Progress Report
September 25 - October 1º, 2005 // CONSTRUCTION LOG #51
Contact phone numbers
Internet Phone:
New York 315-279-6711 // Toronto 416-907-5758
Costa Rica:
Cell 506-305-3965 // Land 506-282-4142 Ext. 101
NOTE: our land line in CR has changed;
we are now integrated into the compound network.
CONSTRUCTION
Four weeks now of firing on all cylinders and with 60
people working, progress is being made. Rain has
delayed some areas of progress.
Units 114, 115, and 116: The purchasers of Unit 114 are
moving in. There are some finishing details yet to be
covered off but for the most part, it is quite
liveable. Unit 116 is not far behind it will be
occupiable by next weekend. Granite work is slowing
it's completion.
Unit 115 continues to advance. It's
probably 2 weeks from completion.
Unit 106: The concrete pour was interrupted by rain
but we still managed to complete it all on Saturday.
The framing for the second floor is advancing. These
units are actually quite large and the upper units
will have great views and wonderful interior space.
Units 121, 122, and 123: The framing for 123 second
floor is underway. We ran into difficulty with the
design of the staircase we're recovering and created
a new solution. The footings for 123 are and the
block work as started.
Units 117-120: We're still repairing the "miracle" parging - you win some; you loose some: We lost on
this. We are beginning to frame and board the
soffits and facias work continued... Some interior
drywall framing has started.
Units 101 and 102: No time to focus on this other than
to visit an aquarium to begin thinking about building
in the things necessary for easy mtnc. Lots of
research yet. I did get some decorating ideas on our
recent trip to Nicaragua.
Problems. Rain has slowed some work and continues to
be a nuisance. Fortunately, we have various stages of
construction on the go so we are able to move the
labor force around depending on weather.
Marketing:We closed on 116 and on 114.; We have
edited the brochure and are waiting a mock up for
final authorization.
Useful Websites on Costa Rica:
http://www.therealcostarica.com/default.html
http://groups.msn.com/CRLeBoard
http://www.arcr.net/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CostaRicaLiving/
http://welovecostarica.com
OUR LIVES
This week the story is about our trip to Granada,
Nicaragua:
FROM SAN JOSE TO GRANADA
NICARAGUA AND RETURN
WE'RE IN LOVE!!!!!!!!!!!!
Background: Not being a resident of Costa Rica
requires a person to leave the country every three
months for 72 hours. In times past, this hasn't
always been enforced but as of late, it seems" times
are a'changing". The consequence for overstaying your
visitor visa can be deportation without the right to
return for 10 years. So when my wife and I were
nearing our three month limit, we decided to make the
trip an enjoyable experience. We had been to Granada
about 5 months before for two days, We liked it and
vowed to return.
The Bus: We decided to take the bus and leave the
driving - and cost - to someone else. I asked one of
our Nicaraguan workers which of the two bus lines he
preferred-Trans Nica Bus or TicaBus. Without
hesitation he said TicaBus. For $10 each way it takes
the same amount of time - 7 hours - in a comfortable,
air conditioned first class, direct, bus. The 6am
departure was full and I didn't want to get up that
early anyway, so we took the 12:30 afternoon
departure. Since we knew there wouldn't be much of
anything to eat on the bus, we took our own. a loaf of
fresh San Francisco sour dough bread, a hot off the
grill chicken, and some wine for me and fruit juice
for Lita. We knew we would be seeing up to three
movies and in our case "Lord of the Rings" #3 in the
trilogy was great. The bus was about 2/3rds full. The
driver had the AC turned way down to the point it was
uncomfortable. When asked by others to adjust the
temperature, I believe he said he couldn't control the
temperature. (The bus back was newer and the
temperature was perfect.) Suggestion-take a sweater or
long sleeved shirt.
The TicaBus terminal is a non-descript one room
building two blocks east of the National Theater on
Avenida Secundo and one block south. It's near a park
and a church. To buy a ticket you need your passport.
You are suppose to show up one hour before departure
-you can shave this substantially. When you check in
(we bought our tickets several days in advance) you
are assigned a seat-no need to scramble.
The Border-Pena Blancas: The bus attendant
distributes the necessary forms for each person to
complete and then collects what he can process. He
also collects an $8 tax per person which seems to
have to be paid in U.S. dollars. (Returning the tax
was $3.) You first depart the bus on the Costa Rican
side to get you passport swiped and stamped
(important). Everyone then re-boards the bus for a1
minute drive to the Nicaraguan side where the driver
has had your passport processed. Everyone again
departs the bus, goes through Customs with their
baggage (not a very thorough process) and re-boards
the bus with your now Nicaraguan stamped passport.
