"Another beer please", I asked in the best Spanish I could muster.

I savoured my cold beer while relaxing and sitting alone in the shade of a beachside palapa in a small coastal town of southern Mexico. It was hot and humid. Everything seemed slow in the heat, the waves, the birds, the sun, ahh.. my beer.

The hotel - the only hotel in town - was nice enough and even had AC; yet, I stuck to the sheets all night and didn't get much sleep. I thought to myself, "...and this is the cool season.. how brutal."

It was a different world. Soon enough I befriended a local family and was invited to live with them. Their "house" had only one hose spigot and a well, you had to dump a bucket in the toilet to flush, a bucket on your head for a shower, and had no AC. But, it had a better location(on the beach), better food(they were fishermen), and.. ah.. several hammocks.

I'd wake every morning, help sweep up after the chickens, pick some coconuts, eat some fish, pull some water from the well, walk on the beach, and spend the afternoon in one of the families various hammocks floating on the ocean breeze and rocking to the sound of the waves.