The most distinctive sight in La Parguera is not a single building but a colony of them — the casetas, hundreds of wooden weekend cabins built on stilts directly over the shallow water and mangroves. From a boat or the village waterfront they look like a half-floating shanty town, painted in pastels, threaded by walkways and small private docks.
They are also a long-running environmental row. Most were built without permits over decades, on public-trust waters, and they have been blamed for shading out seagrass and pumping waste into the lagoon. Repeated government attempts to remove them have stalled. Like them or hate them, they are the face of La Parguera and worth a slow look from the water.