Saturday, December 24, 2011
Christmas Eve From Gigante
Well it's been almost a full year since I was last in Gigante and it feels great to be back. I had a pretty good trip down here however my flights were knitted together in a pretty interesting itinerary. I flew out of Vancouver on Tuesday December 21st at 8:25 so I was up at 4:15 am and got to the airport at around 5:15 am. I checked in and hopped on my first flight which left on schedule to Dallas Fort-Worth. I slept pretty much the whole way so I was pretty sore when I got to Dallas, to say the least.
My flight to Dallas was delayed a bit from it's original departure time so we ended up landing in Miami at around 8:40 pm. By the time I got my bags and grabbed something to eat it was about 10 pm. I was hoping to check in that night to avoid having to sleep in the ghetto part of the Miami airport however no such luck. I ended up finding a pretty good little nook that hadn't been taken and I posted up for the evening. I had all of my bags so I took out my blow up sleeping mat and set it up. I was in it for the night, I might as well be comfortable. I managed to get posted up by about mid-night, which left me plenty of time to get some shut eye before my flight at 10:30... theoretically speaking of course.
I had to battle for any time that I got to spend in my unconcious oasis, battle what you ask? Well first there was the PA system which luckily was able to tell me the time every fifteen minutes throughout the night, just in case I was wondering how much sleep I wasn't getting.. Next was the fire alarm test which consisted of a woman's voice letting us know that they would be doing fire alarm testing in the airport and not to worry if the alarm goes off. Next was the afformentioned test which consisted of 3 sets of 3 bleeps of the alarm (along with a flashing strobe light), followed by a very informative man explaining that the fire alarm had been set off and that the proper athorities had been notified, which we already knew to be false since it was just a test. Luckily the test was pretty quick... un-luckily, the test happened every half an hour all night haha, oh boy. I had my fair share of people walk by and laugh at the fact that I had straight up set up camp in the Miami airport... my parents would've been so proud.
"But why not just stay in a motel CJAM?",
Ah good question, I'm glad you asked, I'm cheap.. there it is. The cleaning crew swept through at around 2 am in their squadron of zamboni type machine. Not so bad, they only did maybe four or five passes right beside where I was laying..
"all right, all right, i can take a hint.. I'll stop trying to sleep". I finally gave up on the sleeping project at around 3 am and found that a girl had posted up in the uncomfortable airport chairs next to where I was laying. I sat down next to her and she woke up. We then got to chatting and she had just come from Nicaragua from a place not 45 minutes north of Gigante. We had a ridiculous delerious talk with lots of laughing for no reason which was exactly what I needed at that point. I went for a walk and got a cup of coffee and mosied around the airport until I could check in. I'm at approximately 2 hours of plane sleep at this point and it's starting to get to me a little bit.
I got on my flight to Managua and passed out before we left the tarmac. I woke up just as we were landing and had to rush to fill out my customs and immigrations forms. My cousin and his girlfriend were waiting at the airport for me and we headed out for Gigante immediately. My cousin ended up stopping and buying a new trailer for his truck which was awesome. He was on the fence about buying one until the nica man went and fetched a trailer that was almost identical in color with his truck. Knowing my cousin and how much he likes stuff that looks awesome, I knew he was in. He saw the trailer and immediately backed his truck up to see how it looked with the potentially new purchase. Wow, the set up looked like something a boss would drive. SOLD!
We finally made it home, after filling the trailer with some interesting stuff, including a bamboo hammock, at around 5:30 pm just after dark. To our surprise, we had no key, so we spent the next hour or so breaking into the house using whatever tools we could find. After breaking in, we celebrated the journey and went for a miander around Gigante to say hello to the locals. It was really cool seeing everyone down here again, such an interesting feeling. It feels as though I was just here. After the miandering, I came home and passed out.
The next day we went up to the property and all I can say is, WOW. It's really starting to come together, there is a roof and a floor on it. A parking spot has been made for the truck and a fence has been put up around the lot. Everything is looking amazing, I'm really impressed.
I have a bunch of pictures that I will upload when I get to some internet that lasts longer than a couple minutes, but for now it will just be text, sorry, boring I know.
I've just been taking it easy trying to acclimatize to the weather which has been really hot and humid because it's been raining so much. I've gone for a few jogs and enjoyed some sun sets. Went out on my surf board yesterday however there wasn't a lot of cooperation from the ocean and the waves, so I just paddled around the ocean for a bit to get some exercise. Last night we built a nica christmas treepee which I will show a photo of when I get a chance to put some up here. It's pretty stellar. Anyways, today is Christmas eve and we are going to a potluck, my cousin and I are in charge of the sweet potatoes.. which will be made out of squash, potatoe and carrot with some brown sugar since they don't have any sweet potatoes down here.
That's all for right now, I will hopefully make another update in a few days to talk about all of the festivities. Hopefully get some pictures up as well!
From Gigante,
This is CJAM
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Home again
Hello everyone,
So I suppose this will be one of my last posts on here. Not officially... but it might be. My mom came down here on Monday so that she could see Ahne's path and spend a week closer to her where her sister had been for so many months. We managed to finish tidying up the property by Saturday February 26th and finished packing all of the valuables into the bodega where they will live for the next few months.
We left Sunday morning at 6 am, via our trusty cab driver Blandford, for our 2 pm flight in Managua. The trip to Managua is only about 3 hours, however, we left early so that we would be able to stop in a town called Caterina so that I could buy some Hammocks. It was lucky that we were with our cab driver on this day since his car was severely overheating and he seemed to be unaware that cooling fluid was necessary to remedy the problem. He thought that we would be able to make it the remaining 10 km's to Caterina. Seeing that the car's temperature gauge was redlining, we managed to get him to stop at service station so that we could get some coolant for the car. We luckily got some coolant into the car and the temperature steadily made it's way back to a normal state of operation. *Phew* We left the service station and headed down the road toward Caterina. We were passing a small rural area along a straight stretch of the Pan-American. A small boy and his bigger sister were playing along the side of the road in front of their family who was walking behind about 10 or 15 feet. Suddenly, the small boy jumped out into the lane that were driving in just before we passed them. Our driver, like a cat, swerved to the left at the same time that the young boy's sister pulled the boy back over to the side of the road. The car missed the boy by mere inches, at best. Our driver stopped the car and took a few moments to collect himself. I have never been in a situation like that before. It was a terrifying experience. Luckily... our driver had an amazing reaction time and the little girl pulled her brother just in time. What a morning...
We made it safely to Caterina and had breakfast. I bought two hammocks and two hammock chairs which I plan on installing in my house when I get back. We proceeded on to Managua and successfully made it onto our flight at 2 pm. I was originally supposed to leave on March 3rd, however since my mom came down for the week she managed to change my flights so that I could come home with her to make the traveling process easier on the both of us. Unfortunately, as a result of the last minute flight alteration, our new itinerary now included 4 flights instead of 2. We flew 2.5 hours from Managua to Miami and spent had a 4.5 hour layover until our flight to New Orleans. We made it to New Orleans at about 12 am and had a 6 hour layover. It was an interesting layover. Unfortunately the designers of the New Orleans airport worked very hard to make an airport that is as close as you can get to a place in which no quality sleep can be obtained by the patrons which frequent it. It was a funny situation, all of the individuals with the overnight layover all trying to sleep in the same lobby area in the same awkward benches. It reminded me of that scene in Men In Black where Will Smith is and a bunch of other candidates are trying to write a test in the most awkwardly shaped chairs. It was funny to watch all of the different people try to sleep in these abnormally uncomfortable chairs during their layover. After the layover we proceeded to Dallas-Fort-Worth and then from there to Vancouver to finish our interesting milk run of a flight home. I proceeded from the Vancouver airport to the Victoria harbor via the sea plane and took the bus to my house in Victoria. All in all, I got home at 5:20 pm on Monday. Approximately 36 hours of traveling time. Not too shabby. I'm going to catch up on some sleep for the next few days. But I am thinking of starting a new blog for publishing new music that I make. I'm not really too sure if that will happen, so let me know what you think by leaving me a comment on this post. I thank everyone who took any interest in this blog over the course of my trip and I look forward to seeing everyone now that I'm back home.
From Canada, this is CJAM.
