May 16th, 2009 fmorgan
You mean I gotta take another bath!?
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When I lived in the USA, I was always conscious of what month it was because each month in the northeast is for me strongly associated with a certain weather pattern.
In Costa Rica, although I am rarely sure what month it is, I do know which season it is. It’s so obvious. Costa Rica only has two seasons: mud and dust.
The mud season. For eight months of the year, I walk out the door and put on my rubber boots (after shaking them in case something crawled in there during the night). Unlike when we lived in the USA, I don’t check outside to see how many layers to wear. Temperature really doesn’t change that much year round, so what you wear is pretty much the same everyday, except for what you put on your feet.
When the rainy season starts, we generally have two weeks of sogginess. There is daily rain, sometimes very heavy and at times with lightening. We get the same thing when the rainy season ends. During the rest of the seven months, at the Monte Cristo plantation where we live, generally there is a big rain twice a day, at about 4:00 in the morning and again in the afternoon. Inside the La Garita plantation, the rain comes every other day. This would seem to make for better living conditions at La Garita, but it really doesn’t, because the sunny day heats the soil, and the previous day’s rain creates a sauna. For living, I prefer a daily rain, but the trees don’t care.
The dust season. Activities change drastically during the dry season. We have more visitors and it is easier to do changes to infrastructure, like road and bridge building, etc. Construction is much, much easier when you aren’t ankle deep, or more, in mud. You can nearly double your time in construction if you do it during the wet season compared to the dry.
One very nice thing about the dry season is it coincides with the coolest time of the year. So the increased sun is offset by the cool winds that come from the North.
When the temperature may vary no more than 10 degrees Farenheit for the entire year, even a change of 5 degrees seems like a lot. So we all act like we’re freezing any time we have to put on socks.
The dry season is great for swimming in our river, as the water is low and crystal clear. Not so good for fishing though. A rain makes the water a little more murky and so helps hide me from the fish. Most of the Ticos go fishing during the dry season because there are places that are accessible no other time of the year except by horse.
We do the heavy pruning of the trees in the dry season. Mainly because bark is slippery and when we are pruning large trees, it is important that nothing is moving around. We can prune for form all year round.
This is good because the grass isn’t growing as much, so workers who would have been working at keeping the grass cleared around the trees can switch to pruning.
For tree owners, the best time to visit is during the dry season, which is also peak tourist time. This is because getting into the plantations is much easier. During the dry season, we can almost drive up to the individual trees. Otherwise, it can require quite a walk to get to the trees.
For riding a mountain bike, I prefer the rainy season, but after things have dried just a little. Just enough to keep the dust down, but not so much that all the rock is loose. One really nice thing about the dry season is you can ride on the pure dirt roads, which are nearly impassible even with a bike for much of the year. They come through with a grader and clean them up during the beginning of the dry season, giving a great opportunity to ride on hard-packed dry clay.
The truth is, I like both seasons. And the end of each, I am eager for the next. When the dust is everywhere, a nice rain is very welcome, and when you can’t seem to find a dry place anywhere, three months of no rain cures that feeling very well indeed.
Posted in clothes, cycling, finca, forestry, mud, nursery, roads, tree owners, trees | No Comments »
March 16th, 2009 fmorgan
One of the many big surprises to me when we moved down to Costa Rica was how primitive the wood business was. Here you have a country with hardware stores, tools, etc. but if you want wood, you go to the sawmill and buy green! There are also depositos de madera, or lumberyards, but they usually sell green wood, too. Of course, you can’t install it green, so you have to dry it yourself.
Many people who are building their own home in Costa Rica are surprised to find that you can’t just go down to something like Home Depot and buy a 2×4; nope, you have to find it. Then, after you find it, make sure to get more than you need, because some of them are going to warp, especially if you don’t know how to dry it properly.
The Ticos are an interesting mix of planning and not planning. If they are building your home, it is hard to find someone who understands buying supplies ahead. I think I have finally figured out why. Most Ticos accumulate material and build in stages. Unlike we do in the USA, they don’t generally get a loan, but they store up money for labor and materials until they have enough to start. This means the wood they need for beams, etc. has probably been in the barn for a few years.
