Palapa Wars

Ken and I are staying at my Aunt’s condo in Nuevo Vallarta, and while here we like to spend a lot of time on the beach. Over the last few weeks we have settled on a favourite palapa to use while we sit and read. We have come to think of Palapa 509 as our own personal palapa and are greatly offended if someone else gets to it before we do in the morning. 509 is in the front row, so we get an unobstructed view of the beach and all the activities on the bay. The thatched roof is also low so we remain in the shade longer during the day and don’t have to move our loungers as often to keep out of the sun. Today was a good day as we got our palapa, but yesterday was frustrating as someone beat Ken to it by 30 seconds. We had to sit in 409 all day, directly behind, watching the usupers come and go from the palapa. The particularly annoying part is when they left around noon, they left their towels on the loungers which indicates they will only be gone for a short while but will be back to use the palapa. However, they were gone more than an hour, at which point they came by and just picked up their towels and left! Yes, they had tied up a prime palapa for more than an hour, with no intent of actually using it. And the worst thing was as they were gathering their towels, someone swooped in and got the palapa before we could reclaim it and we had to watch another couple enjoy OUR palapa the rest of the day.

Reserving a palapa by putting towels on the loungers is standard practice, and although there are rules that say your items will be removed if left more than an hour, this never actually happens. The worst case we saw was the first week we were here. A lady would come down to the beach every morning, take a front row palapa, pull 6 loungers over to it and put towels on them all to reserve them. Then she would disappear. Eventually she would come back and sit and read, sometimes she would be joined by others for brief periods of time, but there were days when she was the only one who was ever at the palapa but she continued to take up this prime spot with 6 loungers every day. So tempting as it may be to go down first thing in the morning and set out our towels to reserve 509, we will never be ‘those people’ so we take our chances every day.