We left Sunday morning at 6 am, via our trusty cab driver Blandford, for our 2 pm flight in Managua. The trip to Managua is only about 3 hours, however, we left early so that we would be able to stop in a town called Caterina so that I could buy some Hammocks. It was lucky that we were with our cab driver on this day since his car was severely overheating and he seemed to be unaware that cooling fluid was necessary to remedy the problem. He thought that we would be able to make it the remaining 10 km's to Caterina. Seeing that the car's temperature gauge was redlining, we managed to get him to stop at service station so that we could get some coolant for the car. We luckily got some coolant into the car and the temperature steadily made it's way back to a normal state of operation. *Phew* We left the service station and headed down the road toward Caterina. We were passing a small rural area along a straight stretch of the Pan-American. A small boy and his bigger sister were playing along the side of the road in front of their family who was walking behind about 10 or 15 feet. Suddenly, the small boy jumped out into the lane that were driving in just before we passed them. Our driver, like a cat, swerved to the left at the same time that the young boy's sister pulled the boy back over to the side of the road. The car missed the boy by mere inches, at best. Our driver stopped the car and took a few moments to collect himself. I have never been in a situation like that before. It was a terrifying experience. Luckily... our driver had an amazing reaction time and the little girl pulled her brother just in time. What a morning...
We made it safely to Caterina and had breakfast. I bought two hammocks and two hammock chairs which I plan on installing in my house when I get back. We proceeded on to Managua and successfully made it onto our flight at 2 pm. I was originally supposed to leave on March 3rd, however since my mom came down for the week she managed to change my flights so that I could come home with her to make the traveling process easier on the both of us. Unfortunately, as a result of the last minute flight alteration, our new itinerary now included 4 flights instead of 2. We flew 2.5 hours from Managua to Miami and spent had a 4.5 hour layover until our flight to New Orleans. We made it to New Orleans at about 12 am and had a 6 hour layover. It was an interesting layover. Unfortunately the designers of the New Orleans airport worked very hard to make an airport that is as close as you can get to a place in which no quality sleep can be obtained by the patrons which frequent it. It was a funny situation, all of the individuals with the overnight layover all trying to sleep in the same lobby area in the same awkward benches. It reminded me of that scene in Men In Black where Will Smith is and a bunch of other candidates are trying to write a test in the most awkwardly shaped chairs. It was funny to watch all of the different people try to sleep in these abnormally uncomfortable chairs during their layover. After the layover we proceeded to Dallas-Fort-Worth and then from there to Vancouver to finish our interesting milk run of a flight home. I proceeded from the Vancouver airport to the Victoria harbor via the sea plane and took the bus to my house in Victoria. All in all, I got home at 5:20 pm on Monday. Approximately 36 hours of traveling time. Not too shabby. I'm going to catch up on some sleep for the next few days. But I am thinking of starting a new blog for publishing new music that I make. I'm not really too sure if that will happen, so let me know what you think by leaving me a comment on this post. I thank everyone who took any interest in this blog over the course of my trip and I look forward to seeing everyone now that I'm back home.From Canada, this is CJAM.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Running around...
Hello again,
So it has been quite a few days since my last post. I've been pretty busy for the last week and half since my cousin went back home to be with family. The vehicles both broke down and I have spent much of my time physically running around town from the property to Celle Palmado's, to the surf lodge back to the property. Rinse and repeat. It's been pretty wild. My Spanish has been getting a little bit better and I have managed to have some discussions with the workers and the mechanics regarding the work that was being done. But don't get me wrong, by discussions... I mean I can ask them a few questions and understand one or two words of the response that I get. It's a crazy feeling not being able to communicate with people... I really took that for granted before I came here. Anyways, so I've been running a lot lately. I've been running around town for reasons stated above and not to mention I've been involved in two separate evening foot races on the beach. The first foot race that I was a part of was against a female american tri-athlete ( I forget her name, but lets call her Lisa for the story) who we met at the hostel on our friends last night in town. We were all sitting around making interesting conversation when my friend Dave ( the owner and operator of Celle Palmado's ) decided to instigate a foot race between me and Lisa. She was apprehensive at first and asked me if I thought I would beat her in the foot race... not wanting to lead her on I said
So I'm currently the unofficial foot race champion of Gigante which is pretty sweet in a nonsense sort of way. Awsome. Anyways, I've mostly just been working hard for the last week and half so I don't have much to talk about from down here.
From Nicaragua, this is CJAM, thanks for reading.
So it has been quite a few days since my last post. I've been pretty busy for the last week and half since my cousin went back home to be with family. The vehicles both broke down and I have spent much of my time physically running around town from the property to Celle Palmado's, to the surf lodge back to the property. Rinse and repeat. It's been pretty wild. My Spanish has been getting a little bit better and I have managed to have some discussions with the workers and the mechanics regarding the work that was being done. But don't get me wrong, by discussions... I mean I can ask them a few questions and understand one or two words of the response that I get. It's a crazy feeling not being able to communicate with people... I really took that for granted before I came here. Anyways, so I've been running a lot lately. I've been running around town for reasons stated above and not to mention I've been involved in two separate evening foot races on the beach. The first foot race that I was a part of was against a female american tri-athlete ( I forget her name, but lets call her Lisa for the story) who we met at the hostel on our friends last night in town. We were all sitting around making interesting conversation when my friend Dave ( the owner and operator of Celle Palmado's ) decided to instigate a foot race between me and Lisa. She was apprehensive at first and asked me if I thought I would beat her in the foot race... not wanting to lead her on I said
"It's quite possible."So Lisa and I meandered with all of the other people in our group down to the beach for the foot race. Dave paced out 60 yards and Lisa and I proceeded to the starting line. Dave counted to three and dropped his hand. We both took off, but my second step landed me in a hole full of soft sandy mud and I almost went down. I got one hand down for my balance and looked up and saw her in the lead. But it was 60 yards, so I wasn't phased. I got to my feet and did what I do best, ran fast. I managed to beat Lisa by a sizable margin and winning one for Canada.
Canada 1 USA 0The next foot race that I was a part of was against Dave's best friend on the beach outside of Celle Palmados. This time we picked the solid part of the beach so that no slippage would occur. This contest was a very even match and we decided to have two races. I managed to win both races, however this man was also very fast and forced me to bring my A game. Luckily, I hate to lose.. and managed to get another two wins for Canada.
Canada 2 USA 0
So I'm currently the unofficial foot race champion of Gigante which is pretty sweet in a nonsense sort of way. Awsome. Anyways, I've mostly just been working hard for the last week and half so I don't have much to talk about from down here.
From Nicaragua, this is CJAM, thanks for reading.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Working, Boxing, Music Festivaling
Hello Everyone,
So there has been quite the delay since my last update, but the internet has been pretty hit or miss and I've been really busy with the tasks at hand down here in Gigante. My cousin managed to get his tickets changed and left last week to go home and be with family. Luckily I was able to stay down here and try to finish up all of the tasks and chores still left over at the property. It has been challenging, but also an adventure. I've been carrying around my Spanish books all the time, so when I have to try to talk to the workers I can communicate at least a little bit. I've definitely gotten better than I was at the start of the week... but it is difficult. It's been pretty crazy trying to do some of the subcontracting jobs and getting all of the works all of the things that they need to get the work done. Kind of a funny story involved me asking the well diggers if they needed anything else for the job. They said, we need more 'arena' (in Spanish). Not knowing with the
word meant I figured I would just point to the things that they had been working with to try and figure out what 'arena' is. I pointed to one of the bricks and asked what it was called in spanish and they said, 'arena'. Ok, enough said. They need more bricks. So I went up and got them a wheel barrow full of bricks. When I got down they shook their heads and laughed at me. "No, no, no. Arena". I was pretty confused at this point. The one worker followed me back up to the top where we proceeded to the sand pile. Ah, I see... 'Arena = Sand' good one. But the well has been completed and looks amazing. I need to somehow try to get a cover made for it, which
might be a challenge but I'm up to try.
The bodega is also coming along nicely except for we need to get the doors re-welded since the welds did not hold the first time. This wouldn't seem like a difficult task except for the truck and dirtbike have been broken down for the last week. I have been literally running around the town trying to get things done. It's been good exercise, but a little bit stressful.
We went surfing at the beginning of the week. It was nice just to get out with the waves and not think about all the stuff that has to get done. I somehow broke my board and had to get it repaired, but It only cost $25 which to me seems extremely cheap. Then again, I don't really know how much is involved in repairing a surf board. I have been, for the most part, getting up really early and going up to the property to finish off all sorts of odd jobs that are still around to get done. That is of course, when I'm not physically running around town trying to talk to people about getting the truck fixed, or borrowing tools. It's been crazy, but it's been fun too... a little stressful at times, but I think that is par for the course down here.
