Coastal Real Estate Tour – Day 2

The following morning we met with attorney Sergio Montengegro, Managing Partner of Garcia & Bodan and Tuey Murdock, consultant with 1st American Title. We had a very informative session with them and learned about how to avoid possible pitfalls with property ownership in Nicaragua.

After our meeting we made our way south to Piedras y Olas, a Pelican Eyes development, overlooking San Juan del Sur. There we met Natalie, head of sales for Pelican Eyes, who hosted us for an awesome lunch, featuring the most incredible Lobster BLT you could imagine. Just looking at the photo makes our mouths water! Natalie showed us several villas and the grounds at Piedras y Olas, which is a hotel and residential resort community. We were quite impressed with the design and finishes of the villas and the integration of the gardens, pools and structures. Later in the afternoon Natalie took us for a short drive over the hill south of the SJDS Bay to view the upcoming oceanfront development at Paradise Bay, Marea Alta. The terrain is steep, allowing unobstructed ocean views looking southwest towards Costa Rica. We ended the day with a swim, a sunset dinner and spent the night in one of the luxury villas.

Cabina/studio apt. start at $200,000 and a 2 bdrm./2 bath townhouse at $296,00. In Marea Alta cottages begin at $369,000 and go up to $971,000. For more information you can go to:
www.piedrasyolas.com

Coastal Real Estate Tour – Day 1

Don't forget you can double click on any photo and it will take you to Picas Web albums. Then click on the "slideshow" box on the left and the photos will be enlarged and easier to view.

Before leaving Ecuador we started chatting, via email, with Brooke Rundle at Coldwell Banker in San Juan del Sur regarding coastal property in Nicaragua. Subsequently, Brooke invited us to go on a tour of several developments along the central & southern Pacific coast of Nicaragua. We met up with Brooke and another couple from southern California, Joel and Rose, in Managua to begin the tour. On our first morning we met with Lori and Jorge Estrada, the developers of Montecristo, a one thousand acre oceanfront residential resort, located 1 hour west of Managua. Although in it’s early stages, Montecristo’s master plan will include 5 distinct communities and feature an 18 hole golf course, equestrian center, several restaurants, swimming pools, tennis courts and a Town Center with neighborhood market and shops. As you can see from the photos, there are some spectacual visitas throughout the project. Lori and Jorge were gracious hosts and spent all morning giving us a personal tour of the property, ending with a picnic lunch at their beachfront pavilion.

Lots with golf course frontage begin at $65,000 and beachfront lots begin at $199,000 and they currently have a lot/house package for $185,000, including a splash pool.

Our next stop was a few miles south at Milagro del Mar within the master development of Gran Pacifica. Milagro del Mar is a primier oceanfront luxury condominium project. The focal point of the property will be a spectacular cascading water feature and tropical garden leading down to a pool at the beach. Our hosts and principal partners of Milagro del Mar, Roger Keeling and Greg Elam, gave us a tour of the site and then treated us to a delightful beachside wine & cheese party, hosted by their lovely wives, Caroline and Sam. We had a wonderful time chatting with some of the property owners, sipping chilled wine, savoring the delicious pate and devouring Sam’s homemade brownies.

One bedroom condos at Milagro begin at $150,000, 2 bedroom at $270,000 and 3 bdrm. $400,000.

That evening on our drive back to Managua, we stopped at Trinity Furniture & Millworks, where Eli gave us a tour and showed us some of their beautiful custom furniture and millwork. Eli is extremely creative and artistic as you can see by the photos of the furniture he has designed. His dream is coming to fruition with the opening of a vocational training school in conjunction with the factory.

For further information and photos of Montecristo or Milagro del Mar you can go to their websites: www.montecristobeach.com
www.milagrodelmar.com

Casa Amarillo at Playa Guasacate - Our New Home

After a 3 hour drive from San Juan del Sur, we arrived in Playa Guasacate and Sunday, November 1^st. Under normal conditions, the drive would only take 2 hours but because of all the rain last month the roads are mostly deep mud holes with streams running down the road so you have to drive in 1^st or 2^nd gear most of the time. A lot of times they just look like big mud puddles but they can be a foot or 2 deep. Everyone we’ve talked to says in acouple weeks it will all dry up and they will do the annual road “reclamation,” then the trip will be a breeze….we’ll see. When we arrived at our house, Casa Amarillo, we were alittle disappointed. The house had been closed up for a month, there was no water, the power was down and it needed to be cleaned. So we opted to stay next door at Hotel Toro for our first night….a nice place & a great pool! Luckily, we had bought a cooler & ice to put our perishable food in. The next day some of the staff from Toro came over and got the water turned on and helped us clean and we moved in. The good news is, the manager at Toro told us we could use the pool anytime, they have cold cervesa and they take Visa! We are stylin’ here on the edge of nowhere!

Our house is about a 2 minute walk to the beach, just like Kaalawai. Right now everything around us is green but will gradually turn brown as we get into the dry season. The beach is similar to Kailua beach in length and 2 to 4 times wider, depending on the tide. However, the sand is grey and the surf is much like Hapuna beach, thumping closeout shore break, not great for long boarding. The next mission might be mission impossible, finding an accessible point break. Nicaragua is not known for it’s reef and point breaks.

We are enjoying the simple life here, long walks on the beach morning and evening with awesome sunsets and lots of shell collecting. Grey is filling his “water need” with body surfing right in front of the house. Life is good and so is the cabbage, as it has been our staple “green food” since we’ve been here. Amazingly, even Grey has gotten to really like it since it is our only salad.

As you can see, we have had some awesome sunsets.

