We are testing out Earthbag Construction to see how it works down here. It appears to be fairly easy and inexpensive and can be made to look very nice. The big benefit is the thick walls that keep it cool inside.
To test it out, we are constructing a dog house for our five dogs......it will be the most luxurious eco-friendly dog house on earth!!!!
We pulled the dirt right out of the hill and tested it and found we had a high clay content so we extracted some river sand from the stream on the property to get the correct mix. The river rock left over was used as the base under the grade beam on the lower layer (1 ft) and the upper layer is white rock (1ft). We then used the sheet metal cut off of the container door from our container home as the shell for our grade beam.
For the grade beam we chose Construction Lime as that is more economic and much better for the environment than cement. The bags were donated by a neighbor and filled with the dirt removed from same location mixed with the river sand. The compass was made from 2 metal poles already on site (one was from the container door) and welded by a neighbor for $40.
The bags were packed and stacked by my caretaker who at first thought we were crazy but after some initial training is now very excited to work on the house every day!!
We recently cut some Melina wood during the correct full moon to rid of termites and that is drying and will be used for the roof along with the Clay Nicaraguan Barrell tiles.
Below are some photos of the process:
Monday, May 14, 2012
Earthbag Construction in Central America
Posted by
Chris Powell
at
6:19 PM
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Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Mountain Biking San Cristobal
Posted by
Chris Powell
at
4:32 PM
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Labels: Nicaragua Mountain Biking
Booms in the Off Season!!
Saturday January 28th, 2012 at Booms
My high School buddy Rich and I surfed booms this morning. The rest of the country was thigh high while Booms had some head high plus barrels coming in.....nice offshore winds as well!! Perfect start to the perfect day!!

Posted on behalf of Barry Oliver
Posted by
Chris Powell
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4:25 PM
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New video from San Juan Howler Taken by David Kalani Larkins
The following is some new video we just found from the San Juan Howler taken by David Kalani Larkins:
http://vimeo.com/10743217
The Howler Nicaragua - Mountain Bike Race, 2010 from david kalani larkins on Vimeo.
Posted by
Chris Powell
at
2:38 PM
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Labels: Nicaragua, Nicaragua Mountain Biking, San Juan del Sur
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Nicaragua Horse Festival (Hipico)
The following video is of Century 21 Gold Coast Real Estate owner Barry Oliver riding in the Hipico Horse Festival with MLB star Vicente Padilla and Roberto Clemente Jr. Below are also some notes from Barry regarding the horses.
"Rode in the horse festival (Hipico) with Vicente Padilla and Roberto Clemente Jr. last Sunday. The Spanish Horse I was on was worth 8x what my car is worth....Vicente has 29 of them!!!! His horse cost about 12x what my car cost me."
Posted by
Chris Powell
at
1:28 PM
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Labels: Horse Festival, Nicaragua, Nicaragua Land
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Rio San Juan Video
The following video was provided showing some of the river navigation from the previous post. It is pretty fun to be able to enjoy the scenery. The overall navigation was 200 kilometers each way via boat from San Carlos to Greytown.
Posted by
Chris Powell
at
3:56 PM
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Labels: Nicaragua, Nicaragua Travel
Surfing Contest for the local kid surfers around San Juan del Sur
Surf Comp! - Century 21 Manager Johnny Goldenberg and myself, with SanJuanSurf.com worked together with Baloy's Surf shop to put on a surf competition for the Under 14 yrs kids around Southern Nicaragua.
We arranged the prizes for the winners from both SanJuanSurf.com and Baloys and set about getting transport to take 50 kids out to a secluded beach - not an easy task!
Anyways, the day was a success, and it suceeded in putting a few of the up and coming new groms into the limelight for a while! - You'll recognize them in the water if you ever come down to surf here, as the little kids who spend most of the time in the air above the lip on waves you wouldn't even be able to make!
Posted by
Sean Dennis
at
2:40 PM
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Navigating the Rio San Juan
Sometimes it is hard to break away from the coast and take that long road, well in this case a road/river trip. Myself and five other fathers from my daughter’s school arrived in Los Chiles, Costa Rica where we ‘crossed’ the border. We stamped our passports in Los Chiles to exit Costa Rica and then the six of us hopped on the sixty seat charter boat and went a half hour to San Carlos, Nicaragua where we stamped our passports again to enter Nicaragua.
