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.

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."

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.

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

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.

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

The good life in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua...

My girlfriend and I came here from England well over a year ago now, and have moved into a great new home with a beautiful view looking straight over the Bay of San Juan del Sur. We're also pretty close to the newly built statue of Jesus up on the bluff in Pacific Marlin. I've heard it's 3 foot shorter than the one in Rio which is pretty special, it's going to be a huge land mark! (This is the view from our balcony...)

For all you guys thinking about moving out here or buying somewhere here, now is a great time. Prices have been reduced hugely in line with the rest of the world property markets, but as a result, we are getting a lot of people coming down looking for deal...and finding one! People who may have otherwise gone to Costa Rica or Hawaii are now looking at Nicaragua which is great!

Tourism took a hit at the start of the recession, but has really bounced back because of the low cost of holidays out here so town is bustling and I am almost too busy at the office! Don't worry, I'm still finding the time to do a lot out of work, and take advantage of the main reasons we first moved to Nicaragua!
The waves have been really good recently so we've been trying to make it out to the beaches for a surf as often as possible, even if it's for a short time at one of the close beaches to town, Playa Madera, Remanso or Yankee. Here's a pic of local legend Rex Calderon (Junior Central American champion) now that he's back from the Junior World Championships in Ecuador, flying across a wave.

With town being so busy, the social side of life here has been growing as well, with more and more people starting to fill the old and new bars & restaurants around town.
All this growth in Tourism out here and there is still so little information available to people looking to find out where to stay, or where to go and what to do, so my girlfriend has started to build a tourism directory website called SanJuanSurf.com which will give all this information to visitors and locals. It's designed to help the businesses here and also the tourists so a win win situation for everyone. We're hoping to get it launched in the next week, but it's been a huge project, just building the site, now we have to get all the businesses on board! Check out the really good photography on the site and we'll have a constantly updated gallery of the latest surf pics on there. Have a look and see as it develops and help support us try to help San Juan del Sur. Hopefully you can use it when you planning your next trip out here! I'm also going to put a few of my favorite properties and any hugely discounted places on there as well for you to have a look at.

I've also just finished filming for House Hunters Int. doing a special program on a couple looking to buy a property in Nicaragua which was great fun. Really hard work standing in front of the camera trying to think on your feet all the time about what your going to say next, but I think it went really well, and its going to be more really good publicity for Nicaragua. I wont tell you what house they went for, you're going to have to watch it yourself...i think it will be on HGTV in 3 months or so. My parents also just came over to visit all the way from England, so we had a great time playing tour guide and showing them round Nicaragua, We visited the historic colonial City of Granada, and did a quick day trip over the see the volcanoes of Isla Ometepe! The rest of the time they just relaxed in San Juan and enjoyed a nice beach holiday! They liked it so much that they've actually just put an offer on a place just down the road from our new house, which is exciting...I hope they get it! Sean and Charlie.

The Volcanos of Northern Nicaragua - Cerro Negro, the majestic San Cristobal and Coseguina

Hike the Volcanoes – Cerro Negro and the majestic San Cristobal and Coseguina all sit short day trips from the marina area. San Cristobal is Nicaragua’s largest volcano, located in the quaint town of El Viejo. Cerro Negro, often described as Nicaragua’s most unique volcano for its short, steep climb and lack of vegetation, offers outstanding 360-degree views from its 400 meter peak. Coseguina is the best ‘lush jungle’ hike of the three. It is also the easiest....just a 30 minute hike to the rim from where you can park.

These are pictures taken on our recent hike up and around the Coseguina volcano.











From the Marina office it is just over an hour drive on the newly paved road and then the dirt road (the newly paved road will get closer and and closer as they finish the highway to Potosi) Once we could no longer drive due to road conditions we got out and hike about a half an hour to the rim of the volcano under lush jungle canopy which kept it cool. The crater is quite a stunning sight with its green lagoon and steep lagoons all around. Looking back and then around you can see the Padre Ramos Estuary and nature reserve, Honduras, El Salvador and volcanoes in all three countries. From the rim we headed about an hour to the east and then north to the point where we could see the ‘finger’ pushing into Bahia Fonseca. Between 4 of us we went through 6 bottles of Gatorade and 6 liters of water and we wish we had more so bring plenty of water and food. Two of us road our bikes from the Marina to the volcano and one of us road part way back. We all surfed in the morning so, needless to say, we were all worn out and slept quite well that night!!!

Below are some pictures of some Century 21 clients at Cerro Negro. This volcano is famous for setting the world mountain biking speed record and for "volcano boarding"

Gaspar Guadamuz and his cousins won the local basketball championship

Gaspar Guadamuz and his cousins won the local basketball championship in for San Juan del Sur in December of 2008. The team of cousins played against the "Los Gringos Team", The championship series which was a best of 5 series was won in three straight games by Gaspar and his cousins. Gaspar commented on the championship finale, "What a game, we beat them and they are still hurt since then."

The new season begins at the end of March 2009, According to Gaspar, "we will get this new trophy also!!"



The photo below is the championship team (all cousins)

Photos from the San Juan Howler

Here are a few photos from the San Juan Howler. It looks like a pretty nice view from the course. You can click on the individual photos to enlarge them...

San Juan Howler - Nicaragua Mountain Bike Race

Below are a few pictures from the San Juan Howler that went on today. A number of riders from the Century 21 Gold Coast mountain bike team participated. I am still awaiting the results and will post those when I receive them.