Holly Beck

Late May 2008

After a couple weeks surfing and hanging out, we finally made it back to the lot we had purchased a year ago. Before leaving the country on our previous trip in June 2007, we commissioned a guy named Berto to begin digging our well. He told us that it was best to begin in the rainy season when the rock was softest. The topsoil only goes down about 6ft, after that it’s solid bedrock. They dig by hand. No shoes, no gloves, no hard hat, no eye protection. Just a man and a pick, and guy at the top pulling buckets of rocks up and then sending the bucket back down for more (see below for video of this action). He quoted a price of $2,000 for the well, the concrete topper and the hand pump. We left him with $1,200 as a deposit. In September, he called and said that at 37ft, they hit water and couldn’t go any further. He told us that the well would eventually dry up and the following Spring, at the end of the dry season, we would have to dig a few meters deeper, but once we hit water then, the well would never dry out again. So, in September we wired him the balance of $800 and agreed to go a bit deeper when we returned.

Now, at the end of May, almost a year later, we returned and were stoked to see our well for the first time. We looked inside and it was bone dry. We had planted about 18 trees the year before but only about 8 remained living. The lot was covered in tall dry weeds. There was obviously a lot of work to be done.

While Ryan caught up with Alex, another lot owner, I was happy to reacquaint myself with the puppy named “Ducha” from my previous post. A year later and she was all grown up.

This mango had grown a lot in the past 11 months!

Berto told us that this is a very sweet fruit, but the exact type was lost in translation. He said that one of the well workers had eaten it, thrown the seed on the ground, and it ended up sprouting. We used some of the rocks that had been pulled out of the well to build a protective circle around it so that it wouldn’t get lost in the weeds.

Here’s Ryan and Berto, discussing the well.

Alex came by to check it out also.

Since i’m sure you’re curious, here’s what it looks like inside. The smooth concrete sleeve goes down to where the bedrock starts and from there the rock is jagged where they have chipped away at it. No water here, not yet at least.

Berto said he would re-paint a second coat on the pump. We decided we didn’t want ours to be orange and white like everyone else’s and suggested he paint it blue. He came back with an awesome turquoise color.

Seeing the lot once again inspired Ryan to continue with the house plans.

Ryan stood on top of the rock pile to get an idea of the more elevated view.

We wanted to plant some fast growing local trees on our lot that would provide some shade since all we had already were fruit trees. Shay suggested a tree called Neem that grows really quickly and doesn’t take too much care. You can see a Neem tree in the center of the photo above. We asked Shay about where to find them and he said you could just go look for a Neem tree and below it there would be a bunch of seedlings that we could transplant. So we embarked on a hunt for Neem.

You can see a Neem tree over Ryan’s shoulder

The first Neem tree seedling we found was already about 4ft tall. It was perfect but since it was so big we would attract too much attention digging it out. It was on the side of the road and wouldn’t be considered stealing from anyone, but we were too scared to cause a scene and decided to keep hunting.

We then found another Neem tree with a bunch of small 6″ tall seedlings. These we could pull up without too many people noticing.

“Come on little Neem, you’re coming with us!”

We brought it back to our lot and planted it then circled it with rocks so that it wouldn’t get lost in the weeds.

After working in the dirt all afternoon, Ryan’s feet were super dirty!

His legs and shorts were covered in dirt too.

So he got in the shower to wash everything at once, including his sandals. “This is how a man does laundry,” he said.

After all that tree hunting, it was time to relax. I went back to the room to grab a bottle of Nicaraguan rum.

This is the owner of the hotel and godfather of the area, Shay O’Brien. Coolest guy ever.

I made up some “Nica Libres”.

Flor de Cana 12 year rum is the best i’ve ever tasted!

In this photo you can see my green bracelet. I bought it for $20 to support the nica health clinic located near Popoyo. Please see the Roberto Clemente Health Clinic link in the “Giving Back” section on the right side of the page for info on how you can contribute. All donations are doubled, making your money go even further, and are also tax deductible. http://www.nicaclinic.org

The guy in the hammock is Osmar. He works for Shay but we hired him on the side to help with maintaining our trees while we are gone. We paid him $200 for the year to clear the weeds around our trees so they didn’t get suffocated and to water them. He was very apologetic that half of the trees died and explained that the well ran out of water in November, making his job difficult without water.