On Monday and Friday mornings, the owner of the hostel just down the beach from us does boxing sessions at 7 am. So Friday morning I got up extra early and went to the property to try and fix the truck. I got the truck started at least by rolling it down the hill, and managed to get the workers more water for making concrete. After I got the truck back in to town where the mechanic was supposed to be working on it. I headed straight down to the hostel to take part in some beach boxing. It was a blast, such a good work out. The owner of the hostel has all of the equipment and started everyone off with some focus pads to work on the form and technique. He also gave us some good pointers about boxing along the way as he used to be a
boxer when he was younger. Once we had all warmed up and worked on some technique, we got the gloves on and sparred for about 45 minutes. There were four of us in total and we sparred in a round robin style match. So one person fought all of the other people consecutively in three minute and half rounds. And then we switched the person who was the round robin individual. It was a lot of fun, boxing is tough. A lot of strategy though, which makes it a lot of fun. I definitely got tagged a couple times pretty good.. but I also landed a few good ones to avenge my lapses in defense.
After boxing, I came home and had some breakfast and then a solid siesta until about 1:30. I then got up and my house mates and I went down to Playa Amerilla to have a nice little friday afternoon at the beach just surfing and swimming in the waves. It was a lot of fun. We then came home, had a sandwich and went to the property to do some of the staining on the posts. It was a nice little Friday.
On Saturday, the plan was to somehow get to San Juan Del Sur where they were hosting a full moon music festival called Pitaya Fest. We were going to take a boat down with the rest of the crew of people going down, but unfortunately the boat was full so we decided to get a taxi. It only cost $50 for the round trip which is pretty cheap considering the festival was 2 hours away. Another plus, was that we got our friend Omar the towns taxi driver to drive us which made him happy about getting to have some extra money. We had to stop in Rivas along the way so that Omar could buy a new battery and so that we could stop at the bank for much needed funding. The new battery unfortunately did not help the car's starter problem so we had to push start the car whenever we stopped. We made it to San Juan Del Sur at around 2 pm... which was great except for that the festival doesn't start until sunset. So we spent a few hours at a pub called the Black Whale. We hung out and played pool and foosball which was a lot of fun. I also indulged in some ice cream, to which I am apparently addicted. Who knew? We finally made it to the festival just before sunset. It was by donation with all proceeds going towards building a community center in the area around where the festival was being held. We got in the doors and immediately in front of us about 200 metres away was the stage. 50 metres to the right of the door was a Cock Fight. Seeing as I had never seen one before, I found myself needing to see it.. just for curiosity reasons. It was pretty savage, I feel bad for the roosters.. but it's a different culture down here and that is a huge form of entertainment. Anyways, back to the music festival. It was a blast, there were so many amazing bands. There was one guy who was the coordinator of the event and he was absolutely amazing at playing the harmonica, it blew my mind. I danced my legs off, it was great fun.
There were a bunch of fire dancers that were interesting at first, until they kept invading the real estate in front of the stage to do their fire dancing. It got to be kind of annoying because all we wanted to do was to dance. So we, the free dancers, made a stand and held our ground. The fire dancers didn't really like this that much so they pushed one of the people in our group JJ out of the circle. He didn't like that very much so he tried to put out the fire dancers fire stick by pouring his drink on it. After his drink was empty the fire dancer hit his hand with the end of the fire stick so JJ through the empty at the fire dancer. The dancer came back and apparently knee'd him in the groin so JJ proceeded to pick up the fire dancer (flaming stick and all) and throw him on the ground. This would normally be a situation, but what made this one even more interesting was the fact that the fire dancers were all Nicaraguans (Nica's). That was one thing I learned one of the first days here, you never fight the locals. It is just not something you do. Needless to say, we all kept an eye on JJ for the rest of the evening making sure that he hadn't been lit on fire or anything to that extent.
We left the festival at about 11 pm and made our 2 hour trek back to Gigante. We had 5 people in a 4 person car and ended up getting stopped by the police. The police made one person get out who had to wait until Omar got back. Luckily Omar pretended like he was driving us just back to San Juan which is about 15 minutes away. So he drove down the rode and we parked for 20 minutes and he went back and got the remaining person in our group. We got back to Playa Gigante really late.. I don't recall the time.. but I do remember laying down in bed and thinking to myself that I should really turn off the light... and then waking up the next morning. Anyways, that is what I have been up to down here. Trying to organize things so that the house gets finished up and the Bodega gets finished so that items can be stored in there. It's a little stressful at times with no vehicle, but I'm trying my best which is all I can do. This is CJAM from Nicaragua, thanks for reading it, be sure to check out the new photos and new albums on the right hand side of this blog.
So there has been quite the delay since my last update, but the internet has been pretty hit or miss and I've been really busy with the tasks at hand down here in Gigante. My cousin managed to get his tickets changed and left last week to go home and be with family. Luckily I was able to stay down here and try to finish up all of the tasks and chores still left over at the property. It has been challenging, but also an adventure. I've been carrying around my Spanish books all the time, so when I have to try to talk to the workers I can communicate at least a little bit. I've definitely gotten better than I was at the start of the week... but it is difficult. It's been pretty crazy trying to do some of the subcontracting jobs and getting all of the works all of the things that they need to get the work done. Kind of a funny story involved me asking the well diggers if they needed anything else for the job. They said, we need more 'arena' (in Spanish). Not knowing with the
word meant I figured I would just point to the things that they had been working with to try and figure out what 'arena' is. I pointed to one of the bricks and asked what it was called in spanish and they said, 'arena'. Ok, enough said. They need more bricks. So I went up and got them a wheel barrow full of bricks. When I got down they shook their heads and laughed at me. "No, no, no. Arena". I was pretty confused at this point. The one worker followed me back up to the top where we proceeded to the sand pile. Ah, I see... 'Arena = Sand' good one. But the well has been completed and looks amazing. I need to somehow try to get a cover made for it, which
might be a challenge but I'm up to try.
The bodega is also coming along nicely except for we need to get the doors re-welded since the welds did not hold the first time. This wouldn't seem like a difficult task except for the truck and dirtbike have been broken down for the last week. I have been literally running around the town trying to get things done. It's been good exercise, but a little bit stressful.
We went surfing at the beginning of the week. It was nice just to get out with the waves and not think about all the stuff that has to get done. I somehow broke my board and had to get it repaired, but It only cost $25 which to me seems extremely cheap. Then again, I don't really know how much is involved in repairing a surf board. I have been, for the most part, getting up really early and going up to the property to finish off all sorts of odd jobs that are still around to get done. That is of course, when I'm not physically running around town trying to talk to people about getting the truck fixed, or borrowing tools. It's been crazy, but it's been fun too... a little stressful at times, but I think that is par for the course down here.
On Monday and Friday mornings, the owner of the hostel just down the beach from us does boxing sessions at 7 am. So Friday morning I got up extra early and went to the property to try and fix the truck. I got the truck started at least by rolling it down the hill, and managed to get the workers more water for making concrete. After I got the truck back in to town where the mechanic was supposed to be working on it. I headed straight down to the hostel to take part in some beach boxing. It was a blast, such a good work out. The owner of the hostel has all of the equipment and started everyone off with some focus pads to work on the form and technique. He also gave us some good pointers about boxing along the way as he used to be a
boxer when he was younger. Once we had all warmed up and worked on some technique, we got the gloves on and sparred for about 45 minutes. There were four of us in total and we sparred in a round robin style match. So one person fought all of the other people consecutively in three minute and half rounds. And then we switched the person who was the round robin individual. It was a lot of fun, boxing is tough. A lot of strategy though, which makes it a lot of fun. I definitely got tagged a couple times pretty good.. but I also landed a few good ones to avenge my lapses in defense.
After boxing, I came home and had some breakfast and then a solid siesta until about 1:30. I then got up and my house mates and I went down to Playa Amerilla to have a nice little friday afternoon at the beach just surfing and swimming in the waves. It was a lot of fun. We then came home, had a sandwich and went to the property to do some of the staining on the posts. It was a nice little Friday.
On Saturday, the plan was to somehow get to San Juan Del Sur where they were hosting a full moon music festival called Pitaya Fest. We were going to take a boat down with the rest of the crew of people going down, but unfortunately the boat was full so we decided to get a taxi. It only cost $50 for the round trip which is pretty cheap considering the festival was 2 hours away. Another plus, was that we got our friend Omar the towns taxi driver to drive us which made him happy about getting to have some extra money. We had to stop in Rivas along the way so that Omar could buy a new battery and so that we could stop at the bank for much needed funding. The new battery unfortunately did not help the car's starter problem so we had to push start the car whenever we stopped. We made it to San Juan Del Sur at around 2 pm... which was great except for that the festival doesn't start until sunset. So we spent a few hours at a pub called the Black Whale. We hung out and played pool and foosball which was a lot of fun. I also indulged in some ice cream, to which I am apparently addicted. Who knew? We finally made it to the festival just before sunset. It was by donation with all proceeds going towards building a community center in the area around where the festival was being held. We got in the doors and immediately in front of us about 200 metres away was the stage. 50 metres to the right of the door was a Cock Fight. Seeing as I had never seen one before, I found myself needing to see it.. just for curiosity reasons. It was pretty savage, I feel bad for the roosters.. but it's a different culture down here and that is a huge form of entertainment. Anyways, back to the music festival. It was a blast, there were so many amazing bands. There was one guy who was the coordinator of the event and he was absolutely amazing at playing the harmonica, it blew my mind. I danced my legs off, it was great fun.
