Getting Closer

A little update here. We’ve been packing and organizing things for a while now, but there’s still a lot to do.  It’s been quite interesting organizing the flights tho.

First, we were planning to fly out of Miami on American, but when I was finalizing the details with their rep (who was very friendly btw.) I found out that their plane is too small for Kaleb’s kennel to fit in!!  And it’s not even a huuuge cage, a standard size (for big dogs).

Oh well, off to cancel that flight, and on to calling Delta. This time , the flight would be out of Atlanta. The drive down there would be way shorter, which is a huge plus.  Sure, they can fit the dog’s kennel! However, when Chuck realized that we had to take his computers with, that was another story. Delta doesn’t accept computers in the luggage or freight. Chuck will need to earn our living somehow!

Sooo, we cancelled that one too. The Delta flight  was already twice as expensive as the AA flight, so I knew it was going to hurt. Well, all in all, United Airlines will fly us, the dog and Chuck’s computers! Unfortunately, their Pet Travel is outsourced to another company, so I had to make arrangements with a third party for that. It turned out to be 3-times more expensive for Kaleb than the other flights, but if you want everything, you better pay for it.

Not only is it 3-times more expensive,  Kaleb will have to travel in the freight section of the plane, instead of with the luggage L He needs to be dropped off and picked up like a package, from the freight counter. Well, they did say that they have a special, air-conditioned compartment for animals, so I hope it’ll be alright. But I do feel sorry for the poor guy!

We already got him all the necessary shots, even rabies. He was really brave, didn't even try to bite the vet! We'll have to go back on Monday to get the International Health Certificate signed and dated. It needs to be done within 10 days of the flight. I asked the vet if she could do it then and there, but she just looked at me funny and said the point was to do it 10 days before... Well, I tried...

Well, all in all, we are heading towards Houston on Saturday 26^th. We’ll probably be staying at a hotel in Little Rock, seemed to be about half-way there. I'll try to find a Drury Inn, most of them accept dogs, which is definitely a must.  We have an apartment waiting for us tho, when we finally get to Nicaragua. Yay!

We rented a tiny house from a Canadian woman who lives in Nicaragua. She’s renovating it right now in San Juan del Sur, and she's got great plans for it, can't wait to see it. She actually told us she can't wait for us to vacate it, so she can move in :)

If she can’t finish it by the time we get there, which is doubtful keeping in mind the huge changes she's going to make to it, she said we could live in her apartment in Granada, with her dog and orchids on the patio. Granada is a beautiful city and there’s lots more to do than in SJDS!

Back home, we’ve had painters painting our house. Our library and kitchen were painted in neutral colors and we’re waiting for the painter to finish painting the basement as well. We had some teenagers and a few Mexicans working with Chuck on our yard, Kaleb being the supervisor. We gave him a big rawhide in advance for the job.

My Jaguar is sold now too L Bohoo! Chuck even sold it so cheap to our painter that I’m still miffed about it. He only asked 2 grand for it, the same amount as for his beat-up old truck! Needless to say, they made the deal on the Jag right away, still thinking about the truck… Even he Blue Book value was 3500 for it. Oh well, it’s just a car. And at least I can take the Old Lady for a drive until later next week, when we exchange the car for the money.

We also sold our "very lightly used" elliptical machine on craigslist for $400. We had bought it for $1200 as new some 3 years ago, so it had lost most of its value, but at least we got something out of it. What we can't sell, we'll give to charity, but we'll make sure we get the value recognized before giving them away.

We still have to pack up the rest of our stuff, fix up the rooms and call a cleaning company to do the final “eat off the floor” –cleaning. I wish we could just pack up the boxes and go, but for Nicaragua customs, you need a detailed packing list of everything, like how many t-shirts exactly are you going to import in which box. It takes a while, yeah.

We rented a storage room from U-Haul, and are going to haul our boxes there next week. We’re also going to store our desks, all other furniture will go.  When we get the residency, we’ll be back to pack things up and ship them off with some carrier along the way. But that still seems so far away. 

Chuck just reminded me that we will leave in a week already!!! Yikes! 

Why Nicaragua

So, why Nicaragua? I’ve been asked this question many times, even more times than I was asked why Kentucky J

Well, after we realized that our money would go further somewhere else, and we'd be able to realize our dreams better, a search began. Chuck had already gotten a remote job, so he was free to work anywhere with an internet connection.  I wanted warmth (tropical that is) and we wanted to start a small hotel business by the ocean. So, here we go: find affordable beach land in tropical climate with a country that is cheaper and easier to operate in.

Our gaze hit the Dominican Republic first. Cheap living in the Caribbean. After spending hours and hours reading about it, talking online to locals, we decided that it wasn’t for us. The crime rate meant that we’d live in constant fear, and being such a small island, there wasn’t much undeveloped beach land left for purchasing at a decent cost.

So, South of the border we go. Mexico was totally out of the question, because of the drug wars and general unrest going on. International Living Magazine started touting Ecuador as the best place to retire, because of its climate and affordable living. For the next months, we concentrated our efforts on Ecuador, and were planning a trip there too. 

Eventually  I realized that even tho Ecuador was ON the equator, the weather was pretty cool most of the year, due to Humboldt current and something or other. And the residency was going to be made more difficult to get. So, where to next? We started going back north, and came across Nicaragua. Why hadn’t we thought about it before?  We did, but I just can’t remember why we chose not to explore that option earlier...

We sure wanted to now. So, reading upon everything we could find about Nicaragua, we finally came to the conclusion that maybe this was it after all. The climate is nice and warm (tropical heat), there are still beach lots available for a decent price, living is cheap, residency is easy and the government encourages tourism-related business. And the old Iran-Contra / Civil War was laid to rest decades ago.

So, early November, we packed our bags and took a 2-hour flight from Miami to Managua in Nicaragua. We spent about a couple of weeks in the country, seeing the sights, meeting the people and getting to know the land as much as we could. 

People were poor, but they still seemed to be happy, and very friendly.

Food was cheap and good, beaches and the ocean wonderful. 

As for services… I’m sure we got gringoed (taken advantage of for being foreigners) a lot of times, but oh well, that’s part of being a gringo. The worst case of gringoed tho, was from another gringo, who has a surf shop in a small coastal tourist town. The shorts we bought from him were outrageously priced; for the same price we could’ve bought 6 pairs of shorts from the local Mercado (market).  Well, the gringo shorts were super-duper-space-quality-construction-everlasting  material, of course. So we shouldn’t feel bad about it... 

He didn't lead us on or anything; the worst part of being gringoed is that it's because of your own stupidity. You should've known better...

Anyway, when we came back home to Kentucky, we decided it was  time to start selling our things, list the house and move to Nicaragua to begin our new life and start a new adventure.