Total time - perhaps 30- 45 min. Another 90 min. and
you arrive in Granada which is accessed from the Pan
American highway leading to Managua.
Pena Blanas is a bit desolate. Neither government
spends a lot of money maintaining the facilities.
They are staffed by government officials, a few truck
drivers awaiting papers or on layover / rest. The
Costa Rican side has a cafeteria; the Nicaraguan side
has a few street venders selling not much. There is a
duty free store on the Nicaraguan side; I've never
been inside so I don't know what is sold other than
liquor.
The terminal in Granada is on the western outskirts of
the city and was closed when we arrived (8pm at
night). However, taxis were there which took us to
the center of town (5 min. and 20 cordobas ($1,10)
(The exchange rate is about 17 cordobas to $1.00 US
or about five cents each for the math challenged.)
GRANADA: The more we see of Granada, the more we love
it. Going there every three months is not a hardship.
I may never get my residency because now I am forced
to take a trip and for us to enjoy ourselves.
Granada is said to be the oldest continuously
inhabited Spanish Colonial city in Central America.
While that may be the case, what exists today is
certainly and old town in various states of repair or
disrepair as the case may be. Perhaps about 15 years
ago, foreigners started going there, and bringing
their money, their ideas and talents, and their desire
to re-invent themselves and create a new life. They
found dilapidated but beautiful buildings. One by one
they started restoring them. Now, many of these
buildings are restaurants, internet cafes, bistros,
small hotels, tourist shops, etc. In the downtown
core - that being the main square in front of the
largest of many churches -in a three block radius, are
lots and lots of interesting places. Some of the
sidewalks are wide and reasonably well maintained,
some are narrow and reasonably maintained (coming
from virtually any city in Costa Rica, this is a
treat, and a novelty). If the sidewalks are too
narrow, no problem because many of the streets have
few cars -and you can always hear the clip clop of the
horse carriages and carts. Most of the streets have
night lighting.
Pizza houses, Mexican, French,
Italian, and Nicaraguan restaurants -both upscale and
casual are to be found. There is an American
breakfast place -"Kathy's" serving waffles, pancakes,
bacon, eggs, etc. We had the best charcoal grilled
steak in Central America -tender, juicy, and delicious
-we went twice -$8.00 each which included green salad,
vegetables, grilled potatoes, rice, garlic bread with
a side of guacamole / salsa / or marinated chopped
onions and your choice of several cuts of tender,
juicy steak cooked to your order. The first night
Lita had a butterflied whole breast of grilled chicken
a la orange and it, too, was delicious ($3,25). It
was huge -WE had to finish it off. Their margaritas
were to die for -and I wished the next day that I
had... (Actually I tested out a number of places in
Granada for the quality of margaritas, and Lita did
the same for non-alcoholic pina coladas -since I
discovered the price for her drink was usually the
same with or without liquor, I now get her to order
the rum on the side and I sample that as well -what the... this was a reenactment of our honeymoon 19 years
ago which eventually brought us back to Costa Rica. Most all the restaurants have a nice ambiance not
found in most Costa Rican restaurants. The central
courtyard garden is a wonderful assist, nice lighting,
use of wood columns, beams, furniture, table cloths,
cana brava, Spanish tile, etc. all add to the eye
candy. From $3-$7 you have lots of choice of
restaurants and full meals. Internet cafes are all
over, many serving an alcoholic drink or coffee if you
wish -no need to lug your computer to keep in touch- I
think up to an hour it's $.50. and a half hour is
guess what? $.25.
Hotels: Lots of them -yes there are the two large and
famous hotels-The Alhambra and The Colony -around the
$65-$85 range. There are lots of new, wonderful
places for $25-$30 (these prices will rise $10 or so
during the high season -December thru March- no hot
water (always a bracing, wake-me-up shower, but air
conditioning, great service, usually a TV and of
course, a private bathroom. There are also places
cheaper ($8) but we didn't check these out. Just walk
around that three block radius, ask to see the room,
The streets have names and the buildings actually
have signs on them (neither is the norm in Costa
Rica),
The Alhambra is a great people watching spot with it's
large terrace overlooking the park. You can sit in a
rocking chair, drink in hand, and watch the activities
in the park -and there is almost always some cultural
event going on as well as the ever present food and
handicraft venders and the shoe shine boys.
