(pictures this page: just one of the many adorable lizards - I believe they are technically called "Anoles" but I'll have to research that further - one of the beautiful palm trees at La Finca and the main Guesthouse at La Finca)
All I can say is, I have a whole new respect for maids and anyone who works in the hospitality industry! We had a large group check out of the main guesthouse this morning and had to turn over four of the six rooms upstairs as well as clean upstairs and down before the next group was to arrive at around 5 p.m. What a job! First, let me describe the layout: The guesthouse consists of a main common area downstairs with a kitchen, living area and outdoor seating areas. The who environment is very indoor outdoor with no doors separating the inside from the outside. One end of the wrap around deck is the “staff only” area where the washer and dryer are as well as clothes lines to hang all the clean laundry. Then you go upstairs, where there are six rooms with each room containing a queen sized bed and a twin bed in a loft above with a little ladder you climb to get up there. There is also a smaller deck from the upper floor which has the best view from the whole property - from there you can see the hills below and the Caribbean Ocean in the distance…..not that I had much time to stop and enjoy it! We started early, probably about 8:00, with me cleaning upstairs after Jim stripped the linens off the bed. Sweeping was no big deal but I have to say the portable fans in the rooms - without which one would surely die a slow and painful death from heat exhaustion I’m sure - were, how should I put it…..in need of a little cleaning. So, putting my engineering skills to the test, I remembered how to disassemble the fans (which ended up being quite easy actually) and made them look bright and shiny. I guessed I lied a little when I said I didn’t get much of a chance to appreciate the view because I decided if I was going to commit to cleaning all six of these fans, I wouldn’t do it in a hot stuffy room ( no air conditioning) so I took them out to the deck and stared lovingly at the ocean while I brushed the lint into the air with the broken broom end. Okay, enough of that, but you get the picture…….
Finishing the laundry was truly a Herculean task I must say. As soon as a load was finished, we would hurry downstairs, pull out all the clean laundry from the washer and immediately get the next load started. It was then a matter of getting all the sheets and pillow cases out on the lines so they could start drying. La Finca does have a dryer but it is generally only used when it gets rainy since the clothes don’t dry as easily then……as I was to find out……but more on that in a minute. The most pressing problem ahead of me was, how do I tell the difference between a full sized sheet and a twin sized sheet at first glance? Oh, the things Mother didn’t pass on to me…….well, you can imagine how much folding and unfolding was going on. Once Jim or I had a batch of sheets ready, we would head upstairs to work on a room. Now let me just tell you, it’s already hot and muggy but then when you add in having to climb up into a loft that only a hobbit or small child could truly enjoy, well then you’re talking real sweating! I have to say, as much as I wanted to make sure I was doing a good job on making the bed, I was almost more concerned about how large of a sweat puddle I was going to leave in the middle of their sheets. Needless to say, we miraculously got through the bed making and fan cleaning before the rain hit.
I’ve learned quickly that rain in the tropics is not exactly like rain in the Northwest. After a pleasantly sunny and warm morning, the clouds rolled in and the rain STARTED. I mean that someone flipped the switch, and the rain STARTED. HARD. You could look out onto the property and it would just be sheets of rain coming straight down. Kind of makes it hard to dry the laundry, huh?? Sadly, I pulled down my dripping sheets from the clothes line and began stuffing them into the dryer. Fortunately, we had the rooms that were booked all set up for the most part so there wasn’t a whole lot more needed for them. However, if we didn’t want to keep doing laundry nonstop until Labor Day, we would need to stay on top of the situation.
Anyway, it all worked out beautifully in the end and the group that showed up were just a fun bunch of folks from San Francisco so that made it all worthwhile.
Finishing the laundry was truly a Herculean task I must say. As soon as a load was finished, we would hurry downstairs, pull out all the clean laundry from the washer and immediately get the next load started. It was then a matter of getting all the sheets and pillow cases out on the lines so they could start drying. La Finca does have a dryer but it is generally only used when it gets rainy since the clothes don’t dry as easily then……as I was to find out……but more on that in a minute. The most pressing problem ahead of me was, how do I tell the difference between a full sized sheet and a twin sized sheet at first glance? Oh, the things Mother didn’t pass on to me…….well, you can imagine how much folding and unfolding was going on. Once Jim or I had a batch of sheets ready, we would head upstairs to work on a room. Now let me just tell you, it’s already hot and muggy but then when you add in having to climb up into a loft that only a hobbit or small child could truly enjoy, well then you’re talking real sweating! I have to say, as much as I wanted to make sure I was doing a good job on making the bed, I was almost more concerned about how large of a sweat puddle I was going to leave in the middle of their sheets. Needless to say, we miraculously got through the bed making and fan cleaning before the rain hit.
I’ve learned quickly that rain in the tropics is not exactly like rain in the Northwest. After a pleasantly sunny and warm morning, the clouds rolled in and the rain STARTED. I mean that someone flipped the switch, and the rain STARTED. HARD. You could look out onto the property and it would just be sheets of rain coming straight down. Kind of makes it hard to dry the laundry, huh?? Sadly, I pulled down my dripping sheets from the clothes line and began stuffing them into the dryer. Fortunately, we had the rooms that were booked all set up for the most part so there wasn’t a whole lot more needed for them. However, if we didn’t want to keep doing laundry nonstop until Labor Day, we would need to stay on top of the situation.
Anyway, it all worked out beautifully in the end and the group that showed up were just a fun bunch of folks from San Francisco so that made it all worthwhile.
Now I know why our A/C went out - to try and acclimate your Northwestern blood to true Southern Temperatures! Sounds like you're doing a great job little brother!
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