Welcome to Nicaragua - San Juan del Sur

Last week we stopped in Los Angeles for a few days and our friends Sally & Chris were kind enough to allow us to unload all of our “Ecuador treasurers.” After reprovisioning, we flew into San Jose, Costa Rica and took the Tica Bus to Nicaragua. Overall, the bus trip was uneventful, very comfortable and shorter than we had anticipated. The border crossing was a little helter skelter. They took all our passports, made us get off the bus and take all of our baggage off the bus and drag it up onto the bus terminal deck. We waited in line and when it was finally our turn the guy asked us what was in our box and we told him beach chairs. He said okay, push the green button to ring the bell and put your stuff back on the bus. What was that all about?? Then we stood around for 30-40 minutes waiting to get our stamped passports back. One poor fellow had an expired passport and wasn’t allowed back on the bus….wonder what happened to him?

Our first stop in country was San Juan del Sur. Mission, to find a long board. Got lucky and the 2^nd shop we went into had a 10 footer…hurray! Strange thing is, the board was made in Germany. Is there surf in Germany? Got to try it out the next day at a spot called Medaras. Gentle little beach break in a small bay about 35 minutes north of San Juan del Sur on a mud road most sane people wouldn’t consider driving on. The rainy season here just ended and the roads are horrendous. Locals say it was worst wet season in 50 years, good thing we didn’t come earlier!

San Juan del Sur is a classic Latin American surf town. Lots of gringos visiting and living there, mostly younger crowd but there are a few old hippies/beach bums like us too. By American standards everything is cheap here but is at least twice the cost of what we were paying in Ecuador. Gasoline was as high as $5/gal. but has come down a little. In the rural areas (which is where we live!), the only “green” veggies you can get are cabbage & green peppers. Maybe we will write an international cookbook titled, “Siempre Berza” in Latin America, “To Vadza” in Romania and “Choke Cabbage” in Hawaii. However, there is a benefit, makes cooking easy with limited choices. We now have a new appreciation for the abundance of fresh produce in Ecuador, wish we would have eaten more of it!

We lucked out on the hotel Grey picked out on the internet. It was a block off the main street and had a nice interior courtyard so our room was set back off the street. Our second night in San Juan was Halloween and they closed the malacon (beach front street) and put up tables & chairs and every restaurant set up big speakers and blasted music most of the night. Most people wore costumes and the gringos went Greek, lots of “togas.” Think the hotels lost a lot of sheets that night. We were snug in our room and didn’t have any problem sleeping, especially Grey, after surfing for the 1^st time in 7 months.

OTAVALO INDIGENOUS MARKET

We have posted before about the Indigenous Market in Otavalo, but the pictures we shared were mostly of people. We were so taken by the people here that we didn't realize we had excluded photos of the beautiful creations by the local artisans. So, here are 2 slideshows of the diverse handicrafts offered at the market.

San Antonio de Ibarra

San Antonio de Ibarra is a small suburb of the larger city of Ibarra, which is located about 30 minutes north of where we live. Between the 16th and 17th century, woodcarvers from Spain settled in San Antonio. Nowadays, San Antonio de Ibarra is considered to be the most important woodcarving center in South America. Back in August, we visited San Antonio with our friend Leslie, who was visiting us from Cuenca. We got to have a peak at some of the carvers at work. As you can see, the work is all done by hand. Some workshops are camouflaged; outside they look like shacks, or regular homes. Yet inside the fragrant smell of Cedar wood fills the air, as reddish shavings cover the floor next to delicately hand-crafted chairs, religious sculptures, and tables. San Antonio has become one gigantic carpentry workshop in which many families have found a relatively lucrative source of income, while at the same time preserving a wood sculpting tradition of hundreds of years.

Fly If You Can & Hold On To Your Wallet!!

We apologize for our long absence but we ran into some "technical" difficulties. Back in mid August on our way to the coast we had our first really negative experience since we've been in Ecuador. After enduring several long bus trips throughout the country, we had decided to fly to the coast. Unfortunately, there were no seats available on the days we wanted to travel so our options were to wait or endure another long bus trip. We were anxious to get to the surf and sun so we decided not to wait and boarded the bus. Having lived in the tranquil and safe village of Cotacachi for several months, we had become complacent, not thinking that we could become potential targets. We were very wrong! When we first arrived in Quito, one of the first things our driver told us was, "Be very very careful with your valuables when out in public, wallet, camera, purse, ect. Keep them close to your body at all times."

As we sat on the bus at the Quito terminal waiting for the bus to depart, somehow in the confusion of people crowding onto the bus, Pam's purse disappeared off her lap. Unfortunately, our passports, wallet with cash, credit cards & ID and our beloved camera vanished in a blink. Needless to say, our much anticipated trip to the coast began under a dark cloud. Although it was a major financial loss, there were two positive outcomes, no one was hurt and we are now much more vigilant. Oh, I guess there is one other positive outcome - maybe you can learn from our mistake!!

The day didn't get a whole lot better. We had been told it would be a 7 hour bus ride, starting at 6:30 AM. Well, 13 hours later we finally got off the bus. And to sum it all up, it wasn't worth it! The northern coast was no better than the south & central coast we had already traversed. However, at the end of the dirt road and a short boat ride across the river, we came upon a beautiful undeveloped palm lined beach called Portete. We spent most of the day there enjoying the peace and quiet. Sorry, we don't have any photographs to share of our favorite spot....no more camera! The photos we have attached are of Mompiche, where we stayed for 4 nights. They were taken by our friend and neighbor Deb, when she visited Mompiche last December. As you can see, there isn't much in Mompiche, but the water was warm, the beer was cold and the shrimp ceveche was outstanding and we devoured more than our share!

Needless to say, we flew back to Quito and it only took 30 minutes! Moral of the story, fly if you can and hold onto your wallet!