November Update, www.sdmnica.com

Hi Folks, here's the latest progress report from Selva Del Mar. Since our last report, we have sold lots 32, 33, 34 and 35. That leaves only one of our $25,000 lots, and that's lot 29. We have 5 lots left at $30,000, but if you want to get in on our least expensive (but still beautiful) lots, I wouldn't wait much longer.

We fixed up the road to the top, as you can see from the first two pics.

We have completed the gaviones improvement project on the curve between lots 9 and 10. This pic shows the peanut grass on the right side of the road.

Here are the finished gaviones on the downslope side of the road. The Espadillo were planted below the gaviones because they have a good root system to help prevent erosion.

Good progress is being made up top near lots 4-6.

We drilled a second well, behind the Casitas, at the end of the row of fruit trees.

It is 150 feet deep and initial reports suggest it will produce 20 gallons per minute.

How would you like to wake up, look out of your tent, and see a drill truck like this within a few feet? Sorry buddy, at least it didn't take too long to get it done.

We are looking forward to building a casa for our buyer of lot 33. Construction is projected to start in early 2008, so we'll be ready when it's time to hook up the water.

Finally, our architect, Pepe Tercero reports that his ace student, Juan Camilo is attending a conference in Colombia with world renowned master Bamboo architect, Simon Velez. I mentioned to Pepe our interest in a walking bridge across the creek, and here are the pics he sent me.

Wow. A that's a good sized truck. Maybe it doesn't have to be walking only.

We will have more to report on the Bamboo project next month.

Thank you, Rick and Sergio, for the new pics and info on the well. There are many obstacles and frustrations to overcome in a project like this. It takes both patience and persistence. You guys have used both to move this project forward. Kudos to you for keeping us moving in the right direction.

Rain, rain, rain

We all love the green that rainy season brings, but this is crazy, even for Nicaragua. After a relatively dry 2006, this year looks to be one of the rainiest on record. October is usually the wettest month, but this September was as wet as most Octobers, and it has already rained nearly every day this month.

Much of Nicaragua is flooded, and thousands of people are being evacuated from areas in Chinandega. Thankfully, Gigante is not that bad, but as you can see from these photos, there is still an amazing amount of water.

This is the main road to the beach at Gigante, where the creek crosses it, just past the entrance to Arenas Bay. Our workers are on the other side of the creek, wondering how they can cross it to get back to work after their lunch break. When it rains this hard, the creek can rise very rapidly. Fortunately, there was no flooding at Selva Del Mar.

The good news is that Lake Apanas is now full and hydroelectric generation there should help to solve the electrical blackout problem we saw for much of the past year. Nicaragua's power infrastrucutere is simply insufficient unless nature cooperates. That's why our plans for Selva Del Mar include alternative energy sources like wind and solar to supplement what we receive from the power grid.

If you haven't already checked it out, you might enjoy our slide show of lots.

http://www.sdmnica.com/images/slideshow/index.html

It's one thing to look at our lot map and check out the boundaries and topology. But it's more fun to see what the lots actually look like and what kind of views they have. Please note that the road to the top has been improved since many of these pictures were taken. Progress continues at Selva Del Mar, despite the rainy season. Once things dry up we expect to start work on our bamboo project. We are finalizing the terms of our investment program for the bamboo project, so let us know if you are interested in participating, and we will give you more details. We already have a few interested parties and we intend to restrict participation to a limited number of investors.

Let's all keep our heads above water and hope that mother nature is about ready to give it a rest.

Paris Hilton and Selva Del Mar

What does Paris Hilton have in common with Selva Del Mar?

Why, Kinkajous, over course!

I think ours is prettier though. In Nicaragua, they call them by different names, including honeybear (for their fur color and because they love to eat honey), mountain cat, and cuyosa (the latter being the term used by our caretaker, Vidal).

I didn't know much about them, so I posted an inquiry on Nica Living and somebody said it was a kinkajou. So I googled that and found all kinds of info. I like this website.

http://blue-n-gold.com/halfdan/osito.htm

It's cute and informative.