There were a bunch of fire dancers that were interesting at first, until they kept invading the real estate in front of the stage to do their fire dancing. It got to be kind of annoying because all we wanted to do was to dance. So we, the free dancers, made a stand and held our ground. The fire dancers didn't really like this that much so they pushed one of the people in our group JJ out of the circle. He didn't like that very much so he tried to put out the fire dancers fire stick by pouring his drink on it. After his drink was empty the fire dancer hit his hand with the end of the fire stick so JJ through the empty at the fire dancer. The dancer came back and apparently knee'd him in the groin so JJ proceeded to pick up the fire dancer (flaming stick and all) and throw him on the ground. This would normally be a situation, but what made this one even more interesting was the fact that the fire dancers were all Nicaraguans (Nica's). That was one thing I learned one of the first days here, you never fight the locals. It is just not something you do. Needless to say, we all kept an eye on JJ for the rest of the evening making sure that he hadn't been lit on fire or anything to that extent.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
"Crazy", lovely, beautiful aunty Ahne
Hello Everyone,
I'm sorry for the delay on the updates. The past few days have been a bit of a whirl wind. A few days ago, my aunty Ahne, a lovely, caring and amazing woman was taken from us. She had been in Nicaragua for the past few months helping her son Nigel build a dream that she has had for her whole life. From the time Ahne was young, all she wanted was a little piece of paradise with something on it to call her own. Her son Nigel found her the piece of paradise and we were in the process of creating something on it to fulfill her lifelong dream.
Coming down here was the first time I had had a real chance to get to know my aunty and cousin. Before I knew her, all I ever knew was that she was my "crazy" aunty Ahne. I know now that the label that I once had for her, only scratched the surface of my amazing aunty. Over the past 4 weeks I had a chance to hear her stories and wisdom, her dreams and her fears and all of the tid bits and rants in between. My aunty, at an early age, had been hit by a drunk driver while walking home. She broke/shattered over 30 bones in her body and was unconscious for three days. She remained in critical condition for several days but was strong enough to pull through. After the accident my aunt was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis and lived a large portion of her life in constant pain. My aunty was one of the strongest people I've ever known, she had the heart to make it through any and all of the adversities that life threw her way. Five or so years ago my aunty was diagnosed with Hepatitis C that was contracted from a blood transfusion with tainted blood. The Hepatitis devastated my aunty's health forcing her to spend most of the last few years in bed. Within the last two years, she applied for a grant to get treatment for her Hepatitis. She was turned down for treatment several times due to the fact that her condition did not quite meet the requirements of the grant. The requirements of the grant being that your liver had to be at least 51 % dead in order to qualify. Ahne was 49 %, they told her that there was nothing that they could do for her until she met the conditions of the grant. For the first time she said, she did not want to give up... but it didn't look like she had a choice. Her friend invited her on a trip to Hawaii during which time her doctor applied for the grant for a third time and managed to win the board over in her favor. When Ahne returned from Hawaii she started the trial Chemo-Therapy immediately.
The Chemo-Therapy for Hepatitis C is extremely hard on your body and for many people who go through it, the Chemo-Therapy is too much and they die from the effects. My aunty was one of 8 people who did the Chemo-Therapy in this particular trial. She was the only one out of the 8, who made it through the Chemo-Therapy. She was a very rare success story to the Hep C Chemo-Therapy trial, my aunty, the strongest woman I've ever met. She beat Hep C, but she had spent the last 2 years bed ridden and sick beyond measure from the Chemo-Therapy.
This November, my cousin told her that he was going to Nicaragua to build their dream and he wanted her to come. Ahne got herself out of her bed and got on a plane to Nicaragua. She hadn't been out of her house or bed for two years, but was set on coming down and getting healthy. She set out some goals when she was down her and accomplished every one of them. She wanted to get back into shape, she wanted to help her son build their dream, she wanted to get healthy, she wanted to stop smoking and she wanted to take herself off of the pain medication that she had been taking for her arthritic pain for the past 9 years. She did all of these amazing things while she was down here. As she got healthier, Ahne was up at the crack of dawn and would walk up to the property for 6 am. Even when everyone was driving the truck up to the property, she would walk. You couldn't give her a ride if you wanted to, she was walking and that is all there was to it. She would work hard for 2 or 3 hours on her project, the main path around the house, and would come back to the house and rest. The path that she built is absolutely amazing. It has so much character and is so beautiful, pictures don't do it justice. If you are capable, you should try to come and walk Ahne's path. It takes you from the drive way of the property to a bench with the best view on the whole property. It is amazing. Ahne's path. It has a lovely ring to it. It's so amazing for so many different reasons, her path not only to the best view on the property.. but her path back to a normal life. Her path from pain and suffering, her path to her dreams. Her path.
One of the last conversations I had with my aunty Ahne, she told me that she had escaped death 13 times. She talked about how every time she made it through, she would go back to her crazy "counter-culture" lifestyle of partying and having fun. But this time was different she told me, this time she wanted to go home and make a difference. There was a reason that she was here.
When news of Ahne's passing reached the people of the small town that we are in (Gigante), everything in the town stopped. Everyone in the town came together to help, to grieve, to support. All of the petty differences, the misunderstandings between people, the animosities, all of it no longer matters. Everyone in this town was touched by Ahne, everyone who ever met Ahne couldn't help be being touched by her. Her personality was infectious and whether she made you feel awkward or not... she didn't care. That was her, that was Ahne, take it or leave it she would say. The outpouring of support and love shown by everyone in this town has been unbelievable... this town has something special.. I can't put my finger on it.. but I think it was Ahne's purpose. To bring people together, to make people realize how amazing life can be when you live it. To show people how to let go, to help people let go, to help people be themselves and furthermore to show what people can do when they have heart and a passion for life. I love my aunty Ahne, and I will miss her so much. If you're reading this blog right now, you likely know who I am and I more than likely know you as well. I want you all to know how much you all mean to me and that I love all of you with all my heart.
I'm sorry for the delay on the updates. The past few days have been a bit of a whirl wind. A few days ago, my aunty Ahne, a lovely, caring and amazing woman was taken from us. She had been in Nicaragua for the past few months helping her son Nigel build a dream that she has had for her whole life. From the time Ahne was young, all she wanted was a little piece of paradise with something on it to call her own. Her son Nigel found her the piece of paradise and we were in the process of creating something on it to fulfill her lifelong dream.
Coming down here was the first time I had had a real chance to get to know my aunty and cousin. Before I knew her, all I ever knew was that she was my "crazy" aunty Ahne. I know now that the label that I once had for her, only scratched the surface of my amazing aunty. Over the past 4 weeks I had a chance to hear her stories and wisdom, her dreams and her fears and all of the tid bits and rants in between. My aunty, at an early age, had been hit by a drunk driver while walking home. She broke/shattered over 30 bones in her body and was unconscious for three days. She remained in critical condition for several days but was strong enough to pull through. After the accident my aunt was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis and lived a large portion of her life in constant pain. My aunty was one of the strongest people I've ever known, she had the heart to make it through any and all of the adversities that life threw her way. Five or so years ago my aunty was diagnosed with Hepatitis C that was contracted from a blood transfusion with tainted blood. The Hepatitis devastated my aunty's health forcing her to spend most of the last few years in bed. Within the last two years, she applied for a grant to get treatment for her Hepatitis. She was turned down for treatment several times due to the fact that her condition did not quite meet the requirements of the grant. The requirements of the grant being that your liver had to be at least 51 % dead in order to qualify. Ahne was 49 %, they told her that there was nothing that they could do for her until she met the conditions of the grant. For the first time she said, she did not want to give up... but it didn't look like she had a choice. Her friend invited her on a trip to Hawaii during which time her doctor applied for the grant for a third time and managed to win the board over in her favor. When Ahne returned from Hawaii she started the trial Chemo-Therapy immediately.
