Ostional update

Two weeks have gone by since we dropped off the fruit trees at our place in Ostional. There was much work to be done in two weeks by our Cuidador. Most importantly, might we now have water access (to water the new fruit trees)? Would he have finished the path from the hill top through the ravine to the sea? We opt to visit Ostional again, just to make sure the work is on track.

So we set of from Granada via the CO2 Bambu workshop, to pick up some bamboo poles. These are “natural”, i.e. untreated – it will be interesting to see the bamboo age as a result of the elements (rain, salt from the seaside etc….).

With a few bamboo culms in the trunk, we climb our way to the property. I soon see signs that there has been activity. The terraced section of the property has been cleared of all the brush. This is a big deal. There is a nasty, spiny thing in this area that grows large, very sharp thorns and attracts big biting ants. Very happy to see that the full space is cleared of this brush. Next, Luis (the cuidador)’s wife shows me an underground pipeline and triumphantly declares “funcciona bien”. The water flows. The plants and baby fruit trees we left behind are now all planted and well watered.

We can visualize that the white bougeainvillia which we put in at the top of the stairs and is small now, but will soon be a splash of white flowers at the entrance to the ravine. The granadilla creeper planted next to a tree will yield fruit to reward us after our climb back from the beach.

One more thing completes that vision – an outdoor bamboo shower, al fresco. Peta chooses the location and tries a mock shower with bamboo culm.

OK, so down we go to test out our new path. It’s steep, it’s fabulous, it’s well designed and it blends right into the forest and ravine. It passes tall cacti just before reaching the ocean, which is a botanical rarity – a tropical dry forest. The beach is a bay that is rugged and rocky. There are turquoise stones commingled with some huge spiraling shells. A lot of drift wood, some of which will make good natural benches for resting spots on the way back up the path.

One other local material we would like to incorporate in the house is the unusual turquoise clay stones from the beach. We will start using them as a floor for the shower. Peta seems pleased with the prospect of showering in the trees.

Oh, incidentally, one of the boys reports that there had been large monkeys on our property this morning. These would be howler monkeys with their loud lion-like roar and aversion to coming down from the tree tops.

Never mind the monkeys, right now we are enjoying the young colt, 2 weeks old, that follows the boys who are riding their horses bare back around the hill top.

We intend to have a low cost CO2 Bambu “model house”, the same as the ones CO2 Bambu will be constructing on the Atlantic Coast of RAAN. We want to experience living in it first hand. Since our initial objective was to have an affordable, rustic, green house in Ostional, this is the answer for us.

Mango loves exploring the jagged rocks on this beach.

Waking up in San Juan del Sur, with a view of the fishing boats in the distance, means this time we will not just WISH to have fresh fish, we will go and choose it ourselves. There is a Japanese-funded large scale fish processing plant right at the edge of the coast. It is a monument to Japanese vision and Nicaragua corruption. After many millions of $$ invested in facilities, cooler equipment, ice shaving machines etc, the place remains moribund. Somehow enough of the Japanese funding “disappeared” to make the facility non viable as a commercial enterprise.

Nonetheless there are a few fishing boats that do come to port in the a.m. and load up Managua-bound ice trucks. So before breakfast, we head to the port and with our plastic bag, hope to score a few fish from the returning fishing boats. After going “on board”, I come off with a large seabass and a few soles. We will take them to the beach to have them cooked into fish tacos for lunch, while we swim.