Going for green

La Pipa

We’re happy to announce that we just bought water saving showerheads, taps and toilets for the hotel! In Oaxaca, where water is always scarce  ̶  but especially in dry season  ̶  we think this will be a very important feature. Not only to save water (and money), but also to make our guests aware of the scarcity of natural resources in this country (and, actually, anywhere in the world).

So we went for ‘the green line’. Same product line, same price, but saving lots of water. Imagine a full house  ̶  30 guests, all showering 5 minutes. Normally they would use 1,500 liters, now only 900!

Water once a week

In Oaxaca, the municipality provides tap water only once a week, or once every two weeks. This means that you need to store that water in your cisterna, an on-site reservoir. The bigger your cisterna, the more water supply you have. Houses usually have one of 5,000 liters, hotels 20,000 to 120,000 (!) liters.

But even that is not always enough. When your hotel is big, it’s full all week, or the water didn’t get delivered that week, you run out. So what do you do then…? You call la pipa! The pipe. The pipe is a water truck that comes by to fill your reservoir with 10,000 liters. Some hotels and restaurants need several pipas a week. It costs money and it’s a pain to deal with, because if you ran out of water, your neighbour probably did too, just as your neighbours’ neighbour and most likely the whole neighbourhood. Meaning, you might have to wait for days for the pipa to come.

Now, can you imagine we’re happy with our green line? Every little bit helps!