One of the main goals for this trip was to begin the building process. In order to figure out where to put the house, we needed to have the head-high weeds cleared. We hired Berto to have the lot cleared. He brought in a few guys with machetes to start weed-whacking.

They told us they would cut a perimeter around the lot and then burn the weeds in the center. We weren’t very excited about the idea of burning it but they said that is how it is done. We were worried about our little trees, but they assured us that it would be a controlled burn and the trees would be fine.

http://www.youtube.com/v/4CbZ6NATSpE&hl=en&fs=1
To see a very short video clip of the guy digging the well and his buddies weed-whacking, hit “play” above.

That night while we were sitting at dinner, someone said, “look at that fire over there!” I immediately realized it was our lot and jumped up from the table to run over and get a closer look.

We weren’t very happy that they were burning everything. Ryan kept saying, “it’s a good old fashioned slash and burn!” We were worried about the fire depleting the soil and about our trees getting burned.

This is me, checking it out with Berto, the night watchman, Felipe, and his daughters.

The next morning we were saddened but not surprised to see that five of our remaining 8 trees were burned in the fire. Next time we’ll pay them extra to chop the whole lot and not use any fire! Here’s Ryan tending to a smoked out lime tree that hopefully will survive.

My friend Kristin Wilson lives in the area, working for Century 21 selling real estate. We used to compete together in the NSSA back when we were in high school. I hadn’t seen her too many times since then, so it was good to catch up.

This is Ryan with our new friend “Tio Kevin”, a merchant marine who also owns property in the area.

Kristin invited us over to check out the house she rents right on the beach to get ideas for the house we would build. We were very impressed. It featured an enclosed bedroom with air conditioning, but the rest of the house was open to the outdoors and artfully decorated.

The view from her living room.

The view of the living room from outside.

Back at our lot, we had noticed that our neighbor installed a fence. We decided we should do the same. Ryan decided we should have two entrances to the fence with a half-circle driveway. In order to mark out where the gates should be, he drove back and forth in the truck.

Using the marks left by tires, we could see exactly where the gates to the fence should be.

We then had Berto install the fence.

Have you ever seen a shinier barbed wire fence?

This is Chevello, the caretaker at Shay’s hotel. He had a lot of good information to share. We asked Shay who might be the best guy to talk to about building our house. Shay and Chevello both agreed that Don Emilio was “the man”.

We found Don Emilio and he came over to discuss ideas. We decided that we would start by building the caretaker’s house, a small 400 sq ft “studio” with just the basics. We told him we wanted it to be more or less the size of the bathroom building with the same type of roof and similar shape.

Don Emilio measures the bathroom building while Ryan watches.

We then walked out to the lot to show Don Emilio what he would be working with and discuss where to put it on the property.

You can see the ground charred by the fire with a few isolated fires still burning up small piles of weeds that didn’t get consumed by the first blaze.

Don Emilio looked into the well and noticed it was dry. He asked us if we had consulted a divining rod prior to digging. While some people had suggested we try that, we had decided against it. We were worried they might tell us to put the well in a place we didn’t want it, like right in the middle of the lot. Ryan also being a cynic, didn’t want to even bother with something so silly.

Besides being a contractor, Don Emilio also happens to be the pastor of the local church. He was incredulous that we hadn’t consulted a diving rod. He pulled off an extra piece of barbed wire, un-twisted it into two pieces, held one in each hand out in front of him and started walking the perimeter of the lot.

Berto, a member of Don Emilio’s congregation dutifully followed a few feet behind him on his walk.

After turning the second corner, Ryan joined in the parade.

When the boys returned to the starting place, Don Emilio said, “no hay agua,” and starting laughing. No water? Ryan didn’t think it was very funny and started panicking that they would never find water. He calls himself a realist although he definitely tends towards the pessimistic side. I was optimistic and held out hope. “They might just have to go deeper than expected,” I reasoned. “They’ll find water,” I tried to assure him.

Berto agreed with my optimism, and they kept digging.

