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PROFILE: JAVIER AGUILAR ZÚÑIGA
by Michael DuBois
Javier is a native
of Mulegé, born in 1951 next door to the Hotel Las Casitas which
he now runs. Javier grew up in Mulegé, but moved with his mother
to Santa Rosalia along with five other Mulegé children, to go to
school. Education being very important to his family, he went to sumner
school in Chihuahua, and two years of school in the U.S. at El Segundo
to study English. At the age of 19, he returned to Mulegé and worked
for his uncle, Roberto Real, pumping gas and organizing the general store
there. A couple of years later, the hotel at Punta Chivato sent someone
to offer him a job. "I told my uncle this was a good opportunity for me,
and asked for a weeks holiday to try out the new job. If I liked it, I'd
take it." He did, and began working in the office and as an accountant.
Finding that this kind of work suited him, he worked in various hotels
and accounting offices in Mexico over the following years.
His father worked on the Abel Miranda, the first sailboat in the Gulf
and already 90 years old in the 1950's, sailing between Santa Rosalia,
Guaymas, and La Paz. "One of my most distinct memories of that time, was
watching them loading cows and goats onto the boat. The water around El
Sombrerito was much deeper then, and the animals had to swim to the boat.
They would tie them together, and there would be one guy pushing and another
pulling. They had to plug up the cows reat end, to stop the water getting
in and making them sink, leading to the expressian 'to sink like cow' ".
Javier
was offered a job by Don and Nancy Johnson at the Hotel Serenidad, and
so found himself back in Mulegé again. When he saw the opportunity
to renovate Las Casitas, he took it and has been running it for the past
ten years. He was married to Silvia at the Hotel Serenidad and has three
children, Iliana, Jose Antonio and Luis Alonso. Javier says "Mulegé
is having a tough time at the moment. We're all trying to succeed and go
a little bit further. I hope people will continue to support us."
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