The Chemo-Therapy for Hepatitis C is extremely hard on your body and for many people who go through it, the Chemo-Therapy is too much and they die from the effects. My aunty was one of 8 people who did the Chemo-Therapy in this particular trial. She was the only one out of the 8, who made it through the Chemo-Therapy. She was a very rare success story to the Hep C Chemo-Therapy trial, my aunty, the strongest woman I've ever met. She beat Hep C, but she had spent the last 2 years bed ridden and sick beyond measure from the Chemo-Therapy.
This November, my cousin told her that he was going to Nicaragua to build their dream and he wanted her to come. Ahne got herself out of her bed and got on a plane to Nicaragua. She hadn't been out of her house or bed for two years, but was set on coming down and getting healthy. She set out some goals when she was down her and accomplished every one of them. She wanted to get back into shape, she wanted to help her son build their dream, she wanted to get healthy, she wanted to stop smoking and she wanted to take herself off of the pain medication that she had been taking for her arthritic pain for the past 9 years. She did all of these amazing things while she was down here. As she got healthier, Ahne was up at the crack of dawn and would walk up to the property for 6 am. Even when everyone was driving the truck up to the property, she would walk. You couldn't give her a ride if you wanted to, she was walking and that is all there was to it. She would work hard for 2 or 3 hours on her project, the main path around the house, and would come back to the house and rest. The path that she built is absolutely amazing. It has so much character and is so beautiful, pictures don't do it justice. If you are capable, you should try to come and walk Ahne's path. It takes you from the drive way of the property to a bench with the best view on the whole property. It is amazing. Ahne's path. It has a lovely ring to it. It's so amazing for so many different reasons, her path not only to the best view on the property.. but her path back to a normal life. Her path from pain and suffering, her path to her dreams. Her path.
One of the last conversations I had with my aunty Ahne, she told me that she had escaped death 13 times. She talked about how every time she made it through, she would go back to her crazy "counter-culture" lifestyle of partying and having fun. But this time was different she told me, this time she wanted to go home and make a difference. There was a reason that she was here.
"There must be some reason, some purpose that I am here." she said.She knew she had a purpose, a reason that she was still here. She wanted to learn how to use computers and she wanted to go back to school. She wanted to be a nurse and foremost, she wanted to write her stories into a book. I wish I knew all of her stories, all of her experiences so that I could have written this better... but I only know what I got to learn about this amazing woman during my stay here. Through the past few days, those words have gone through my head so many times. "There must be some reason, some purpose that I am here."
When news of Ahne's passing reached the people of the small town that we are in (Gigante), everything in the town stopped. Everyone in the town came together to help, to grieve, to support. All of the petty differences, the misunderstandings between people, the animosities, all of it no longer matters. Everyone in this town was touched by Ahne, everyone who ever met Ahne couldn't help be being touched by her. Her personality was infectious and whether she made you feel awkward or not... she didn't care. That was her, that was Ahne, take it or leave it she would say. The outpouring of support and love shown by everyone in this town has been unbelievable... this town has something special.. I can't put my finger on it.. but I think it was Ahne's purpose. To bring people together, to make people realize how amazing life can be when you live it. To show people how to let go, to help people let go, to help people be themselves and furthermore to show what people can do when they have heart and a passion for life. I love my aunty Ahne, and I will miss her so much. If you're reading this blog right now, you likely know who I am and I more than likely know you as well. I want you all to know how much you all mean to me and that I love all of you with all my heart.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Well, that was pretty cool.
The past few days have been pretty busy to say the least. A friend from down the beach named Surfer Steve had his birthday on the Monday after the SuperBowl party. This rendered most of the people who have been helping with the house pretty inoperable for the two full days. My cousin and I decided that it would be a good use of time to go into the estuary and cut down a bunch of the bushes and shrubs so that we could drive through the forest to the property. With him wielding a saw and myself with a Pick-Axe, we managed to punch a hole through the forest to the main road. This means that now we can drive straight through the estuary, which is basically a desert in the dry season (floods in the rainy season), to the property. It was a pretty good use of the afternoon.That evening a group of us went to Playa Amerilla and had a sunset surfing session. Wow, was that ever cool. I came pretty close to riding one of the waves, I was in a good spot and managed to get into the wave, but got up too far on my board and went straight over the nose. The sunset surfing session was just amazing. There were probably about 8 of us out there and it was fun to get into the water and watch a bunch of people who knew what they were doing.
The next day was pretty much a write off since my cousin had to go into the town about an hour away to pick up some things. I got up on some sleep and a little bit of reading, but mostly just relaxed a bit. I learned a really fun dice game today called 10,000 that I will definitely have to show people when I get home. Or if people already know it, just play it when I get home, because it's really fun. Today we got up early as usual and my cousin and I went up and finished putting on the knee braces on the posts. After that we went down to see how the well diggers were making out at the well. Here is a little bit of history on my cousin's well. All of the wells that have been dug in the area of Gigante average around 15 to 17 feet deep before water is found. My cousins well is currently 31 feet deep and the well digger's are digging through what they call Roca Azul (Blue Rock). This blue rock is insanely hard and is making the well digger's lives quite a bit harder than they normally would be. Thinking that we might be able to help them save time with the digging process, we offered the use my cousins generator and hammer drill. My cousin decided that it would be a good idea for one of us to go down and try to help him out to see if the hammer drill would work. I volunteered to hop into the well, mostly because I wanted to take some pictures and have something to talk about on here.
So I got to the bottom of the well via a rope with a branch through it to sit on and got to the bottom which was quite the place. It was extremely warm and humid because of the moisture content within the soil. I was down there for about 45 minutes to an hour helping the well digger with the task at hand. The rock is insanely hard. We went at this one section of stone for close to an hour and it would not budge. Crazy stuff. I'm pretty tired right now, that well took it out of me. But just thought I would put up some new pictures of that and show people what's been going on.From Nicaragua, this is CJAM.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Beams be up scotty
So,
Yesterday we finally got the last beam in place for the house. The house is really starting to shape up. The bodega is also coming along quite well. This is a small update just to mention that we got the rest of the beams up onto the posts which exciting news. We've been surfing everyday and a friend took a video of me eating it on my new surf board which is pretty awesome. I've been trying to upload it, but the internet here is too spotty to get the whole thing up. I'll keep trying, maybe I'll do it tonight when no-one is on the internet. It's funny, because when I see a video of me surfing, I realize how terrible I am haha. But, that's the best part. I like having to work for it. It's a pretty amazing sport. Being in the ocean and trying to judge and predict what this massive living body of water is going to do and where the waves are going to end up on the beach. Great fun. Anyways, last night there was also a chili cook-off and Superbowl party which was a lot of fun. There were 7 chili's entered into the contest and so we got to spend a good portion of the football game eating different delicious chili's. I want to take this opportunity to congratulate my roommate Bill Hole on his beloved Packers victory. I know he cheered hard to make that win possible, so well played Bill, well played.
So this beard that I have is getting out of control, I'm going to be honest with all of you. In an earlier post I mentioned that the mustache contest had been cancelled and that I was now thinking of keeping the beard. After discussing this option with many of the people that I live with here, they suggested that I should probably shave well before I leave to avoid having a ridiculous tan line on my face. I don't feel like I need any more help looking silly so I think I will have to shave the beard off before I come home which seems like it might be disappointing to those of you who voted for me to keep it... sorry everyone. So I shall remove the poll about whether or not I should keep the beard or shave it, since it's obvious what I'm to do with it now. However, I'll leave up the other one and take lots of pictures of before and afters to put up here. So let me know what you would like to see my beard turned into in a week and I shall make it so. I will be taking some more pictures and putting them up here. Hope everyone is doing well.
From Nicaragua, this is CJAM.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
San Juan Del Surf Board
Hello Everyone,
Alright, so I just got back from San Juan Del Sur today and had a great time. The trip there was about an hour and a half from Playa Giante, but a pretty cool drive with some adventures along the way. Along the trip we drove by a pretty huge wind farm on the coast of Lake Nicaragua which was pretty awesome... mostly because I'm kind of into electricity.. and wind farms are right up my alley haha. Anyways, we drove along the Pan American highway along the shore of Lake Nicaragua which has the volcano Ometepe in the middle of it. Pretty awesome. Nicaragua apparently has the most active volcano's out of all the countries in central america which is also pretty awesome. Bring on the geo-thermal heating.