The very next morning, Ryan and I walked out to the lot to do our daily surveying and peeked into the well. We were both thrilled! At the bottom was a small pool of water reflecting the light filtering in from above. WATER!

In this photo you can see a few pockets of reflection. It’s not a lot of water, but it’s a reassuring sign. They won’t have to go much deeper now.

With water in the well even at the driest time of year, Osmar wouldn’t have any trouble keeping our trees alive this year. So, we went back to the vivero to buy some more to replace those that died of thirst or fire.

Osmar said the trees would be better planted after the first rain, so we left them in their bags for him to plant in a few weeks. We agreed to pay him $40 a month to keep the entire lot clear (rather than just around the trees) so that the weeds wouldn’t have the chance to grow to a height where they would have to be burned.

http://www.youtube.com/v/8bmv8yr7M7o&hl=en&fs=1
Oh yeah, we surfed too and the waves were pretty fun!

The end of Ryan’s vacation time had come. After three weeks off, he finally had to return to work. On our way back to the airport we came across a parade.

This guy on the horse saw me taking a picture and saluted me with his beer!

Check back soon. Next post – the building begins!

May 2008

It had been almost a year since our last trip to Nicaragua. Ryan had been busy at work and I had just returned from spending almost two months in Australia covering the first two events of the ASP World Tour for http://www.go211.com. We both needed a vacation and a chance to reconnect with eachother, our surfboards, and our favorite country in the world.

On a suggestion from a friend, we booked ourselves into a room at The Surf Sanctuary which happens to be walking distance to the Rancho Santana beachbreak and a short drive over the sand to Popoyo.

The Surf Sanctuary is run by super cool people including Tony Longobucco (above and below), who owns the main peak at Santana when it’s on and also helps organize local contests to support the Nicaraguan Surf Team.

all surf photos by the lovely and talented Erin O’Kon http://www.ebosurfphoto.com

I was stoked to get into some warm water hollow tubes, even if they were mostly closeouts!

this photo courtesy of http://www.nicaraguasurfreport.com

Anyone who has been to Nicaragua knows about Nicaragua Surf Report. It’s a website providing daily surf reports and photos. Every time I go to Nicaragua I like to check it out and see what the surf was like wherever they were shooting and compare it to where I surfed. This day I happened to see a photo of me! I didn’t even realize they had been on the beach shooting!

Since the beachbreak at Santana is one of the most consistent and accessible spots, it is always crowded with ripping locals. These two groms were on it every day, all day. This day was pretty solid and closed out and they were the only two out.

self-portrait : )
The Surf Sanctuary even has wireless internet!

It had been a while since we’d visited our lot in Rancho Santana. (Scroll down through “older posts” to read about our purchasing process for this lot). We decided to drive in and remind ourselves what it looked like.

Here I am standing on the corner of our lot in an area of Rancho Santana called Escondida which overlooks Playa Rosada.

The last time we were there it was just a barren ridge of empty lots. We were surprised to see a house nearly finished, two lots down from ours.

The house is beautiful and inspiring. It made us want to start building on ours as well!

No one was around, so I went in for a closer look.

The house isn’t even finished but a hammock has already been installed from which to admire the amazing view.

I walked along a path from the new house back to our lot with house design plans bubbling up in my head.

From the street below we looked back up towards the ridge where that house was built and imagined what ours would look like up there as well.

There were a lot of new houses built since last we visited and we took photos of a few of the more interesting examples. The one above had a boat feel with those round windows, and the one below seemed like a Greek palace.

Back at The Surf Sanctuary, Ryan was inspired to work on the house plans for our most recently purchased lot, but the local kitten, “Salty”, was doing her best to be distracting.

The animal fan in me can’t resist including this photo of Surf Sanctuary’s guard dog, “Nica”, definitely one of the most loved dogs in the country.

We drove down the beach to surf Popoyo a few times.

Lance and his wife Kristen who own Surfari Charters Surf Camp took us out on their boat to surf a new spot. They are awesome people and we were stoked to have a chance to get to know them.

more epic surf shots by Erin O’Kon

Ryan started on the lefts with everyone else, but since he was the lone regular foot he realized that if he moved over to the rights, he would have every wave to himself!

Tony, once again displaying his patented frontside hack.

