Five months in this house.
Morning shower in the banana grove. Bamboo screens, turquoise tiles, cool water falling while the warm breeze drifted through. The distant ding-a-ding of a bicycle, donkeys braying somewhere down the dirt road.
Inside: patterned tiles cool beneath bare feet. Hats hanging on white walls like old friends. The sleeping loft where afternoon rain drummed overhead until the storms passed and everything glistened.
Blue window frames. A carved wooden bench in the doorway. The studio corner where I wrote, pen in hand, notebooks filling fast.
Evenings on the veranda. The earthy smell of carrizo grasses along the canal. The house glowing warm in the darkness, simple and sufficient.
Adobe walls made of baked mud. A door that needed lifting to close properly. The way this low-slung house held the day’s heat, then released it slowly into the night.
Now I’m back to hot showers and wood floors. But I still wake listening for that first bicycle bell of morning.
Ellen Barone is an American writer and wanderer. After 15 years as an independent content creator for travel and tourism, she has been enjoying extended stays abroad for the past decade, the inspiration behind her travel memoir, "I Could Live Here" (November 2023)