We got to San Juan Del Sur around 3 pm and went for a walk along the main strip in town. Our first stop was the ice cream shop on the beach which sells ice cream for dangerously cheap prices. I realized that I could buy a two scoop ice cream cone for 1 dollar. I'm sorry, pardon me. Did you say two scoops of ice cream for 1 dollar? Wow, where do I sign? I took advantage of the cheap ice cream. I'm glad that the town that I'm living in does not have a cheap ice cream shop as well because I would devastate ice cream at alarming rates. Anyways, after eating ice cream we started walking around San Juan looking for a surf board that I could buy. We stopped at 5 or 6 different surf shops before finding a surf shop that had a board that looked like it could be a winner. We made a note of the board and walked up the street to some other shops to see if there were any others for sale. After some more browsing we realized that the board found previously was the one.
We started heading back to the surf shop to make the deal when an old man (perhaps 80 years of age, and quite possibly blind) came running out of his barber shop, grabbed my cousin and told him that he must let him cut his hair. My cousin had already contemplated on getting a hair cut and decided that it was meant to be. 45 Minutes later, my cousin had his hair cut and a shave with a straight razer. Nice. We went back to the surf shop and I bought my first surf board for $200, what a deal. It needed some repairs and fixes so we told them that we would pick it up in the morning before we left. After finding me a surf board we all went down and had Mexican food at a restaurant on the beach. It was delicious. I had chicken fajitas which were exactly what I needed. We walked around San Juan for a bit and took in some of the city, had some more ice cream of course and then headed back to the hostel. I was in a ridiculous room that was built on top of the hostel in what seemed like an afterthought. The room looked like it had been thrown together with extra supplies that had been laying around. The room had a T bar ceiling that was right below the tin roof and had Styrofoam ceiling tiles which would lift off and rattle around in the wind. This wouldn't have been a problem if it wasn't the windy month for Nicaragua down here.. but... it's the windy month haha. So the wind whipped through the room all night blowing around the ceiling tiles like wind chimes, never-the-less I had a pretty good sleep.
In the morning I had a great breakfast and went and picked up my new surf board. We strapped it to the jeep and headed back to Playa Gigante. We got back at around noon, and I cleaned off my new board. I put some new wax on it and attached the leash and it was time to take it for a spin. We went down to Playa Amerilla and surfed for the afternoon. I love the board. It felt so good to be on a board that is mine. I am going to paint my surf board so that it looks awesome, and during the surfing sessions today I got to thinking about Halloween for some odd reason. Anyways, as some background. For Halloween, for those of you who don't know, my roommates and I ordered one piece suits from China and were the Jamaican Bobsled team. So I got to thinking and decided that I think I will paint my surf board like the Jamaican Bobsled and name it cool runnings because that would be awesome. Anyways, surfing on my new board was a blast. I got pretty close to catching a few waves except I was too early and I got tossed. It's kind of fun too though to be honest. I'm getting better at holding my breath that's for sure. It really makes me feel small though, when I get tossed around in a wave. Just blows my mind how much power those waves have. I can't wait to catch my first wave on my new board. It will be glorious, I just know it. But, I'm going to sign off on this one, we're going to have an early day tomorrow to try and get a bunch of work done. I am going to put a list of links to all of the picture albums that I've put up so that anyone who wishes to look at them can do so easily. It will be on the bar on the right hand side underneath the polls.
Speaking of the polls, it looks like I might be keeping my beard. I'm looking pretty homeless these days, I'm not going to lie.
We got to San Juan Del Sur around 3 pm and went for a walk along the main strip in town. Our first stop was the ice cream shop on the beach which sells ice cream for dangerously cheap prices. I realized that I could buy a two scoop ice cream cone for 1 dollar. I'm sorry, pardon me. Did you say two scoops of ice cream for 1 dollar? Wow, where do I sign? I took advantage of the cheap ice cream. I'm glad that the town that I'm living in does not have a cheap ice cream shop as well because I would devastate ice cream at alarming rates. Anyways, after eating ice cream we started walking around San Juan looking for a surf board that I could buy. We stopped at 5 or 6 different surf shops before finding a surf shop that had a board that looked like it could be a winner. We made a note of the board and walked up the street to some other shops to see if there were any others for sale. After some more browsing we realized that the board found previously was the one.
We started heading back to the surf shop to make the deal when an old man (perhaps 80 years of age, and quite possibly blind) came running out of his barber shop, grabbed my cousin and told him that he must let him cut his hair. My cousin had already contemplated on getting a hair cut and decided that it was meant to be. 45 Minutes later, my cousin had his hair cut and a shave with a straight razer. Nice. We went back to the surf shop and I bought my first surf board for $200, what a deal. It needed some repairs and fixes so we told them that we would pick it up in the morning before we left. After finding me a surf board we all went down and had Mexican food at a restaurant on the beach. It was delicious. I had chicken fajitas which were exactly what I needed. We walked around San Juan for a bit and took in some of the city, had some more ice cream of course and then headed back to the hostel. I was in a ridiculous room that was built on top of the hostel in what seemed like an afterthought. The room looked like it had been thrown together with extra supplies that had been laying around. The room had a T bar ceiling that was right below the tin roof and had Styrofoam ceiling tiles which would lift off and rattle around in the wind. This wouldn't have been a problem if it wasn't the windy month for Nicaragua down here.. but... it's the windy month haha. So the wind whipped through the room all night blowing around the ceiling tiles like wind chimes, never-the-less I had a pretty good sleep.
In the morning I had a great breakfast and went and picked up my new surf board. We strapped it to the jeep and headed back to Playa Gigante. We got back at around noon, and I cleaned off my new board. I put some new wax on it and attached the leash and it was time to take it for a spin. We went down to Playa Amerilla and surfed for the afternoon. I love the board. It felt so good to be on a board that is mine. I am going to paint my surf board so that it looks awesome, and during the surfing sessions today I got to thinking about Halloween for some odd reason. Anyways, as some background. For Halloween, for those of you who don't know, my roommates and I ordered one piece suits from China and were the Jamaican Bobsled team. So I got to thinking and decided that I think I will paint my surf board like the Jamaican Bobsled and name it cool runnings because that would be awesome. Anyways, surfing on my new board was a blast. I got pretty close to catching a few waves except I was too early and I got tossed. It's kind of fun too though to be honest. I'm getting better at holding my breath that's for sure. It really makes me feel small though, when I get tossed around in a wave. Just blows my mind how much power those waves have. I can't wait to catch my first wave on my new board. It will be glorious, I just know it. But, I'm going to sign off on this one, we're going to have an early day tomorrow to try and get a bunch of work done. I am going to put a list of links to all of the picture albums that I've put up so that anyone who wishes to look at them can do so easily. It will be on the bar on the right hand side underneath the polls.
Speaking of the polls, it looks like I might be keeping my beard. I'm looking pretty homeless these days, I'm not going to lie.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Build, surf, build. Rinse and repeat.
Hola everyone.
So it's been a while since my last update because the internet here has been down for quite a few days, not a big deal. I've been just catching up on some reading and what not. Anyways, the internet is back so I figured I would update this with some of the activities that I've been up to. I am now feeling much better than I was for the first week and a half and have finally started to get used to living down here. I'm not going to lie... it's pretty nice. We have been busy busy with work for the past week and have gotten a lot of stuff done. We've made two 40 foot beams from rough cut Nicaraguan wood.. which basically means that none of the wood is the same size and everything is bent and warped. Apparently when you order lumber down here, the order goes to some Nicaraguans who go out and cut down some trees and use chainsaws to cut the trees into the lumber that you requested. This lumber is then delivered to you by the company you ordered from. Which basically means that the wood ends up drying while your using it and turns into some pretty twisted lumber. Anyways, it makes for some pretty interesting construction. We've had quite the time making the beams for the house, but they are looking good now.
After spending about three days making and prepping the two 40 foot beams, we rounded up as many people as we could from around the village to come help us lift the beams 12 feet and put them on the posts. It took ten of us about an hour to get both beams up onto the posts and secured. But it's coming together quite nicely if I must say so myself. The structure is starting to come together and is looking pretty fine. After getting the beams up, we spent the afternoon eating lunch and then surfing. After surfing we went back up to the property and started leveling and setting the two forty foot beams and building some of the 20 foot beams that will go between the 40 foot beams. I have been cataloging the building process and putting it in the following online picture album. I will be putting any new photos of the building process in this album, so if your interested just check in once and a while to see if there are any new pictures.
The past 3 days have all looked exactly the same. Get up early and go to work for 4 or 5 hours. Come home, eat a good solid lunch. Go to Playa Amerilla ( a beach in the bay next to Playa Giante) and go surfing for a few hours. Come home, take it easy and get some fluids and shade. Head back up to the property and work for a few more hours in the evening when it starts to cool down. Rinse and repeat haha. It's been a lot of fun. I'm really enjoying the building process because we are making good progress every time we go up there which is always good. Surfing has been a lot of fun, I still haven't caught and rode a wave in, but I'm getting a lot closer. It's a lot of fun though. At first it was pretty daunting looking at these huge waves rolling right for you, but when you realize that you can swim underneath them it gets easier not to panic when your in the thick of it.