From there we went about two hours down to El Castillo which has a large castle and a very tranquil town that we all enjoyed. 
We spent the night there and then headed to Greytown the next morning. That was about a five hour trip that involved some boat pushing as the river was quite low...thankfully April has the least rain and that means less mosquitoes! We saw all kinds of exotic birds, crocodiles, monkeys, etc...
After El Castillo we saw no other tourists. Near Greytown (place with the most rain in this hemisphere!!!) we stayed at the Rio Indio Lodge, http://www.therioindiolodge.com, 
which was extraordinary and we were treated like Kings.
Mike was out host and the chef and the rest of the staff were outstanding. Many of the staff are Rama Indians that speak 3 languages (English, Spanish and Rama) or more and were excellent hosts. 
Some of the best fishing in the world is around the lodge and that is how it was discovered that I was the worst fisherman on the face of the planet. While others were pulling in four Guapote (Bass) after another, jacks, etc....I was left with nothing!!!!! 
We fished in a river where Manatee swim!!! It was so lush I can only describe it as being in Avatar. It was an excellent trip that I would do again. Great for families as well.
Overall, the trip was about 200 kilometers each way on the boat from San Carlos to Greytown.
Posted on behalf of Barry Oliver
Posted by
Chris Powell
at
2:25 PM
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comments
Labels: Nicaragua, Nicaragua Travel
San Juan Howler Report: Barry Oliver Wins Intermediate, Santos Correa Wins Elite
Barry Oliver (pictured below), broker/owner of Century 21 Gold Coast Realty, won the intermediate division at the 2nd Annual San Juan Howler, http://www.sanjuanhowler.com, for the 2nd straight year.
This was a very well organized mountain bike race put on by Larry Thraen and everyone had a great time. Barry took home the intermediate prize money and a free night at Villas de Palermo, www.villasdepalermo.com located in San Juan del Sur. Oliver commented after the 3 day race on Sunday, “It got really hot out there and on the second lap I started to cramp, but I hydrated well and was able to pull off the win again this year. Larry always puts together an incredible event. I look forward to keeping the title this year”.
The winner of the Elite Division was Santos Correa (Pictured Below) from Santa Cruz, Costa Rica.
He took home $500 and a free weekend at Pelican Eyes, www.piedrasyolas.com. A special thanks goes to Fred Goldfarb of El Encanto del Sur, http://elencantodelsur.com, and Juan Holmann of Lomas de Palermo, www.c21sanjuan.com/pages/developments.html, for letting us pass through their properties.
Everybody is now looking forward to the triathlon in San Juan del Sur in June.
The following are some additional videos from the Howler:
The Howler Nicaragua - Mountain Bike Race, 2010 from david kalani larkins on Vimeo.
The 2010 Howler Nicaragua - Some words from the riders. from david kalani larkins on Vimeo.
Posted by
Chris Powell
at
12:53 PM
3
comments
Labels: Nicaragua, Nicaragua Mountain Biking
Friday, December 18, 2009
Century 21 Gold Coast Realty held their annual Christmas party on Tuesday December 15 and as always it was a great success. The party was held at Galeria San Juan (next to El Pozo restaurant) which is owned by Century 21 clients, Tom and Janet Quinn. Special Guests were the Mayor, Captain of the Navy, our legal team from Dr. Carcamo’s Office and Nicaraguan surf champ Rex Calderon.
Below are some photos from the party. Enjoy.
Rex Calderon (green shirt), Nicaraguan Surfing Champion...on his way to Australia to surf with Quiksilver
Nelgin and Erika
Nelgin, Barry and Erika
Our new agent Jamie Warner and her boyfriend
The Mayor of San Juan del Sur and the Captain of the Navy 
Rex Calderon and his girlfriend
JG, Gaspar, Nelgin and Barry's wife, Sigrid 
Marjorie from the Marina office
Erika and Sigrid
Happy Happy, Barry and Boris
Denise and her cousin Gabriela
A picture of the whole crew
Another shot of the whole crew
The night is good
Posted by
Chris Powell
at
4:31 PM
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Labels: Nicaragua, Nicaragua Surfing, San Juan del Sur