The Culture: Nicaragua has lots of Central American
culture-women carrying various things on their heads,
ox or horse drawn rubber or hard wheeled carts, push
carts with fruit and vegetables, horse drawn covered
carriages (not just for tourists), a few old cars
(some new ones), itinerate broom and wicker basket
venders, faces lined with character and stories I'm
sure, shoe shine boys, handicrafts, You see teenage
boys picking up their girlfriends on their bicycles,
I don't remember seeing any traffic lights but there
are sometimes police directing traffic. The roads are
mostly narrow and one way-I actually did see direction
signs (a novelty in Costa Rica) but since I didn't
drive in Granada, I don't actually know how easy it
would be to drive-but walking is much better for
exploring. For Example: Lita had fallen in love
with the Spanish tiled floors she saw. I recognized
these a cement tile (vs ceramic). By walking and
asking, we happened on a place making them. What a
process -not hightec- and a lot of work and I'm sure
made in virtually the same way they've been made for
hundreds of years. Into a heavy steel frame is poured
an off white gravy consistency liquid, next goes the
wire framed pattern into which is poured the different
sections of the frame, colored pigments to about 3/8"
deep -green, blue, red, white, etc-the frame is now
jiggled for leveling, and the wire design frame is
carefully removed, On to this is now put powered
cement which is leveled with rapidly moving hands,
then a sand mixture is added and it too is carefully
leveled, A male lid to the frame is then added, and
then the frame and the entire filled form isis placed
under a press for about 10 seconds where it is
compressed into a brick about 1 1/4" thick. After
removing from the press, the "lid" is lifted off and
the now solid brick is carefully removed and stacked
on it's edge where it will be allowed to slow cure
with lots of water slowing the curing process. Why
the dies don't all mix I don't know but the result are
crisp clear lines.
Trip to the Beach: While it may sound like, all we
did not only eat and drink, not so. We hired a car
and driver for a day to take us to San Juan del Sur -a beach and real estate development area I have been
reading about for 5 years. It was one of the closets
beaches to Granada yet a two hour ride each way. I
have to say that I was really disappointed. Perhaps
we didn't see the right area but I can't for the life
of me, see what any hype is about -the town can hardly
support it's own needs, the bay is not for
swimming-sewage and strong waves/current and brown,
unattractive sand, describe the bay. Perhaps the rain
didn't help it's appeal but regardless, the place is
so remote and the area is so close to subsistence
level living, I have difficulty envisioning it
becoming the next Puerta Vallarta or Tamarindo, or
?????? -at least in my lifetime.
Building Materials and House Furnishings: I was still
on the hunt for construction materials and furnishings
which we might use when we get to building our house.
Spec building doesn't allow me the freedom to build
far from mainstream taste other than adding some Costa
Rican character - arches, non patterned ceramics,
granite and marble, tropical woods, etc. The result
is a wonderful product but doesn't capture old Central
America. So, while I was in Granada, I wanted to
look for inspiration for our own home and to check
out what products I might find. In addition to the
tiles described above, we found a place where they
made fantastic vases and pottery, carved wooden
furniture and columns, and stone fountains (the same
as we bought here for $350) were $90 there (of course
we have to get them back here). Right now I'm
thinking how to put a buying trip together and
transporting products back. (First of all, however,
guess I better finalize the house plans.) When and IF
we go that route, I'll probably select a couple of my
Nicaraguan workers to go with me (us) to negotiate a
better price and to facilitate the purchase and return
transportation.
After examining water fountains we started the return
trip to Granada, I had forgotten to put on my seat
belt. After a short time, I was reminded by my
driver to do so. He said the police were just up
ahead. Having passed that way earlier and seeing a
police woman with a rifle, I decided I better do as
was suggested.
Observations, Impressions and Misc.
Nicaragua is poor, poor, poor... The only country
worse off is said to be Haiti. Why? I going to
answer by saying a long history of bad politics and
dysfunctional governments coupled with a major earth
quake around 1991. Some people see some hope in that
the common person is protesting in this fledging
"democracy". I'm not a political scientist and I long
since gave up claiming to know anything about
economics even though that was my major in
undergraduate school nor have I really studied either
as it applies to Nicaragua. Some of the following
opinions might not be supported by those who have-so
be it. My observations, however, are less
academic-what I saw is what I saw.
Two people I spoke with opined that Daniel Ortega will
continue to be noisy but not a significant political
force regardless of his alliance with Aleman. (To me
this is the marriage of two vipers neither of whom can
trust the other.) Neither the two people I spoke with
seemed to be too concerned about the politics there
nor the upcoming elections. I don't think I could be
as sanguine.
Nicaragua is broke and it doesn't have a lot of world
credit. Venezuela is giving or selling at very
favorable terms, some oil daily. Nicaragua cannot
afford to buy gas and diesel and oil based products.
