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

"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  0

The 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.

 

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.

"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.

"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.

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.

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.

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.

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.