We’ve been home for almost three months now and it’s been a little painful. I went to Wisconsin for Thanksgiving, to Hawaii for a week in January, and we actually had a week of surf and weather in California that was about as good as California gets. I appreciated being home. But now, that has worn off, and I’m craving being back down South. I realized there were more photos that still haven’t been posted, so i’m trying to live through them right now to experience life in Nicaragua.

After the house was built the scrap materials were dumped in a pile along the fence. Our contractor informed us that he knew someone that wanted to buy 6 of our planks. He asked what we wanted for them. Not sure of what they were actually worth, we decided to the barter system was a good idea.

We had seen a cool ramada at our friend’s house that he used to support viney fruit trees. So, we suggested a trade of those planks for whatever they were worth in the type of wood used to construct a ramada. We weren’t sure how many we’d get.

A few days later, the guy showed up with a horse-drawn carriage full of long pieces of wood.

It actually took him two trips to deliver it all, and they were much taller than we had expected.

The following day, he came back with his younger brother and they quickly constructed our ramada which then attracted birds and hanging plants (brought by one of the best young local surfers in exchange for the pair of boardshorts we gave him).

We hung the plants from the corners and planted passionfruit and other viney crawling fruits at the base of each post (they weren’t planted yet when this photo was taken). Eventually, the vines will crawl up and their leaves will make shade so that we can hang hammocks from the corners to provide a cool vivid place to hang out.

Ryan pulled some scraps out of the wood pile to build a raised planter for herbs like cilantro.

We also bought a few pots in town to plant chile seeds. I wonder if they have sprouted. I wish I was there to watch them grow little by little everyday.

After really working the shoulder muscles hauling rocks and buckets all over the lot, we finally bought a wheelbarrow, then wondered why we didn’t just buy it on day one instead of waiting til the very end of the trip.

A kid that herds cows everyday showed up see what the gringos were up to and point out the different types of spiders swarming our wood pile. There were so many spiders it was incredible!

The Butchman, waiting for the laundry to dry.

This is Felipe, one of the hotel employees, an excellent soccer player, and new surfer just figuring out how to get in the tube.

We are already making plans to start building the big house. Ryan stands on the car to check the view and try to figure out exactly where to place the house on the lot to maximize the view.

I brought our solar shower so that we could take warm showers at night. Even though the weather is really warm, it’s still nice to get a warm shower.

Sunset from the porch.

Hopefully we’ll be back there again soon!