While there were never many cars, there are fewer on
the roads now than five months ago and fewer public
busses as well. People hitch rides in the pickups,
stake trucks, and dump trucks that still run, use
bicycles, horse carts, walk, or stay home. (Energy
guzzling countries, including Costa Rica might well
look at this-Granada was actually nice to walk around
in.)
In three days we had 4 power outages-it reminded me of
Santa Ana (although in all fairness, we haven't had a
power outage for several months-it's almost scary. I
was told that power outages occur regularly because
the generating plants are privately owned and fuel has
been rationed so rotating blackouts are the norm.
Roads are not being repaired (if you think Costa Rica
has pot holes, the expression "you ain't seen nothing"
has a whole new meaning.
I saw only two farm tractors, one of which was in use.
Cattle and horses were grazed along the roadway.
Why? It's considered free land so the grass is free.
The benefit is that it keeps the side of the highways
mowed.
The vast majority of the rural houses are, at best,
basic, basic, basic-not always a raised, cement,
floor, often times unpainted wood structures with
often times old tin for roofs, surrounded by bare
dirt (mud in the rainy season) with a few chickens,
cows, or pigs. I didn't see many/any tools other than
the machete and the very odd shovel. I didn't see as
many dogs as I would have expected to see in Costa
Rica but then dogs have to eat too IF there are enough
scraps-if not, the dog goes-and perhaps becomes
dinner. Most of the rural houses use wood for
cooking.
Many, many of the buildings and streets in Granada,
which is probably one of the most prosperous towns in
Nicaragua, are in bad repair - stucco falling off
either brick or adobe buildings, walls at various
angles, rotten roof joists, unpainted wood and
seemingly abandoned buildings, etc. I did see some
new construction (by foreigners) although I was told
Nicaraguan investment money is coming back to Granada
and to Managua. (I was told that the two best
restaurants in Granada were Nicaraguan owned.)
Without a functioning banking system, however, it is
difficult to build a country...
We saw one 18 wheel tractor trailer run into the bog
on a straight stretch of road. The cab and motor were
good only for parts. We speculated how, on a
straight stretch of road, this might have happened.
The driver further speculated that it could have been
run off the road and then the cargo robbed - when I
queried him on this, he said it was a common
occurrence. On our return, we asked the guys sitting
beside the truck if this was in fact what had
happened. No, it was a case of an idiot driver on the
wrong side of the road and the truck had to swerve to
miss it. While robbery wasn't the reason in this
case, the driver's comments did reveal that it happens
(it happens in Canada and in N. America as well.)
Petty theft was confirmed to be a nuisance issue (it
is in many parts of Costa Rica and N. Am.)
On Sunday we walked down the farm produce street. We
saw the normal fruit and vegetables one would expect
but all appeared to have been grown without fertilizer
or pesticides-great, I guess, if you are in to organic
food-but the quality of produce suffered in all cases-
tomatoes, potatoes, lettuce, carrots, corn, celery,
etc. were all small and poorly formed. The fruit was
harvested from the countryside-papayas, watermelons,
avocados and the few pineapples were very small. No
imported items nor anything that might be
realistically called a "supermarket".
Health Care: Hospital, clinic, or medical lab: I saw
no evidence on anything which might be effective if
required.
Building materials stores were few and far between and
with little stock. They certainly do not use the
amount of steel that we use in Costa Rica. Neither do
they build will hollow block as much as is done here
in Costa Rica. Where we use hollow block, they might
use either adobe or sun dried clay brick over which
they plaster. They use more wood -cedro and almenndro
(a type of cedar and almond wood-both gorgeous) and
the underside of many, many ceilings (terraces as well
as interior ceilings) is cana brava-beautiful. I do
not know their cost of construction but based on the
similarities and differences to what I'm doing, I
guess it would be around the $30sf. For houses with
asking prices(not necessarily selling prices) of
$250,000-$350K one would think you might get a lot of
land but that's not the case in downtown Granada. I
was told by the car driver that crazy gringos were
buying through Remax, Century 21, Caldwell Bankers,
and some other local Am. RE offices were driving up
the prices and the vendor's expectations. The same
can be said in Costa Rica and some things here
(especially costal areas), I have to shake my head at
but value is in the eye of the beholder and I've
missed things before-I've always managed to keep my
head above water as others have sank...
Summary: Yes, Nicaragua and Granada lack many things
but for a visit, it's fantastic. We are looking
forward to our return in early December.
Brian, Lita, Hugo and irreverent Vicka, the pigeon
toed parrot.
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