Off The Grid - Nicaragua - Both Kinds of Luck

 

 

So we are moving quickly now, from Panama to Costa Rica to Nicaragua - in a short time.  Of course these are smaller countries here in Central America.

A fun aspect of this trip is to be able to spend time with friends and family along the way. We are currently visiting and staying at the house of our son TK and his wife Jenny. They live in a very rural area near San Juan del sur in Nicaragua.

They live off the grid. In other words, they don't have any utilities here - no electric, water sewer or Internet. What they do have is solar panels to power a pump to an overhead tank to supply water by gravity.

And TK and I put in a hand dug septic system for the plumbing the last time Fiona and I were here in 2016.  The Internet is still a problem; you have to go to town (about thirty minutes away) to get online.

So blogging takes a lot of effort and logistics
In fact, in these parts, everything can take a lot of time and effort - here's an example:

How Not to Tow a Truck

TK and Jenny have been having mechanical problems with their small pickup truck. There aren't any good local mechanics, so yesterday we had to take it to another larger town a ways off. This was no small task, as the only way to do that was to tow it behind our rig, another small pickup, and it was kinda far away. 

The only thing we could find to use for that was a rope. So we set off and immediately ran into problems. The rope snapped. We had a long way to go, so we tied the rope another way. After going about ten miles, the rope snapped again. With the help of a couple locals, we re-tied it and eventually made it to the city of Rivas, a total of around 30 kilometers. It took an hour of rather tense driving.

 

Upon reaching the city limits, the rope snapped again, and so did Fiona's nerves.  She and Jenny refused to go any further with this towing effort. So we left the truck on the side of the road and went to the mechanic - hoping he could come and get the vehicle.

He said he would be happy to work on it, "just bring it to my shop."   We tried to explain the problem but he was not having it. So he loaned us his towing strap and we went back to get the rig (by ourselves because the girls refused to go).

Long and short of it, the truck is now at the mechanics awaiting diagnosis and repair.
Not a terribly fun way to spend a hot day.

Not the best of luck.

More Luck, this time good

On the other hand, there was another moment of intense excitement this morning.  There was a very large tree in the yard surrounding TK's house.  The wind blows here a lot and the tree was rotten and in danger of falling on the house.  

So with the help of a local worker, TK and David started in on the tree, cutting it back as much as possible to get it ready to fall.  

Once the fall cut began, the tree twisted and lurched and was hanging right over the house.  Not good.  Any further cuts would make things worse.  And the wind was blowing hard, threatening to bring down the tree onto the house.

So David, the worker, took off up the tree with his chain saw high up off the ground.  The only chance to save the situation was to cut off the top of the tree and hope that it fell the right way.  There was no margin for error.  And it was very dangerous.  You can see him high in the tree in the picture below. 

 

 

But lo and behold, it worked!  It had to be a perfect cut with a lot of luck and had to fall in a perfect place ... and it did!  Wow!  A stroke of luck.  

Luck cuts both ways (pardon the pun) and we now have a truck in the shop and a tree on the ground.