Surfari Charters owner Lance rips too!

I was stoked to do a few turns on some fun rippable lefts with only a handful of friends in the water.

There are horses everywhere in Nicaragua. You see them pulling carts, herding cows, and just cruising on the side of the road. As a young girl I used to have a couple horses and compete until I started surfing, was forced to choose, and decided waxing my surfboard was more fun than shoveling manure. It had been a long time since i’d ridden but Tony introduced me to a friend named Dawn who was in Nicaragua teaching art to kids and offering horse backriding.

http://www.myspace.com/reddawndesigns

We went on a ride for several hours up through the hills and then down onto the beach where we fulfilled my longtime fantasy of galloping at full speed along the beach. It was super fun. Thanks Dawn!

When we got back to the Popoyo Surf Lodge someone asked me to pose with a surfboard under my arm for a photo. Ok, whatever. Got the shot!

Most people in Nicaragua don’t have cars. They ride buses and bicycles or hitchhike. This group of school kids were stoked and laughing to catch a ride with the gringos.

After a little over a week in the heart of the surf and development zone, we said goodbye to our new friends and ventured off out of the way of the surf camps to a picturesque fishing village and local hotel.

Ryan had a new camera and we practiced taking some modeling shots for a possible Body Glove ad.

We also surfed a super hollow reef break that is still sort of a secret spot, but won’t be for long. We surfed it three days in a row with only the two of us out, knowing that we probably won’t be so lucky next year.

Ask Ryan where that left is and he’ll give you this look.

Next stop, up to the lot we bought on our last trip that you can read about in my previous post…. i’ll save that part of the story for next time.

A cloud-topped volcano

With two lots now in nice developments purchased mostly for investment purposes, we still hadn’t found a lot that fit our initial fantasy. We had been looking for something mellow with good waves out front where we would build the house we would want to live in.

On a previous trip we had ventured far off the beaten path of surf tourism and development. We found a beachbreak with a tiny hotel constructed by a Floridian that wasn’t quite yet open for business. The tide was wrong for the beach and we only stayed one night then went back to Rancho Santana. On our next trip, in May 07, we kept running into people who suggested we give that beach another look, including Barry Oliver from Century 21. We figured all the recommendations were a sign and made the long drive over very rough roads to give the beach a second look.

We were not disappointed. The hotel run by a very cool guy named Shay was open for business and the waves were big, hollow, and uncrowded. Unlike “surf central” near Popoyo, this region of Nicaragua doesn’t benefit from all day offshores. The wind turns onshore around lunchtime much like other places in the world. That has been enough to deter the crowds, although little by little more people are discovering this beach.

Shay had 3 horses running “wild” on his property. As a young girl, I used to have a few horses and compete in equitation and over-fences, so having three beautiful horses roaming about added to the fun uncrowded beach made me instantly fall in love with the area.

The hotel and restaurant

After five days of good waves with few people, admiring the horses, and relaxing in the mellow environment, we started wondering if there might be any lots for sale nearby. We mentioned our interest to Shay. To our surprise, he said that he did have a few lots for sale. Five years earlier he had bought a big chunk of land. In order to have enough money to build the hotel, he sold off a bunch of lots to his friends. He still had a handful without owners. We assumed the ones left over would be the less desire-able lots, probably in the back, without views. The first few he showed us were nice, but fell into that category. Then he showed us the last option. It was 7/10s of an acre, front row, with an easy ocean and even a small window of whitewater view.

Me, standing in the center of our new lot.

We didn’t even have to think about it. We immediately accepted the $40k price tag, and with that, I finally joined the Nicaraguan land owner’s club. Unfortunately, a few days later we had to return home, but were immediately planning our next trip.

One month later, admiring the lot at the start of the rainy season.

We returned a month later, in June 07. May/June being the transition from the dry to rainy season, the difference in greenness was amazing!

Ryan, stoked to be back in Nicaragua for the second time in two months!

Early morning coffee while checking the surf from the second floor of the hotel.

Putting in fins…

When the tide is right, the beachbreak out front is as good as any beach in the world.

The view of the peak from the corner of our lot.

