Friday, February 22, 2013

Final Days

2/20/13


I’ve already introduced Dona Lin. She runs the hotele and restaurant at the north end of the beach. Sweet sweet sweet woman. Finally made it over to her place for dinner tonight. Well it is all the way on the north end! They don’t have a menu. You can chose fish, camarones (shrimp) or pollo, served with all the regular fritanga stuff, including fried plantains. I had the fish (mackerel), and Dona Lin served platanos maduros, mis favoritos – you wait until the skin of the plantain turns black, and it gets muy dulcita when sauteed in butter – I saved mine for desert! The place is so close to the water that the floor of the restaurant is literally crawling with hermit crabs! And they had a little negro y café, a black and tan puppy who reminded me of princesa Calala! After dinner I stopped at the internet café, and the owner Roberto told me that Dona Lin’s camarones are very special. Tomorrow camarones!

My driver’s side rear wheel was a little low last night, and tonight it was just plain flat. I found a nail in one of the treads, so I pulled out the spare and jack, and I guess it’s one more trip to Rivas tomorrow to have the flat fixed. Yes, I know how to change a spare tire.

I was a bit nervous cutting down the Madrono today – it was attractive as a center beam because the trunk was long and straight, but there were no low hanging branches for him to hoist himself up on, Mono Chele couldn’t climb the tree, so we couldn’t get a measurement before Saba had at it with the motosierra. Just had to cross my fingers. It would be a shame to cut the tree down only to find out it was five feet short. The Bodega is 24 feet long, I and I want to put a 10 foot porch out front and have one foot overhangs on each end of the roof, so I need a beam at least 36 feet long. Using a stick just a bit over nine feet long, I measured four full lengths . . . which means I’m going to have at least the required 36! I love it when a plan comes together!

2/22/13

Last full day here, and I had to make a quick trip to Tola to get some alambra and grapas (barbed wire and u-nails) for some fence repair and to build a new gate. We used the wire from the existing gate to tie the logs together for the new camino onto the lot. Leonardo’s first effort was met with skepticism by the first delivery driver, and the second driver almost tipped his truck over when he got too far to the right coming down the ramp. So Leonardo started over by sinking a series of posts in the ground like he was building a fence (deep holes pounded into rocky soil with a chisel on a spike, poles and the surrounding soil pounded back into the holes for a don’t move hold). We wired logs to these posts to form the side of the ramp, and Don Tino’s team dumped three meters of rock and gravel onto the new ramp, and they’ll be back tomorrow with two more meters, but I drove my little Suzuki Alto onto the lot this afternoon! Drove all the way town to the house, turned around and drove right back of the see if I could also get off the lot! Worked like a charm, so I drove back down onto he lot, parked and did some fence repair work, right after having a good laugh!

Whe I got to Tola I noticed that my fuel gauge was on "fumes," so I asked at the ferreteria about a gasolinera in the area.  One clek told me the gasolinera was three blocks way.  The second clerk told me ther wer no gqsolineras in Toal.  Don't know for sure wheich wqs right, never found one, and decided to head to the beach and cross my fingers.  I knew there's a gasolinera at the beach, so I just had to get there.  Just a shack on the north edge of town, andwhen I arrived the gasolinero was out for ten minutos, so I hung out, and enjoyed a coldTona while I waited.  I asked for 200 cordsworth, which amounted to an Imperial gallon (five liters), so I aked for 200 more.  Want to be sure I can get to Rivas tomorrow!  They brought the gas out in gallon milk jugs and plastic soda bottles, and used an inverted plastic soda bottle as a funnel. 
When the second delivery guy went a bit sideways bringing the extra piedrin down the first driveway Leonardo built, he took out my corner post on the right side of the driveway, so Leonardo’s first job was resetting that. Tonight I braced and tensioned that post with my neighbor’s corner post, and re-strung five lines of wire between the posts. In the other side of the camino opening, I retensioned the wires between three end posts and repaired a broken line. Tomorrow we have to rebuild the gate across the camino, ostensibly to keep the neighbor’s horses out, but also to discourage the uninvited curious. I actually don’t mind the horses visiting. About 5 showed up one evening this week while I was awaiting sunset, and they roamed around almost oblivious to my presence, eating stuff I might otherwise pay some kid to cut down. And of course they left presents that I can use to seed my septica!

We’ll work from 6 am to 10 am tomorrow, I may put in a couple more hours because there’s at least one piece of fence above the arroyo needing fixing – one of two spots where it looks like the Iguanadores cut the wire to make it easier to get onto my lot. I fixed the one spot earlier this week. After that, a quick shower and change, check out any time you like, wish you could never leave, lunch and a few emails at the café, then off to Masaya. Juan wants to spend the weekend with his familia. He’s going to help me find some good Nica shoes and introduce me to his wife and kids, then I’ll head to Granada for the night.

I was in the pulperia buying ice this afternoon and ran into a guy I met last year.  He works in costruction at one of the neraby resorts (not the Pella family monstrosity).  I told him about my center roof beam, and he suggested I seal the ends of the beam to prevent the grain from splitting.  Here in surf country, his suggestion that I use surfboard wax was perfect!  Lots of the stuff available, and it's pretty cheap!   

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