Hotel Hibiscus Garden

I was just looking and its been a while since I last posted. I am getting in a groove of sorts here but I think that once I have some real sort of groove, the music usually changes. The people who run Hotel Hibiscus Garden are a german couple in their 30s about to have thier second baby...like anyday now. Lucia Valerie (not named after me, but a cool coincendence) is due on Jan 11. Her older sister, Karlota, is 2 years old and just stood up on a surfboard for the first time yesterday!
They are growing some wicked cool kids here.
I am spending my days in a combination of ways. My duties around the hotel that pay for my room and board are assiting in the kitchen and waiting tables. These happen for 5 to 8 hours a day 6 days a week. I am also promoting and doing some massage for guests and we should, with any luck, be getting yoga mats today so that I can offer yoga classes a few times a week as well.
I am teaching yoga at a place in Santa Catalina once a week, La Buena Vida. The woman who owns it with her husband recently completed the same yoga teacher training as myself in Costa Rica, so we are practicing a lot of the same style.
However, its 10K to town from where I live, the shuttle only goes sparatically, and hitchhiking is fairly unreliable since there are often not many cars. So, I bought a crappy mountain bike which is now helping me transport in and out of Catalina at will. Ahhh.....this is a blessing.
I will tell you why. The other people on staff at HHG are all German or Austrian, except the chef, another American. The culture is one of drinking a lot, smoking a lot, and speaking a lot of German, which I don´t understand. They are nice enough people, but I have the feeling that even if we were speaking the same language, I couldnt relate all that well.
So I have taken this as an opportunity to create a lot of space for myself. I have moved into a broken down blue chevy camper van toward the front entrance of the hotel. It´s one they are using for spare parts and is parked under some trees off to the side of the dirt road just before crossing the river to where the hotel is located. Neither my roomie or myself were sleeping all that well I think due to the fact that our energies were colliding all night on some level. The van is becomming my sanctuary. I cleaned it out a little each day over the past week or two and finally found a spare matress to put in it yesterday. The gardeners have built a palm roof shade structure outside and I am in the process of decorating it and hopefully have electricity hooked up soon! I will post photos of the Mystery Machine when I get the chance.
Anyway, this is going to be my little haven. Oh yea, and a hammock. And I have lots of time to just be. Its actually very nice.
The horses are kept in this area, which is also fenced off sometimes and this morning it was such a beautiful way to wake up to have them hanging out outside the van. I got up, wrapped the bedsheet around me, and communed with them for a little while.
Loving the slowness here. Hot, hot days and warm, stary nights. Everything is tranquilo. I am learning spanish mostly just from practicing, but also from a peace corps volunteer who is living in Santa Catalina and happy to trade massage for spanish lessons as he is fluent in both languages.
Feeling good and have promised Mick and Heidi I will stay until March here. After that is a mystery. I am absorbed in being present and having a deep appreciation for being alive.
Sending you all warm wonderful vibes for 2011.
With love
Valerie Hope, aka; Esperanza