Hollow beachbreaks have their dangers. Ryan pulled into a meaty tube that closed out. His board flipped over and a fin sliced into his calf. I had broken a board and was running back out with a second one and saw him hobbling up the beach. I looked at the gash and told him he could probably use 4 or 5 stitches. He was adamant about not wanting to take the hour long drive to town, afraid of the un-cleanliness of the hospital. He figured the needles would be dirty and there wouldn’t be anything to numb the pain.

His solution? Rum!
Even though it was only 8:30am, he asked me to go get him some rum and coke. I went down to the kitchen. At the time, the hotel offered a self-service drink setup. You helped yourself to the fridge and marked down what you took on your bill. I had noticed a shelf with bottles of rum. I grabbed a bottle of rum from the shelf, a pepsi from the fridge, marked both on our bill, and asked the girls in the kitchen for a glass, some ice, and lime. I took it all up to Ryan and handed it to him to make his drink while I got out our first aid kit to look for butterfly bandages.

He made himself a drink and pounded it, then when I returned with the bandages he asked me to make him another. As I poured the rum into the glass, he noticed some “funk” floating in the liquid. I assumed it had blown into the glass, but on closer inspection, I noticed there was a ton of “funk” floating at the bottom of the rum bottle. He told me to smell the rum, and after taking one whiff of smell from the mouth of the bottle, I knew instantly it wasn’t rum inside. It smelled rancid! Ryan had just drank a good amount of it and started freaking out, wondering what he had ingested.

While he doubled over the toilet trying to make himself throw up, I ran down to the kitchen with the bottle to ask the girls in the kitchen what was in it. I frantically explained what had happened and they just started laughing. The told me that they don’t keep the real rum out on the shelf so anyone could grab it, the good bottles are in a cabinet in the kitchen. I asked what was in the bottle I had grabbed and they said it was coffee that had been watered down to be the right color, but since it had been sitting in the bottle for who knows how many months, it had gotten “funky”.

I went back upstairs with a real bottle of rum and the news that he hadn’t ingested anything poisonous. He then drank double the amount of rum he would have originally in order kill any bacteria in his stomach from the “funk” gulp. Within an hour, he was wasted and on his feet smiling, ready to finally go try to get stitches.

No pain now!

Plenty buzzed and all smiles in the doctor’s office.

Our friend Alex, a fellow land-owner, told us we didn’t have to go all the way to town to see a doctor. There was a small clinic only ten minutes away where he had gotten stitches before. He told us it was totally clean and easy.

It certainly didn’t look like an emergency room at home, but the place was clean and the doctor was friendly. He gave Ryan a tetanus shot, a pain killer shot, 4 stitches, bandages, and a prescription for antibiotics. The whole thing including the medication came to a whopping $3.oo US.

Three dollars! The same scenario would have been at least $500 at home, even with insurance! We thanked the doctor and were on our way.

Since by then the wind had come onshore, we decided to go to the vivero to buy some fruit trees to plant on our lot. Shay had told us that the beginning of the rainy season was the best time to plant trees. He suggested we not wait until next year so that by the time we wanted to start building a house the trees would have had a head start and already be a few years old, and hopefully starting to bear fruit.

Ryan, all bandaged up at the vivero.

At $1.50 each, we bought 18 plants including limes, mangoes, and avocados.

Before planting them on the lot, we needed to chop down all the weeds. Ryan borrowed a machete and figured he could do the work himself. Of course, it’s never as easy as you think it will be.

While he started weed-whacking, I started digging a hole for the first tree. It was hot and sweaty work!

Soon, a local kid named Osmar showed up and offered to help the hopeless gringos.

We got nice and dirty and were pleased with ourselves and our new fruit trees on our lot!

I’m a fan of most animals, particularly puppies. This one was pretty cute. Her name is Ducha.

Planting the trees in the rainy season gives them a good chance to be watered often so that they have a good root system established by the time the dry season takes hold. Shay told us that some would be able to live through the dry season, but in order to keep all the trees alive once the rain stopped, we needed to start digging a well.