This morning we got up early again and went up and placed two of the 20 footers in their spots and it's really starting to shape up. We're hoping to get the rest of the beams up in the next few days and then head down to San Juan Del Sur so I can buy myself a surf board, boy am I excited. I think we may be going down and maybe staying over night. Either way, I'll be sure to take lots of pictures and throw them up here to see. My cousin has also hired someone to build him a bodega which is basically a secure storage shed. I have started another photo album for cataloging the progress of the bodega, so if it is something that interests you, check back ever few days to see what's going on with the bodega.
Another note worthy item to mention is that I talked with the owner of the bar and grill next door about the mustache competition and apparently the competition is being cancelled... I was pretty deflated. But with that news, I don't necessarily need to hack this beard apart until I come home. So I was thinking of keeping the Nica beard until I get home and then cutting something interesting with it. Let me know if you think it should be cut or if it should stay.. maybe i'll put a second poll up on the side.. running the risk of having this blog too cluttered. Yea I'm going to do it, I hate making decisions haha. Might as well put it to a vote, it is part of my entertainment to come on and look at how many people have voted on stuff anyways.
Alright, so until next time, this is CJAM signing off from Nicaragua.
So it's been a while since my last update because the internet here has been down for quite a few days, not a big deal. I've been just catching up on some reading and what not. Anyways, the internet is back so I figured I would update this with some of the activities that I've been up to. I am now feeling much better than I was for the first week and a half and have finally started to get used to living down here. I'm not going to lie... it's pretty nice. We have been busy busy with work for the past week and have gotten a lot of stuff done. We've made two 40 foot beams from rough cut Nicaraguan wood.. which basically means that none of the wood is the same size and everything is bent and warped. Apparently when you order lumber down here, the order goes to some Nicaraguans who go out and cut down some trees and use chainsaws to cut the trees into the lumber that you requested. This lumber is then delivered to you by the company you ordered from. Which basically means that the wood ends up drying while your using it and turns into some pretty twisted lumber. Anyways, it makes for some pretty interesting construction. We've had quite the time making the beams for the house, but they are looking good now.
After spending about three days making and prepping the two 40 foot beams, we rounded up as many people as we could from around the village to come help us lift the beams 12 feet and put them on the posts. It took ten of us about an hour to get both beams up onto the posts and secured. But it's coming together quite nicely if I must say so myself. The structure is starting to come together and is looking pretty fine. After getting the beams up, we spent the afternoon eating lunch and then surfing. After surfing we went back up to the property and started leveling and setting the two forty foot beams and building some of the 20 foot beams that will go between the 40 foot beams. I have been cataloging the building process and putting it in the following online picture album. I will be putting any new photos of the building process in this album, so if your interested just check in once and a while to see if there are any new pictures.The past 3 days have all looked exactly the same. Get up early and go to work for 4 or 5 hours. Come home, eat a good solid lunch. Go to Playa Amerilla ( a beach in the bay next to Playa Giante) and go surfing for a few hours. Come home, take it easy and get some fluids and shade. Head back up to the property and work for a few more hours in the evening when it starts to cool down. Rinse and repeat haha. It's been a lot of fun. I'm really enjoying the building process because we are making good progress every time we go up there which is always good. Surfing has been a lot of fun, I still haven't caught and rode a wave in, but I'm getting a lot closer. It's a lot of fun though. At first it was pretty daunting looking at these huge waves rolling right for you, but when you realize that you can swim underneath them it gets easier not to panic when your in the thick of it.
Another note worthy item to mention is that I talked with the owner of the bar and grill next door about the mustache competition and apparently the competition is being cancelled... I was pretty deflated. But with that news, I don't necessarily need to hack this beard apart until I come home. So I was thinking of keeping the Nica beard until I get home and then cutting something interesting with it. Let me know if you think it should be cut or if it should stay.. maybe i'll put a second poll up on the side.. running the risk of having this blog too cluttered. Yea I'm going to do it, I hate making decisions haha. Might as well put it to a vote, it is part of my entertainment to come on and look at how many people have voted on stuff anyways.
Alright, so until next time, this is CJAM signing off from Nicaragua.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
The Tale of Dale Dagger
Alright,
So this one won't be long. It's been a couple days and I've spent most of them pretty ill and trying to get better. Drinking lots of fluids. Crucial. Anyways, today was better. I was still feeling a little uneasy this morning but had a bowl of granola and went and worked in the morning and I'm feeling good now. My cousin and his buddies were going down to a surf break down the beach about 50 minutes called Panga Drops. I decided it was in my best interests to go with them and so my cousin gave me his underwater camera and some flippers and told me I could try and film. We drove half way and walked the remaining half an hour over some rocks and down the remaining beach to get to Panga Drops (might have the spelling wrong).
During this half an hour I asked my cousin why it was called Panga Drops and this is the story he gave me.
I am editing this post, almost a year after creating it. It seems that some of the tale that I heard was somewhat misconstrued from the way things happened. Recently Dale left a comment on this post letting me know that some of the things that I wrote were incorrect, which can tend to happen when stories are passed from person to person. I have removed my original version of the tale of Dale Dagger, however if you are interested in reading about this amazing story, you can find the accurate rendition of it at the following website:
The Tale of Dale Dagger
But back to Panga Drops. According to Dale, some surfers came into Playa Giante and chartered a fishing boat (a Panga) and it's driver for a few days to take them to some surf breaks. The surfers got the driver to take them to the location of Panga Drops which has an offshore reef which forces the waves to break earlier and bigger than they normally would on shore. They got the driver to anchor near the break and film them surfing. Dale said that he warned them that a swell was coming in and that they would want to move the boat further out but they didn't listen. A big set of waves came rolling in and the boat was caught too far inside the break. The driver tried to un-anchor and punched it but only made it to the base of the wave just as it was beginning to break. The wave was too big and flipped the Panga and dropped into the white wash. The swell lasted for 10 days during which time the Panga remained capsized and anchored in the line up of the Panga Drop reef break. This is how the Panga Drops got their name apparently, and also a piece of the tale of Dale Dagger.
Going to go swim in some waves and watch my cousin and his buddies surf ( I still need to get a board ). I'm going to see if my camera is actually waterproof. So either I will have pictures from the ocean or no more pictures from here on out. Will maybe edit this post a bit later. But there's a story at least to read in the mean time. Vote on a mustache or tell me what other style you think I should rock if you still haven't.
So this one won't be long. It's been a couple days and I've spent most of them pretty ill and trying to get better. Drinking lots of fluids. Crucial. Anyways, today was better. I was still feeling a little uneasy this morning but had a bowl of granola and went and worked in the morning and I'm feeling good now. My cousin and his buddies were going down to a surf break down the beach about 50 minutes called Panga Drops. I decided it was in my best interests to go with them and so my cousin gave me his underwater camera and some flippers and told me I could try and film. We drove half way and walked the remaining half an hour over some rocks and down the remaining beach to get to Panga Drops (might have the spelling wrong).
During this half an hour I asked my cousin why it was called Panga Drops and this is the story he gave me.
I am editing this post, almost a year after creating it. It seems that some of the tale that I heard was somewhat misconstrued from the way things happened. Recently Dale left a comment on this post letting me know that some of the things that I wrote were incorrect, which can tend to happen when stories are passed from person to person. I have removed my original version of the tale of Dale Dagger, however if you are interested in reading about this amazing story, you can find the accurate rendition of it at the following website:
The Tale of Dale Dagger
But back to Panga Drops. According to Dale, some surfers came into Playa Giante and chartered a fishing boat (a Panga) and it's driver for a few days to take them to some surf breaks. The surfers got the driver to take them to the location of Panga Drops which has an offshore reef which forces the waves to break earlier and bigger than they normally would on shore. They got the driver to anchor near the break and film them surfing. Dale said that he warned them that a swell was coming in and that they would want to move the boat further out but they didn't listen. A big set of waves came rolling in and the boat was caught too far inside the break. The driver tried to un-anchor and punched it but only made it to the base of the wave just as it was beginning to break. The wave was too big and flipped the Panga and dropped into the white wash. The swell lasted for 10 days during which time the Panga remained capsized and anchored in the line up of the Panga Drop reef break. This is how the Panga Drops got their name apparently, and also a piece of the tale of Dale Dagger.
