How it started / How it's going...

18 years ago we stayed at Deseo in Playa, an archetypally boutiquey hotel of the era. 

The rooms and the almost horrendously hip cocktail bar necessarily needed to be accessed via this staircase, said at the time to reproduce the experience of ascending a Mayan temple.

Yet it was the experience of de-scending a Mayan temple — especially after several margaritas — that one always hoped to avoid on the way out.

Deseo went the way of almost all of such places and the building was gutted, yet the starircase, albeit in a somewhat narrower, less temply format, remains.

Ancient Mesoamerican temples were famously not famous for their health and safety compliance and the steps did not apparently feature hand-rails, but the addition of one here is probably a good thing.

I guess it was called a 'lounge' because that was basically all you could do...

V is never going to forget that banana...