We spoke to the husband of one of the girls that worked in the kitchen named “Berto” about digging our well. He quoted us a price of $2,000 for the well, a concrete topper, and a hand pump. He said they would start digging in the middle of the rainy season when the rock was wet and softer. They would then hit water soon, but the well would dry out during the dry season and have to be dug deeper. But, once water was reached at the end of the dry season, the well would never dry out again.

Some people suggested we consult a “divining rod” to find the exact location for water. Ryan didn’t believe in such magic, and worried the rod would point to some place in the middle of the lot where we didn’t want the well. Instead, we got a concrete block, chose the SE corner of the lot, and placed the block where we wanted the well.

We’ll put the well right here!

We also came down prepared to get ideas about where we would put the house. Ryan had sketched some initial plans but we wanted to see how to orient the building on the lot in order to take advantage of the view. We brought some pink flags to place on the lot to mark the corners of the house and help the visualization.

In this photo, you can see one of our fruit trees, the well marker, and the pink flags in the distance. Each day one or two flags would disappear. The locals were grabbing them and taking them home. There went that idea!

Ryan, walking from the hotel out to our lot.

2 fellow landowners and two random travelers. Brian Hopper on the left bought a big chunk of land further North and planted a teak forest. Next from the left is Alex Rico, a fellow lot owner and longtime friend of Shay.

Yay for our lot, #26.

After that last trip to Nicaragua, Ryan and I couldn’t stop thinking about all the investment opportunities. We both live frugal lifestyles and save our money. No big screen TVs or new cars here! So we both had a decent amount of cash sitting in investment accounts. Still, we were wary about putting too much into real estate in a Latin American country, especially because we couldn’t decide on just one lot.

We always fly with Taca. They may not be the most well-known airline but they are usually the cheapest from LAX. They also have a good schedule for a weeklong trip with departures leaving at 2am and arriving at 10am, then leaving Managua at 5pm and arriving back home at midnight. It’s a grueling schedule but at least you don’t lose a whole day traveling.

By our third trip to Nicaragua we had fallen in love with the place. As a professional surfer i’ve had the good fortune to travel all over the world. I’ve spent time nearly everywhere one might call a surfer’s paradise. There are phenomenally beautiful places out there where I would love to have a second or even first home. However, most are either too expensive, far away, or remote. When I think of all the elements; cost, proximity to home, familiar language, good food, friendly local people, and of course, amazing surf, Nicaragua scores highest in total score. So, Ryan and I decided that we would buy land in our new favorite country. The search was on.

We figured that the cheapest option would be to avoid the gringo-geared housing developments and buy directly from a local. The first step was to drive around and look for signs advertising lots for sale in Spanish. We found a few but looking into them wasn’t as easy as it had been in Mexico. Fortunately, we happened to meet a friendly ex-pat surfer who happened to be in the business of selling real estate. His name was Marc Brown, and he and his partner Bryan McMandon had moved to Nicaragua several years prior, bought up a few big parcels, and were in the process of subdividing. Ryan has never been very trusting of real estate agents. They are always trying to sell you something. Based on that negative preconception, we were incredibly impressed with Marc and Bryan. They were far from the stereotypical pushy real estate agents. They were just guys that loved to surf looking to facilitate the same sort of lifestyle we were dreaming of. When we asked Marc about real estate, the first thing he did was tell us the reasons we might not want to buy. He advised that the best thing to do was go surfing, enjoy the place, meet the people, consider the risks of buying in a Latin American country, then if we were still interested he offered his services to show us around.

We also met an American named Randy Hood who owned a hotel in Ecuador and had bought a lot in Nicaragua with a few partners with plans to build an upscale rental house. He told us about a local that was selling some land nearby. He said to look for the salmon colored pulperia and enquire inside. A “pulperia” is a little store that sells sodas, snacks, water, and a few assorted grocery items like soap, etc. We drove in the direction he suggested, found the salmon colored building and asked inside. The owner was out of town but his daughter offered to show us the lots for sale.

She showed us a lot map detailing GPS coordinates of the land. It was a long strip that went up a hill featuring three plateaus. It totaled about 4-5 acres and was offered for $50k.

The first plateau featured an ocean view.

The second plateau had a view of the surf, a fun beachbreak with a right sand point that is good on big swells nearby.

We had to make our way through a very overgrown section to get to the peak.