Going to go swim in some waves and watch my cousin and his buddies surf ( I still need to get a board ). I'm going to see if my camera is actually waterproof. So either I will have pictures from the ocean or no more pictures from here on out. Will maybe edit this post a bit later. But there's a story at least to read in the mean time. Vote on a mustache or tell me what other style you think I should rock if you still haven't.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Up the Giants Foot
The other day we had a 5.1 earthquake just off the coast of where we are living. Apparently it shook the whole house, unfortunately I was swimming so I didn't even feel it. I kinda wish I could've felt it but I suppose it's just good that it wasn't big enough to mess anything up.
After the earthquake, we enjoyed the afternoon in the sun swimming and laying around and then decided to hike up the Giants foot to see the sunset. The hike was pretty interesting. I was wearing flip flops and I didn't realize that there were sections of the hike that were basically vertical rock climbing sections. Haha, I probably should have wore some shoes but it turned out fine so I guess flip flops were a fine choice.
After we got back from the giants foot, we had delicious homemade hamburgers and frozen chocolate bananas. Dinner was so good. I went to bed early because I was exhausted. It's really strange being in a place where the sun is up from 6 am to 6 pm every single day. I end up getting up at 5:30 and going to bed at 8:30 - 9 pm. Such a weird schedule. Got up at 5:30 the next morning and headed up to the property for a good morning of work. I sanded posts for a while which will be used as knee braces between the beams and the support posts. There is still a lot of work to do but it is coming along for sure. We came home for siesta and went back up to do a little bit more work until sunset. Went to bed early and got up early again haha rinse and repeat.
Anyways, I'll try and do something interesting to talk about in the next few days. But I can't guarantee anything.
Friday, January 21, 2011
First Time Surfing
Today I woke up at 5:30 ( I could not take the rooster this morning ) and I'm feeling pretty close to 100 %. I had a small, dangerously good cup of coffee ( apparently Nicaragua exports really good coffee) which I could see happen on the regular. It's just so funny because I don't normally ever drink coffee so it gets me pretty ansy. Apparently it was some sort of holiday so the people in the village that we're in all went in to town (Rivas) to hang out for the day. However, we forgot to get water over the last couple days so now we didn't have any and the stores were all closed because of this holiday. So we ended up scrounging together whatever liquids we could and going up to the property. We built a nice sitting area but it got too hot and without a lot of water there wasn't much we could do. We came back down to the house for a siesta at which time I had some lunch and went swimming.
After swimming for a while, we decided to pack up a bunch of food and water and head down to Playa Amerilla which is a surfing beach that gets some pretty nice waves. We got down there and my cousin gave me a lesson about surfing and some of the technique and then we headed out. We were just about in the water when he noticed that the big board that he was lending me had some damage on the end of it, so we wouldn't be able to get it in the water or it would get water logged. I took the big board back to our spot and grabbed his small board to use. His small board is a lot smaller than the board that I was going to use so it was a little more difficult to do all of the basics that he taught me because it's so tippy. However, he pushed me into a couple waves and I managed to get to my knee on my second one so that was pretty fun. Except that I kinda got caught in the middle of a big set so I just spent a while getting tossed around in the waves. I haven't figured out all the technique yet, but I really enjoyed trying to catch the few that I did. It's so much harder than it looks, such a great work out. I'm definitely going to have to try and get better at it.
After swimming for a while, we decided to pack up a bunch of food and water and head down to Playa Amerilla which is a surfing beach that gets some pretty nice waves. We got down there and my cousin gave me a lesson about surfing and some of the technique and then we headed out. We were just about in the water when he noticed that the big board that he was lending me had some damage on the end of it, so we wouldn't be able to get it in the water or it would get water logged. I took the big board back to our spot and grabbed his small board to use. His small board is a lot smaller than the board that I was going to use so it was a little more difficult to do all of the basics that he taught me because it's so tippy. However, he pushed me into a couple waves and I managed to get to my knee on my second one so that was pretty fun. Except that I kinda got caught in the middle of a big set so I just spent a while getting tossed around in the waves. I haven't figured out all the technique yet, but I really enjoyed trying to catch the few that I did. It's so much harder than it looks, such a great work out. I'm definitely going to have to try and get better at it.
We packed up and came home and got dressed up to go down to a Nica restaurant down the beach. The restaurant is called La Gaviota. We had deep fried fish ( so much better than it sounds ), sauteed prawns, rice, beans and vegetables. Going to this restaurant down here is equivalent to going to the Keg or something at home. We walked back home on the beach and decided that we should watch a movie. ( There is a movie lounge next door, I'll try and get a picture of it. )
After browsing through the pirated movie collection, my cousin decided that Machete was the best choice. So we are now taking some popcorn and watching Machete, They just #%*@ed with the wrong Mexican. With lines like that it has to be good right?
Which brings me to the end and on to the next order of business. I haven't shaved since I left, so I'm currently sporting a pretty good beard. I was trying to figure out if I should shave it or leave it when my aunt informed me that the bar next door is having a mustache competition on February 14. That seemed like a pretty good reason to shave, however, I'm not sure what style of mustache I should go for. So I would like some feedback from anyone who reads this. I will take before and after pictures and post them up here. I've put a poll on the side of my blog with some standard choices, if none of the choices match your idea then just leave me a comment on this post and I will take it into consideration. Consider consulting the various mustache styles.
After browsing through the pirated movie collection, my cousin decided that Machete was the best choice. So we are now taking some popcorn and watching Machete, They just #%*@ed with the wrong Mexican. With lines like that it has to be good right?
Which brings me to the end and on to the next order of business. I haven't shaved since I left, so I'm currently sporting a pretty good beard. I was trying to figure out if I should shave it or leave it when my aunt informed me that the bar next door is having a mustache competition on February 14. That seemed like a pretty good reason to shave, however, I'm not sure what style of mustache I should go for. So I would like some feedback from anyone who reads this. I will take before and after pictures and post them up here. I've put a poll on the side of my blog with some standard choices, if none of the choices match your idea then just leave me a comment on this post and I will take it into consideration. Consider consulting the various mustache styles.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Swimming in the ocean
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| Playa Giante |
The place we're living has it's own pack of dogs which aren't trained but are the greatest dogs. I think since they are a pack the younger dogs learn from the older dogs. The boss dog is named Steech and according some our neighbors he is the boss all around town. Whenever I go for a walk, at least one dog comes with me as an escort. Apparently they even stay and watch your stuff on the beach when you swim. Pretty cool. One of the dogs recently had 7 Puppies ( 6 boys and 1 girl ) and I may or may not have woken them from their siesta. I kinda feel bad because their mom was sleeping but once her pups were up they realized that they were hungry, ah well made for some good classic puppy photos.
Tried to get a good sleep but still feeling kinda crappy so i was sorta up throughout the night. The dogs went crazy when a horse tried to come onto the property. They chased the horses off the property, but not before waking up every person asleep within our area. Got up pretty early this morning, still not feeling 100% but better than yesterday. We went up to the property and did some work until 11. Came back and swam for a while and helped my cousin design some things. Came on the computer and decided to figure out how to get a photo album together so that people could see. And that's my day so far and it's currently 3:14 pm. I like it. haha anyways, I think that's good for today. I'll try and write another blurb in a couple days. Unless I do something really cool.
Monday, January 17, 2011
good start?
Alright,
so I managed to make it to Nicaragua. I would love to say that the trip down here went perfectly according to plan.. But I'd be lying. I managed to get food poisoning the night before I left which made for an extremely interesting layover in miami. I definitely don't recommend food borne illnesses and commercial air travel to anyone. But I'm starting to feel better and I'm extremely excited about being here. what an unreal place. I'll try to set up some sort of picture album in the next few days to show how stunning this place is.
Colter
so I managed to make it to Nicaragua. I would love to say that the trip down here went perfectly according to plan.. But I'd be lying. I managed to get food poisoning the night before I left which made for an extremely interesting layover in miami. I definitely don't recommend food borne illnesses and commercial air travel to anyone. But I'm starting to feel better and I'm extremely excited about being here. what an unreal place. I'll try to set up some sort of picture album in the next few days to show how stunning this place is.
Colter
Monday, January 10, 2011
And So it begins
This is my first post for this blog and since I have never kept a blog before, I'm going to make this one short and sweet. This blog will hopefully contain updates and pictures cataloging my trip to Nicaragua. I'll be leaving on the 16th of January and returning ... Well I haven't quite figured that part out yet. But I will hopefully be able to keep everyone updated through this blog.
Wish me luck,
Colter
Wish me luck,
Colter
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