Completing the first bungalo

This all started being a journey or adventure seeing how things will take shape and turn out, but not anymore.. this has become an expedition, an expedition where we have been able to foreshadow and see exactly where things are taking us and so far so good! Since the last post we have accomplished alot! Finished and Sold the first bungalo, built a guard hut, added another septic, posted paintball billboards around the town and had such a funnn time running paintball meeting awesome people and having great times and memories with them!

Apr.6 /2011. Here is the most recent picture of the castle bungalo,  taken today with sliding wood doors , window frames, also a door in the bathroom and one in the storage room in the back. We planted palm trees surrounding the bungalo, they will eventually grow to be bigger than the bungalo if the damn cows dont stop eating them!

Here we have added an outdoor shower upon the buyers request, this is an awesome feature to have, people from paintball have used it to wash off and the workers love it. Its better than sticking your head in a bucket full of paint water…. when the resort is all finished it will be perfect for people to walk down from sun tanning on the roof to cool off.

New lights are installed on all 4 corners, the view looks unreal standing in the roof and looks even better light up at night!

We had to add another septic tank near the bungalos since it was too far from the other septic near the house. There is a 4 inch tube connected straight into the septic from the bungalo that is permanent, when the other bungalos need to get hooked up, we will build a trap box where all the pipes from the bungalos are connected into one, with one 8 inch PVC connected to the septic tank.

This bungalo was designed as a cave theme! There are rocks on all the walls exept the bottom right section where there will be two bench seats and a table that is able to be converted into a bed, like you would see in RV trailers. Its a great concept , saves room and has more than 1 use! We are planning a unique type of ladder to get up to the bunk bed, any ideas?… rockclimbing holds perhaps..??? The fan and lights are now all wired up, all we need now is a couple windows and we’re in business!

New guard hut/ registration booth, equiped with 4 lights on each corner, a bench seat facing the road out of the sun, and one light in the middle that looks amazing light up at night. Built it 5′x5′ so Eric doesnt sleep in it! But I dunno I’ve seen Eric sleep in some strange places throughout the years, this could be luxury for him.. Still needs some touch ups.

This rockclimbing wall will be a new addition to the Surf Ranch. 40 feet high with 3 sides, beginner, intermediate, and expert.

Land of opportunities

Well its been months since I last posted on this blog, so I will write a quick recap of what we have been doing the last 4 months.  Since we got back in October not too long ago (feels like ages),  we have done quite a bit of stuff.

It started with fixing up the jungle and making it playable for paintball, ordered the guns from the states (had an issue with customs, but got around it)  We added doors and windows to the paintball hut and spent a week building tables, and pimping it out inside.  We also spent months trying to get a fridge from the local beer company tona.  They kept saying next week…every week.  So we got a little tip from a friend to go to the office, order the beers…then say you don’t have a fridge…BAM…next day, nice new fridge on our doorstep.

We have had paintball open for 3 months now, and nothing but smiles on everyone’s faces.  No one has had a bad experience yet…we are working on ideas on how to make it better…add bridges, 2 story bases, more guns, etc.  We just bought some paintball grenades, so those will be fun to try out.

As far as the house goes, we added tiles, custom rock kitchen counter and shower, its fully liveable….it could use a ladies touch, but it works for the 2 of us.

We also built the structure of the 1st bungalow, which may be sold by the time you read this.  From their, we will finish it, then build 2 more and sell those.  They are going for $50,000 a piece, with 50% return monthly rental income and we pay for your airfare to come here.

Another cool thing is we are building nicaraguas 1st skatepark…there is a small one in Masaya, but i dont consider that a skatepark…I am talking a huge cement park with every obstacle you can think of.  It will be free to everyone, this is a way to help give back to the community and country of Nicaragua.  We are not made of money , so we are asking for donations to help finish it…we have finished phase 1 and will start on phase 2 really soon.  We need to raise $1000 to finish phase 2.

Any donation is greatly accepted…and your name will be on a plaque at the park.  Donations over $50 will receive 2 nights free stay when the resort is open.  To donate – http://www.chipin.com/contribute/id/000b84824b5603b5

Anyways, as you can tell we have been super busy, not to mention we got our own surf ranch video game, built a mini ramp and was featured in many interviews, radio stations and magazines including Transworld skateboarding.

Its been a couple years now in the making, and we are just as motivated as we were in the beginning,  I get the question everyday….how are you guys doing this, where do you get the drive? sometimes I don’t have an answer, but one thing that keeps coming up in my head is that in this country and even in life you can be and do anything you want to.  We have been contractors, architects, marketers, web designers, skate park builders, real estate agents and the list goes on.  I always ask myself , why can’t we do that back home in Canada without paying a lot of money and going to school?  Who knows?

I came to the conclusion that within the next couple years, more kids our age will start doing the same thing…as people start realizing you don’t need to go to school to do any of this…just an idea and the motivation to leave their life behind.  It’s a great feeling and I recommend it to everyone.

Do it before you get stuck.

 

*NEW* Update of the past 4 months of our building progress in Nicaragua

Well the last time I wrote in this blog, we were getting ready to head back to Canada for 1 month.  It turned out to be 3 months, you know how things are!  It was awesome to spend time with friends and family back home, but we were thinking about and preparing for Nicaragua everyday!  Our plan this time is too stay here until we finish the resort, so keep checking back on this blog…its go time!

Our going away party back home in Canada

It has been raining the whole time we were gone…this is the first photo of the house since we got back.

We brought down 6 extra skateboards and are teaching the kids at the local school.  I wish I had a skateboard class when I was a kid!

