The idyllic sojourn down under was cut short by an entirely different sort of adventure. My friends at Two Crows Ecological Design Had a sweet gig in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua — doing site planning for a development called ‘el Encanto del Sur’ including (several) tree-houses. Which I got to design and build! (only the substructures/access — local carpenters will do the rest) So I tore my self away from Mulumbimby, spent a week getting gear together in the USA and flew to Nicaragua.
The flight was an adventure of its own, l’m used to dragging weird gear through airports and customs — but we took it to a whole new level. An expresso machine, and 7 boxes of special treehouse bolts were just the tip of the iceberg, as our luggage included esoteric climbing gear, bicycles, surfboards, and power tools. As well as assorted baby paraphernalia — my brother JJ, his wife Alison, and their (soon to be) 1 year old daughter June were on the mish. We had so much stuff that it was actually cheeper to fly first class (because of the larger baggage allowance) so we had cushy seats and free drinks and all the rest. Other than physically moving the huge luggage pile, it went amazingly easily, no hold up at customs even.
Getting a complicated construction project going in nicargua on the other hand, required a whole lot of learning. Sourcing materials turned out to be the hardest part — to the point that we always felt like rejoicing when things we need actually arrived on site. No matter that it was usually not quite enough, or not quite the right thing. We arrived to a pile of (preordered) bits of steel in the corner of someone else’s warehouse — and set about finding welders, both machines and people to operate them. In order to turn the pile of metal into joists and beams of the required dimensions. By the end of the project, l was managing 4 different welding crews, and the other guys working with 14+ agricultural workers. All in spanish of course.
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- not quite a treehouse, yet…
