Summer project #1: guest kitchen and shared shower

Over the past few years, we have had more and more guests traveling on a budget and looking for alternatives to our meal plan.  While our meals are very reasonably priced compared to the resorts around us, and even compared to US food prices, at $30US/day/person, it still adds up, especially when our guests are traveling with family.  We tried lowering our food prices a couple of summers ago, and found that we were losing money, so we put the prices back where they had been, and decided to build a kitchen so guests could cook for themselves if they wished.

We are committed to the philosophy of reusing and recycling, so rather than build a new kitchen from scratch, we repurposed and rebuilt one of the old jaguar cage dens and turned it into a kitchenette and shower to be shared with the new camping casitas.  The following photos show some of the steps of this process, which has taken us most of the summer.

The first step was to put a roof on the structure, so Tom and Julio pulled some sticks out of the jungle and stripped the bark from them.

They built the roof structure and prepared it for the zinc.

Julio always does the off the ground work!

The roof is open ended, to keep it cool.  We are leaving the cage material as one wall to help with this as well, so it really feels like an outdoor kitchen.

We moved in the stove, and Tom and Julio built a screened cabinet under the counter for food storage so the varmints can't get our guests' food.

Add a sink and another counter, and we are ready to cook!  We do not have electricity and are not purchasing another butane fridge for occasional use, but we will provide a cooler so guests can get ice and keep their perishables cool.

The shared shower will be on the other side, completely enclosed...photos to follow.