The view from the top was breathtaking. It offered a 360 degree view of ocean, waves and valleys.

“We’ll take it!” I thought.

We were pretty excited about this find. Initially we had hoped to spend less than $50k. We were looking for something in the $30k range. Marc had warned us that we shouldn’t spend more than we were prepared to lose. But, it seemed like a great deal considering the location and view.

Of course, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. One thing to beware of when buying in Nicaragua is the history of the title. During the war in the 80s, many landowners abandoned their property to escape the violence. A lot of that land was then taken and occupied illegally. Technically, the original owners could return anytime and make efforts to re-claim it. For that reason, it is only wise to buy land that has a clean title of recorded owners going back 40 years or so.

Unfortunately, this particular land didn’t fall into that category. The owner was a retired military figure who had been given the land as a reward for his service by the military, which essentially guaranteed that it had been seized during the war. Of course, the chances of the original owners returning at some point to claim it were small, but it was enough to deter us from taking the risk.

Ryan and I are coffee fiends. We aren’t the type that will sip it all day, but one solid cup of coffee in the morning is absolutely essential. Instant just won’t do. Usually we travel with a kettle that can be plugged into the wall to heat water and a plastic cone that is filled with filter and ground coffee, placed over a cup and as hot water passes through it brews a fresh cup of coffee. On this trip our kettle decided to die on us. Planning an early morning assault on the surf we didn’t want to wait until the restaurant opened to get hot water, so we asked for hot water the night before, made our coffee into plastic water bottles, wrapped them in wetsuits and towels to keep them as warm as possible and drank it just slightly warmer than room temperature the next day. It wasn’t perfect, but definitely better than nothing!

All caffeinated up, we drove to a semi-secret left reef. The wave is very tide sensitive and definitely not for beginners. It does a mini-teahupoo-style, sucking double-up tubing takeoff that then rifles along the shallow urchin-encrusted reef. It is a perfect wave but definitely on the heavy and dangerous end of the spectrum. The takeoff zone is tiny. We surfed it alone but realized that any more than 6 people in the lineup would be a very irritating and dangerous crowd. The fact that there is a big housing development with condos being constructed on the beach right out front, made us appreciate the current emptiness and worry about the crowds of the future.

Ryan, pulling in backside.

As I mentioned before, we were against the idea of buying in a housing development, but a few Kms up the road was a 3 acre lot for sale by an American who had bought a big piece and was selling a section in order to fund a trip around the world. He was asking $90k. The lot featured a big flat section on top with just enough view of the ocean but not any whitewater.

The selling point for me was the fact that it stretched down hill and ended at a river that runs even in the dry season and is broken up by big boulders. It was beautiful. I was instantly envisioning a yoga/writers retreat. We could have a house on the flat section with a big garden and room for a horse, then another structure down the hill with a big balcony looking out on the river. $90k was once again more than we had planned to spend, but the lot was big enough to be broken up into a second piece that could be sold in a few years to offset the cost.

The main downside was that there was only that one epic wave plus an average beachbreak within an easy drive and both would be overly crowded by the housing development someday.

We returned home from that trip with a much better idea of what was involved in buying land in Nicaragua, but so far no land to call our own.

We used to go to Mexico, my boyfriend and I. Only a few months after we started “hanging out”, he suggested we take a trip to Mainland Mex to really get to know each other. He took me to a hollow thumpy beachbreak with a solid left point a few hours’ drive South and I fell in love, both with the surf and with him. The next three years, every time he had saved up enough vacation time and I had a break in my travel schedule, we would escape to the land of banditos and sandy grinding tubes.

He had been visiting that particular beachbreak for nearly ten years, always staying at the same hotel. It is a family owned place and he knew every family member by name. When the adult children wanted to visit the US, he and his friends picked them up from the airport, gave them a place to stay, and showed them around town. He’d spent birthdays, Christmas, and New Years with them. Of course, he had developed a similar affection for the waves.

Then, one trip we decided to try something different. Nicaragua.
(The story from that first trip can be found in the blog post below.)
But the story that follows is that after one more trip to our favorite place in Mexico, we decided to give Nicaragua another try. By now it has been over 3 years and we haven’t been back to Mexico.