the old door was, with a shelf for the kitchen sink beneath it. The old house had no plumbing at all (inside), and the smaller room at the side (which had it’s own door from the outside) was arbitrarily used as the kitchen area. Now that former ‘kitchen’ is to be the bedroom.

—

Here we can see the two new inside doors, one to the bathroom, and the other into the small room that is now going to be the bedroom. This wasn’t how we had it in the plan — the bathroom door should be just inside the bedroom, rather than just outside. Also, the step up to the bathroom was not anticipated — an unexpected tripping hazard. Not much we can do about it now, those are the hazards of working from a distance. We will have to put some sort of divider in the room, as this way the bathroom opens into the kitchen — not a pleasant arrangement.

This next picture shows the new door, just over the kitchen divider/shelf that separates the kitchen from the rest of the room, which is both eating and living space (and not much of it — it is a very small casita, after all).

An important part of the project is the stone wall out front, to provide security, and to block noise and dust. Here is a view of the front of the casita before construction, and then the new sidewalk and wall. The telephone pole provides a reference point in both. The new bathroom is in the space between the existing front wall and this new stone wall.

—

Overall, we are pleased with how things are progressing, excepting only the location of the bathroom door, and the step up at that point. No doubt the architect will have some explanation why it was done that way, we will see. Considering that all this work is being done for under $12,000 U.S. we are certainly getting our money’s worth.

I can not believe I last posted over a week ago, and promised some photos … and yet still have not delivered. My bad.

Also, last post noted that we paid 1/2 down — well we thought we had, anyhow. We deposited 25% in cash in the architect’s bank account, using a local bank. And we sent him a check for another 25% drawn on a Canadian personal checking account. We got an email from him — he couldn’t cash the Canadian check. Say what? Is Mexico a communist country, that doesn’t do business with Canada? No, Canada and Mexico are both part of NAFTA — how in the hell can you have free trade if they don’t honor checks from one another’s banks? It is absurd — like so much else in Mexico when trying to conduct any kind of business.

Anyhow, here are a few of the photos I promised. First, a close-up of the late bat resident. My wife called it a ‘vampiro’ or Vampire, but then she calls all bats that. Still, there are vampire bats in Mexico, and this guy was living alone — not typical behavior for the social bat species. On two of our earlier visits, we found a single bat (I’m presuming this same one) living in the cottage. This time, we didn’t see him — but we noticed a rotten-flesh type smell coming from near the couch. I moved the couch, and found this corpse.

There is some gray stuff at the nose — I think that is just dust … perhaps held together with cobweb. I have no idea if this is one of the many fruit bats that inhabit the area, or one of the insect-eating bats that are readily apparent every night in the sky after sunset — or maybe (unlikely) it is really a vampiro. In any case, we welcome bats on the property, but once the alterations are done, they will no longer be able to come inside the building.

When I moved the couch I found the dried-out remains of a lizard, similar to another specimen we noticed in the kitchen area. I’m not sure what these guys are called, but am told they eat scorpions and cockroaches. I have yet to see a cockroach  at Casita Chuparosa, and have only seen one dead and dessicated little scorpion — behind a picture frame. Again, after the alterations we have planned, neither of these pests are likely to find their way inside the cottage.

This lizard is clearly over 15 inches long with it’s tail — I’ve never seen one more than about five inches long — the live ones are rather shy. We hope we can get the native iguanas to take up residence on the property once our garden is sufficiently lush to attract them.

And finally (for today, at least), here is the kind of attraction that makes Cerro de Ortega and our little cottage Chupa Rosa so attractive: a hammock hung between two shady trees, for the rest and relaxation that makes a Mexican holiday so refreshing. My wife and I spent much of our time in this hammock during our last visit — and expect to spend many more hours there in days to come!

On February 27, 2008 we returned to Cerro de Ortega, intending to get things started. We arranged to talk with the architect in Tecoman the following day. We also talked to some local construction guys about building just the stone wall. Before leaving Chapala, we had talked with a builder/friend who estimated that a wall such as we described should cost $25,000 to $35,000 pesos, depending on details.

With the help of an iron-worker who would do the access doors, we contacted some builders who could make the wall. Their estimate, for a 2.5 meter high wall with one individual steel door entrance and one 3.5 meter wide driveway door came to an astounding $74,000 pesos. And their plan called for a cement covered brick wall, rather than stone, ‘because it is much less expensive’. We thanked them for their time and went to talk to the architect.

The architects original proposal was also more than we wanted to spend, so we discussed scaling back the project. We settled on a plan that adds just one room: the bathroom of course. The larger existing room is to be converted into a kitchen and living-space, open concept. The smaller room is to be the bedroom. The stone wall will be 2.5 meters high, and made of stone. The metal roof over the existing structure is to be replaced with a peaked cement roof.

The architect itemized the costs of each element in the project, and we went back to review those figures the next day. It was still a bit more than we were comfortable spending right now, so we looked at various options to lower the cost. He suggested leaving out the wall, which would reduce costs by $24,000 pesos (a far cry from the $74,000 wanted by local workers!) I wouldn’t budge on that essential item though. In the end we decided to leave the metal roof on the existing structure for now, and replace it with the peaked roof in a year or two, whenever we can afford it. The scaled-down project cost came to $124,353 pesos, or about $11,700 U.S. at current exchange rates.

As is customary, we paid half up-front, with the remainder to be paid as work progresses. Construction of the wall was to begin this week, but of course we are no longer there, so we won’t know how things are going until our next visit, or when the architect requests more funds, our having agreed that such requests will be accompanied by photos of the work completed to date.

The contract specifies that the project must be completed within one year, though he expects it to take much less than that — it will certainly be several months however. We hope to live there next winter, so if it takes until October it won’t really matter to us. If it goes beyond that we will have to change our plans — one learns to be flexible when living in Mexico. Under the terms of the contract, the agreed upon work will be completed at the agreed price — any loss of material due to theft, increases in material costs, etc., will be the architects expense.

Here is a rough plan of the current project. This started out as the architects original architectural drawing of the larger plan, which included expanding the entire structure to the front. I’ve added the wall in brown — it is wider than it should be if it were to scale, the stones will be 35 to 40 cm thick. I photoshopped the rest of the changes, so several things are not quite exact, but it gives the idea. There will be a utility area between the wall and the bedroom, which will allow access to the bathroom roof, where the gas tank, water tank and hot-water tanks will all be. That also allows for a window in the bedroom, where we plan to put a small air-conditioner. The big driveway doors will have a smaller door within them for individual access. Entrance to the house if from the back, into the living room. Big windows from the kitchen and bedroom face the garden in back.

In the next few days I’ll try to post some more ‘before’ images of the casita as it is now. I also have images of some of the deceased critters we found inside …