What we know from observing our Cuyosa (I like Vidal's word better...fewer weird connotations and associations) is that it has a prehensile tail and likes to hang upside down in our Noni trees, eating Noni fruit. Noni is believed to have many health benefits for humans, so I imagine it's pretty good for Cuyosas too . The Cuyosa moves pretty slowly, like a sloth and when it's not eating Noni, it tends to stay high up in the big tree next to the old gate.

I wonder how it gets along with the Howler monkeys that hang out in the trees between our casita and Angel's place....

More bamboo concepts

Here are some more renderings of entrance concepts. These are ok, but none of them seem great. What do you think?













































Here are some more plan pov's. Again, the Casitas will be further apart than this, but it gives you the general idea.
































The idea here is to have folding doors, so you can close off all or part of the veranda, depending on the weather. This is a bit small for the eating area, but the look is about right.














Here are some more casitas. The roof is designed to allow warm air to escape. It's a passive cooling system that uses the prevailing breeze to pull warm air out of the house and keep an air current going.

Bamboo

Hola Amigos,

As most of you know, the part of our property in front of the creek at Selva Del Mar has been approved by Marena for a clubhouse, restaurant/bar and lodging.

Pepe Tercero designed a beautiful hotel restaurant combo for us, but the slowing of the Nicaragua real estate market has made those plans too costly to implement at this time.

Meanwhile, it has become evident that, despite slow lot sales, demand for lodging in Gigante has increased faster than supply.

So the issue became, how can we inexpensively offer lodging that is consistent with our eco-friendly theme, and where potential lot buyers can stay. I have learned from my own personal experience that staying at Selva Del Mar only makes the heart grow fonder. I am confident that when we have beautiful places to stay at Selva Del Mar, others will fall in love with it and want a place of their own there.

A friend had emailed me about

http://www.bambootechnologies.com/bbhomes.htm

These bamboo homes are built in Vietnam, taken apart and shipped to wherever you are building. With the shipping cost, they are still a bit pricy, so I emailed our architect, Pepe Tercero, and asked him if he had any experience with bamboo architecture. As you may already know, Pepe is a professor of architecture at a university in Managua. He replied that he and his class had been exploring bamboo architecture and one Colombian student had personal familiarity with the work of famed Colombian bamboo architect Simon Velez (a name worth googling). Before I knew it, Pepe had sent me rendering of some casita ideas. Here are some of the images.

It turns out that the bamboo for construction (Guadua) grows in the mountains around Matagalpa. You can buy 30' long bamboo, 4" in diameter for $1.

Bamboo has many environmental benefits. You can grow enough bamboo on a quarter acre lot to build a house in 4 to 5 years. If cut properly, it regrows without replanting. Bamboo absorbs more greenhouse gasses than most trees, and releases more oxygen. It has incredible tensile strength, and has a strong root system that resists erosion.

In fact we are planting yellow bamboo on the property near the creek, and some green bamboo already exists This green bamboo is just to your left after you cross the creek.

Here is our caretaker, Vidal, planting some of the yellow bamboo near a fallen tree.

Although Bamboo is more resistant to termites than most woods, you render it more so by soaking the interior of the bamboo with a solution of Borax and water. This is a non-toxic way of making the bamboo pest resistant.

Following up on these ideas, I asked Pepe if he knew of anybody with bamboo construction experience. After some searching, he found a master bamboo craftsman from Masaya, named Ponta Leon. An NGO sent him to Taiwan to study bamboo house construction. Below are some pics of his furniture, some joining techniques, and other stuff.

Estimated construction costs are considerably lower than traditional construction materials and techniques.

Unlike our original plans, the whole thing can be developed in a modular way, starting small. A single casita (without a kitchen) can be built for around $15,000. Each would lead by path to a veranda area where food can be prepared for all. Our first Casita would have a kitchen and would be close to the veranda so it's kitchen could be used for the veranda and casita patrons.

All this is within the parameters of the Marena approval (though we would get their blessing for the change) and in fact would be a lighter impact than the approved plans with the hotel and commercial area. You can see the the original hotel layout on our topo master plan pdf.

