Well, it has been almost a month since my last post, I'm kind of anxious on writing this one, so here we go. Last time I posted on a box I was making for a present for a good friend. I finished the box and you know, I had to deliver it. So I went on, with the family and delivered this box. The place was the Caribbean Sea, on a town called Tulum, let me tell you just paradise.
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| Sliding lid. |
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| Finished Product. Delivered. |
A good friend owns a Bed & Breakfast over there, which he recently opened, and we had to go and check it out, catch some sun, and enjoy. His place is called "Jardin de Frida" (Frida's Garden). An amazing spot to visit, full of positive energy, great food and interesting people. If you are on the area sometime, you have to check it out. Here's some useful info.
http://www.fridastulum.com/
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| Top View of the Garden. Jungle, Jungle, Jungle. |
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| Creativity on every corner of this place, some Mexican Funky Style. |
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| watercolor@Tulum |
Enjoying the paradise was an amazing experience, I started meeting people in here and looking up at some trees and some wood. You wouldn't believe the wood I found over here, just amazing-incredible stuff. The colors, densities, grain patterns made my blood just boil, and wanted just to start working on something over there, but I had no time for that, eventhough I had the time to meet some local woodworkers, and ended up on a workshop on the jungle.
I met a family of woodworkers, the father, leader of the family "El Tigre" (The Tiger), and 3 of his sons ran a workshop in which they made any sort of work. Creativity on any process is so important, do what you can with what you have, so this guys made their machines and made their "magic".
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| Wooden-shop made tablesaw-mortiser. |
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| Frame members for doors on "Chechen", this wood has some stories behind that go up to the Mayan Civilization. |
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| Milling of some "Sapote" this wood is so dense and close grained, that I thought mmmm wooden planes, I bought a plank and brought it back. |
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| Wood for planes. Let it dry and I'll tell you later what I could do. |
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| Other samples I brought back home which include some "Ziricote", "Palo Rosa" and other species. |
This place has so many species of wood, and so many stories behind. It was a great experience talking to this woodworkers who still have their Mayan lifestyle. They don't loose their way of looking at things and on this case on wood. They have a lot of respect for nature and for trees.
There are some species of trees which they only cut on full moon, other species which are highly poisonous, they find cure for this on other trees, just a connection with the Earth that I have never seen.
A lot of energy is felt through this area, people's lifestyle is an example for our modern civilization.
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| Coba, a ceremonial piramid on the heart of the jungle. Very energetic place I must say. |
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| Returning from the top. |
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Diving on Cenotes, underground caves.
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I had the opportunity on traveling to an island on the Mexican Caribbean, Holbox, and check out some interesting construction systems as well, whoever is into this you'll enjoy this. All made from Sapote, the wood that I was talking about. I found some decks made from this, which have been underwater for at least 10 years, and the wood is perfect, not rotten, it was an incredible response to water.
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check this out.
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It came time to come back after 3 weeks of a truly amazing experience for me and my family, we learned a lot, and enjoyed a different lifestyle, checked out some wood and chilled out.
Cheers everybody, we'll enjoy the end of our summer, and come back to Canada for the Resident Craftsman Program. Can't wait for that to happen, go back to my bench and travel through the process of creation on the Inside Passage.
See you later!
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the family just chilin'
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| See you later! |
