Day 10: Jugolandia Juice Shop & My Meeting With Jimmy
Today I had to be in downtown Playa Del Carmen inbetween the hours of 11am and 5pm. I had a meeting with Jimmy and Maria. Jimmy is the founder of Casa De Las Olas, Tulum’s naturally sustainable beach villas. We are having a meeting to get to know each other and work some deals out. I find what they are doing down there very inspiring and I would love to be a part of their project and provide my technical and web services. Casa De Las Olas are living inspired private beach villas and rooms in Tulum, Mexico. Imagine this… An innovative roof captures the power of the sun and rain, providing 100% solar electricity and 20,000 liters of rain water for vegetation and gravity-fed plumbing. The Casa also offers a natural cooling system that passively circulates cool, fresh air throughout the homes while forcing hot air out. All the shampoos and soaps are locally produced and biodegradable, as well as 99 % of their cleaning products. They have compost and recycling programs to reduce waste and feed plants and have launched a CO2 offset program utilizing large planting areas to help offset the small amount of fuel used by a back-up generator.
I headed out looking for a place to grab some breakfast. I heard that Gaston owns a juice shop and they also sell sandwiches there. I jumped on my bike and headed towards downtown Playa along 10th Ave. I was never able to get some clear directions to Gaston’s juice shop. Every time I tried to look for it, I was not be able to find it. I checked again today without any luck and decided to just grab some food downtown instead. On my way downtown, I heard someone yelling out my name. I looked across the street and saw Emma, who was waving out to me. I crossed the street to say hello.”Do you know where Gaston’s juice shop is?”, I asked her. “It’s right here”, she replied. I looked up to see her standing in front of Jujolandia, Gaston’s juice shop.
This is how things happen in Playa, you think about something and there it is. This time thanks to Emma, I was able to finally find Gaston’s place. Over here, Gaston and his business partner Javier, make fresh juice and sandwiches. It’s also a very charming spot. It has tables so you can sit down and enjoy your meal and it is conveniently located on the way to downtown Playa Del Carmen. I ordered myself a vegetable juice cocktail and took a seat with Emma. Emma has this habit of showing up at different locations unexpectedly. Emma goes wherever she feels and usually does not stay still for very long. When she does, she always has something to share. Yesterday it was the Mayan horoscope and today it’s helping me find Gaston’s juice stand.
Sitting in with us at the table was Dona. Dona is the girlfriend of Javier. Dona has a very pleasant energy. She is a very joyful woman. She started telling me about her business. After finishing my breakfast juice blend, I headed downtown. I grabbed my laptop and started working away. After a few hours, I started feeling hungry again. I still did not hear from Jimmy and Maria so I headed back to Gaston’s place to grab lunch. As soon as I connected to their wireless network, I received an email from Maria indicating that they were ready to meet and that they were downtown at Restaurant Carboncitos in the corner of 4th street and 5th ave.
I tried calling her back with Gaton’s cell and I couldn’t get through. I emailed and checked to see if she was online on Facebook or Skype and she was not. I chugged down my freshly squeezed orange juice, stuffed the sandwich in my mouth and jumped on my bike heading all the way up to Restaurant Carboncitos.
I arrived and locked up the bike. I walked over to the restaurant to find Jimmy and Maria sitting on the patio. Jimmy was originally from New York, he now lives in Casa De Las Olas but fly’s out to New York every now an then if he needs to. I greeted them both and took a seat. Jimmy has a very down to earth personality. He really enjoys living in Tulum and he projects a vibe of 100% contentment. He also has a powerful gaze which he holds very well. He definitely has a presence to him, but one of calm and enjoyment rather then overbearing.
We started to talk and he shared with me his vision for Casa De Las Olas. “Our place is not for everyone. The kind of people we attract are very similar. I really don’t want to get the place packed if it means that the caliber of people will change”, he explained. “Sustainable living does not mean luxury and our clients prefer to go to bed at around 9:30pm as they are not party seekers”, he said.
Jimmy continued painting the picture in my mind of what I believe Casa De Las Olas to be. It was exactly everything I was hoping it would be down to Jimmy’ vision. I shared with him the reasons for my willingness to work with Casa De Las Olas. We then got into a lengthy discussion that lasted for about an hour. We continued building rapport when Maria quickly interrupted and said ”We can keep talking about all this and it’s great, but lets talk about the two reasons why we are here and see if we can work something out. How can we attract more of our type of clientele to our villas and also can you teach Jimmy about how technology and computing works?“ Jimmy quickly interrupted and said, “Yeah, to be honest there has not been anyone that could help me understand all this. “I will do it, I said without any hesitation. “How long do you need?”, asked Maria.”Two hours”, I replied. “Lets all meet at Casa De Las Olas tomorrow at 8am”, said Jimmy.
I knew exactly what I had to do. Anyone can be taught to understand technology and use it into their daily productive lives, no matter how long they avoided it and how old they are. In my many years of working with technology I have yet to meet a personality that I could not connect with to broaden their understating of it. Not only will Jimmy learn the technology, he will grow to appreciate it and he will increase his productivity dramatically.
“Please meet me tomorrow in the morning at 6:30am and we will go to Tulum together”, said Maria. “Alright, lets do it”, I replied as I headed back to my place.