I don't think we have found the right entrance and gate design yet, but these images are moving in the right direction.

Some of the pics here are conceptual only. The casitas would actually be further apart, some in the area of the new entrance road, and some in the area along the creek, including toward Angel's and Aida's place. There are a few natural clearings where we could build the casitas without cutting any trees. Many of these spots have creek views.

The basic idea is very similar to the model at Tavarua. The restaurant area is the meeting, eating and cermony area, with paths leading to individual Bure's.

And we can start with one at a time, adding on as demand grows and cash flow increases, up to 8 to 10 casitas total. Let me know if your are interested in our plans to finance this part of the project.

Pepe and his students will soon visit Selva Del Mar to refine these ideas and follow up on locations for the various elements of the idea. I will post an update when I know more.

So that's the story behind the bamboo plan. I welcome your thoughts

lincolngardner@sdmnica.com

http://www.sdmnica.com/

Progress Update September 2007

Buenas, from your Asocio in Selva Del Mar. I just returned from an 8 day trip to our proyecto . Life in Gigante is muy tranquilo. That’s mi hijo, Gray, hanging on the veranda, gazing across the road towards Zacatan, our eco-preserve neighbors.

It's been raining a lot and when you are on the veranda, you can hear the sound of the creek, surprisingly close, maybe 15 yards to Gray’s left. Here’s what it looks like.

The Limon Dulce are just getting ripe. Lo mismo with the regular limes. The Oranges ripen later. That’s a new coconut tree in the background.

The Platanos are growing well (I love tostones).

And the Picante Chilis are ripe. Careful, they’re really hot!

Under a canopy of these beautiful leaves,

are some tasty veggies. Gloria chopped some of Angel’s freshly caught lobster, one of these, added some homegrown limejuice and we enjoyed divine ceviche.

Our caretaker, Vidal picked some of the zuchinni from over by the creekside rotunda

We have white squash too, about the same size. As I walked from here toward lots 20-23, I spotted…

A brown and tan Hawk (Eagle?), with huge yellow talons. It watched me from a tree, then took off so fast, I barely kept it in frame.

Feel like making your own maracas and jamming to some regatone? They grow wild at Selva Del Mar. Time slows down at Selva Del Mar. As you sit on the veranda, you











suddenly realize how really quiet it is. You start noticing things you might otherwise ignore, like these flowers.

The more I stay at Selva Del Mar, the more I love it. Although we have no pictures of it, Gray and I surfed overhead Manzanillo by ourselves, and I surfed overhead Rosada alone last Tuesday morning. While not the norm, it is still possible. But I digress.

Progress is being made at Selva Del Mar. Road improvement is underway. “Gaviones” are being filled with rock, to stabilize the road and slope. It will also be about three feet over the road to stop any cars from slipping over the side. This looks from lot 9 toward lots 8 and10.

On the other side of the road, a mesh of synthetic fiber and coco matting is being planted with peanut grass. The drainage channel will be on this side. Rick and Sergio have no easy task being project managers at Selva Del Mar, but they’re doing a great job.

The road along the upper lots is being prepared for the gaviones and coco matting. Here’s Gray, talking with Delvis, the crew chief.

This shot is taken from the lot Jimbo and I bought (lot 4). We have an amazing 360 degree view. Our neighbor lots have incredible vistas too.

But the creek offers some soothing places to meditate.

A Casita along the creek would be sweet.

This is the new entrance road, within Selva Del Mar. It goes past the camera, toward the creek crossing. Hopefully you are now all familiar with its location and where and how the lots are numbered. If not, the pdf of the topo lot map on the website can be zoomed in on and you can see where things are (or will be). For reasons I will explain later, I hope you will all take the time to look at the recently updated website (more changes to come) and familiarize yourselves with the project.

There will be a quiz ;)

There’s so much more to tell you, but I’ll save that for the next time.

Gloria and her granddaughter hope to see you soon.

This is Lincoln, checking out with a view from lot 2. Adios, Amigos.

P.S. I spoke to Gray this morning (great cell phone reception) y dice "Colorado was going off!" Tubos hermanos!