This is the river on the way to the resort.  You can still drive through it, but for 1 month of the year it is like this.  Some vehicles just cant handle it, that’s why we got our land cruiser, so we can help em out.

The river is too big here to drive through…had to wait 2 hours for it to die down.

We decided to just add a temporary fix to keep the insects out so we can move in.  We are siliconing wired mesh net around the top openings of the house.

Same thing, just a closer photo.  Remember check out our company back home – Off the Grid – www.otgwakesports.com

We had Nelson, our new worker and his brother to rock tile the shower walls…here is the final result, minus the shiny gloss we still have to add.  I think it looks pretty cool.

We finally finished tiling the kitchen.  The room in the background is now tiled as well…I just don’t have a photo of it yet.

haha, scorpion king!

Our 2 horses…we have no idea what to name them….any suggestions?

While we were in Canada, someone stole our electric cable from our power line while our guard was on a 1 hour errand in town….hmmmm???  I wonder

This is the Survivor helicopter filming for their 2 seasons of Survivor Nicaragua…they seemed to be filming the jesus statue 3 times a day!

Johnny and Nelson, our 2 workers making the bar counter and cement floor.

This is sweet…the circus is in town for about 3 weeks.  We had to go twice to try and watch the guy die…he almost did the second time…later on we heard he actually fell off….check it out on my facebook page – lucas boychuk

Chilling inside the circus…

Look at the photos from the last post and look at this one of Buddy…man he grows fast!  Still has a lot more to grow.

Our welder adding in the flip down/up windows in the paintball hut and the door…so we can lock it up at night!

Starting work on the first bungalow….

We have been waiting awhile for this rain to stop so the transport trucks can cross the river and give us our materials…all we need is sand and rocks to make the cement and get the walls up….so today….we are picking up our new vehicle, and we have the materials being delivered as I write this.  We are going to make some breakfast and head out there right now!

We only have 1 month to finish this….stay tuned for updates!

New updates on the resort

Okay it has been awhile since we gave you updates on the house.  We spent a couple months slowly painting it, tiling it, and building the paintball booth and paintball course, partying and promoting the soon to be surf ranch.

We are back in Canada for 1 month or so, then will be coming back to Nicaragua, and will start building the resort and bungalows.  So check out the photos below for where we are at to date.

Buying a baby pitbull…our first dog

We wanted a dog to raise as a guard dog for our property.  So we went to the town of Rivas, 20 min away, and saw a sign outside of a house, saying white american standford pitballs for sale (in spanish).  So we stopped by to check them out, these puppies were cute, and the dad and mom were both pretty mean looking dogs…which was perfect!

So we go to the ATM, take out 100 bucks, head back to the house, hand over the cash, and he gives us his only male puppy left and a birth and health card for the dog.   Now we have a dog!  haha we never owned a dog in our life…this should be fun!

Week 8 – day 1 – final week….hopefully

It is now the 8th week of building, all they need to do is plaster the walls now and add the zinc on the roof in which we ordered last week and it is still not here….we cancelled the order and went to a different ferreteria (store), the zinc is coming tomorrow morning at 8am.

Cool photo of our contractor (Amado) with the view of our house in the background from the middle of our property.

Putting together the roof above our patio

Side view of our house…we are thinking of painting the surf ranch logo on that wall on the left as it will be facing the new road/path coming into our property.

Looking inside the house from the front door. Our kitchen and bar will be on the right and couch on the left.

This will be our view when were doing the dishes, cant complain.

Week 7 – day 1 – roof is going up

The first day of week 7 – they plastered the inside walls for the past week and its a little past schedule but we finally got the perlines, the iron beams for the roof. They just placed them on the roof for now and then the next step is to weld them together then add the zinc panels on top.

Looking out our front door.

The perlines we just ordered – they had to paint them with a green protective coating

Back of the house, we might make a little garden back here, grow some chiles, and various vegetables.

Our camera kind of sucks for detail, but this was a really nice sunset, behind the trees is the Pacific Ocean.

As you can see, we now have some electricity, but its just from the generator, for the night guard, because we keep forgetting to buy him batteries for the flashlight we bought him haha.

Week 6 – day 2

It is now day 2 of week 6…the house should be done this week as signed on the contract. All of the walls are now up, and they are starting to plaster the walls. It is looking good…our vision is finally coming a reality.

Our new surf boards we bought, I bought the bigger one 6″6, for $100 USD.

Plastering the bedroom walls

Outside photo of the walls up

Filling in the top beam of the house

Photo of the house from the side

Week 4 – Seeing progress and Remanso Beach

So it is now the end of week 4 -today we drove to the closest beach from our property (Remanso Beach), to time how long it would take, it is only a 9 minute drive with decent surf. Perfect!

Remanso Beach

The walls are starting to take shape

Paid one of our night guards $60 to chop down all the overgrown grass and weeds, looks a lot better now, still think $60 here in Nicaragua was a little too much, could of got away with cheaper, but not complaining.

You can see how we tucked away the house/office in the back corner, to open up the rest of the land for the resort.

The crew still working on the walls.

1st Costa Rica Border Run

Costa Rica Border Run

Okay so we have been here for 3 months now…so we have to leave the country and come back, all we have to do here in san juan del sur, is drive 30 minutes to the costa rican border and pay a little bit more and you can come right back to Nicaragua, it took us about 2 hours to do everything and was a lot easier than we thought, here are some photos of the drive.

Luke and Travis driving to costa rica

Volcano on ometepe island and road out of san juan del sur

wind generators on the way to costa rica

Abandoned building off of the highway

There was a couple miles of semi trucks lined up, but with our land cruiser, we could rip through, I think they were pissed off, but we weren’t going to wait 2 days.