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The grey sand at Monterrico slopes dramatically between the town and the sea, so that when you walk along the surf, all you see above the sandbank are the straw rooves of the hotels, scores of them, as far as the eye can see.

Yet, it remains a highly undeveloped coastal town, blissfully free of all-inclusive fortresses and perma-parasols in neat little rows, a quick weekend getaway for folks in Guatemala City and broke-ass backpackers. These beachside hotels, with names like Eco Beach Place and El Marlin, are simple little things, where hammocks outnumber showers and toilets combined.

Mine was called Johnny’s Place, a miniaturized, stripped-down, discount bin knock-off of a resort. If resorts were like movies, this one would go straight to video. Plastic beer-branded chairs surround a pool that barely fits four. The well-staffed kitchen-bar plays slow bolero and bossa nova covers of Bob Marley.

It’s a favourite among European girls, middle-aged gay guys, and the locals who come to ogle either, with a few private bungalows, some shared huts and a nine-bed dorm for 45 quetzales (about US$5.50) a night. And during the weekend, it’s the de-facto meeting point of Monterrico, since the town itself is still struggling to figure out the whole tourism thing. Which is at once endearing and utterly heartbreaking.

It’s got one paved, restaurant-lined street that leads to the beach. On the final 70 metres, there’s an attempt at a boardwalk, a stone walkway with one guy selling seashell necklaces. The rest of the town is a wretched, dusty dump, where dirty-faced boys try to knock cashew fruits from trees with empty beer bottles, and every other crusty-furred mongrel walks with a limp.

Rafts that bring cars to Monterrico, an island between sea and swamp.

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Which is why most visitors hang around Johnny’s. Which isn’t entirely a bad thing, since it’s where you’ll meet the town’s most interesting strangers, like the affable Kiwi girl doing Alaska to Argentina on a motorbike (read her blog), or the couple upping the ante and going from Washington State to Argentina on bicycles.

There’s only one person you won’t find at Johnny’s, and that’s Mike: “Folks here” — he pronounces it hir — “call me Miguel or Don Gringo.”

You can’t miss him: paunch like a wrecking ball, a blonde walrus moustache, and a baby parrot perched on his straw hat. “Keepsum frum crappin’ on ma shirt. Heh.”

Don Gringo, aka Mike.

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This retiree from Colorado bought a house three months ago, and regularly brings back second-hand clothes and used laptops, which he uses to teach the kids English and how to use computers. He recently helped a deaf, dumb, cross-eyed and bow-legged girl have her eyes corrected and get a hearing aid. Now he’s looking for a speech therapist to help her talk and some good crutches.

“Her father had pretty much wrote ‘er off. Jus’ kept’er sitting on a corner by hirself.”

And Don Gringo Miguel is adamant about bringing some business acumen to these parts. As an experiment for his favourite main-street restaurant, where you’re most likely to find him, he got some candles for the tables. Night-time business doubled in a week, he said. Then he convinced them to carry white wine, and now it’s regularly packed with Europeans, while the joint across the street can hardly get two tables filled.

“It’s a reason to git up ev’ry mornin’.”

When the weekend’s over, Monterrico becomes a ghost town, but you might be visited by some boys while wading in the sea, like I was. They showed me that if you submerge your head and stay still, you can hear the whines and groans of distant whales. Then they challenged me to body-surf a wave to the sand. That I did. So they made it a race: first person to the sand gets a Coke. Two of them, no older than 10, tied for first.

After they got their Cokes, they promptly vanished out of sight.

Click here more more pictures of Guatemala.