We, on the other hand, land here and want to build our home now, the sooner the better. Often the wood is not available except in a tree somewhere, which will require permits that take weeks to get. The wood will be rough cut, often by a chainsaw, then you will wait perhaps 3 months or more for it to dry (sort of). Since most construction people have nothing more than a power hand planer, the cost of planing and sanding can cost as much as the wood itself.
We paid our dues on this for sure. The first house we built was from trees to house using chainsaws with guides and a 15″ planer. It felt like the timeline for the construction was stretching out forever (we know those of you who live here can relate).
As we grew, so did our milling operation, and we got faster and faster — and more predictable. Now if we need a beam, it comes out of the factory dry, at the right dimensions, planed and sanded and ready to install. The cost of planing and sanding isn’t much when you have the equipment. It is a lot less than paying a construction person to do it by hand. In fact, the costs saved in having the wood ready almost pays for the wood itself when you deduct the labor cost of working with rough cut wood. And of course, the quality is better. We use specialty equipment that allows us to work with beautifully grained wood that would otherwise have a lot of tearouts. With our equipment, we are able to make gorgeous teak products that cost about the same as cedar.
Now we are in the process of educating the construction bosses from Guanacaste to the central valley that they can buy wood ready to install, which helps keep their clients happy. We not only sell the dimensional lumber, but also the tongue-end-groove wood for ceilings and walls (called tablilla here) and floors. In fact, just about anything that is wood in a house, from furniture to cabinets, to floors and doors, we make and sell. And that uses a lot of wood, which is good for our tree owners.
Posted in business in Costa Rica, cabinets, campo, construction, cultural adaptation, doors, drying wood, forestry, furniture, kiln, tablilla, teak, trees, wood | 1 Comment »
January 11th, 2009 fmorgan
Sorry for not writting for a while. In truth, I have been writing a lot, but it has been software for the company. It has been keeping me rather busy, and amused if the truth be known.
We have had several people contacting us making sure we are okay, which we appreciate and of course they are also interested in the effect of the earthquake on the trees.
First of all, we barely felt the earthquake. I didn’t feel it at all even though I was standing next to people who did. I did hear the gates rattle though. The most exciting thing we had happen was for a vehicle in the repair garage to shimmy sideways during the earthquake.
Nothing else in our neck of the jungle. We happen to in an area that is probably the most stable in all of Costa Rica. Normally we don’t feel much at all, if we do, it is from Managua, Nicaragua. In fact, at first we were concerned that Managua had had another large earthquake.
A few comments on the earthquake. If it wasn’t in January, or another part of the country, there probably would be no news - a 6.2 isn’t much. I can recall at least three that we have had since we have been here. The problem is the time of year and the location. Most of the time they are down at the border of Panama or near the beaches at Parita. This was in the mountains above the Central Valley. This area is very steep (unlike the coast, of course) and very deforested - and very populated. If it had been a 7.0, it would have been much, much worse.
The building codes of Costa Rica are very very good, but, people will cut corners and the inspections in the countryside are not what they are in the city. One thing however, most homes have a tin roof - even ours. This trend I hear started after the traditional clay roofs that you think of in Spanish construction killed many people in the earthquake in Cartago many years ago.
This earthquake as far as loss of life and property damage is the worst in a very long time I gather. Having a significant earthquake in January is a real problem. It is when the soils are the wettest. I know you have probably heard that the dry season in Costa Rica starts in December - well not on this side of the mountain. From December to about the middle of January is one of the wettest times of year. The land is saturated. If you take saturated soils, little rock, and deforestation and add an earthquake, you get landslides, which were the causes of loss of life.
Anytime something like this happens, the thought that goes through my mind is “Surely those who removed all the trees above their homes didnot realize they were dooming their family…” And my next thought is usually, “I wonder what things I am doing that are setting up disaster in the future for those I love.”
Though it isn’t healthy to always worry about the future, it also is not healthy to asssume there will not be dreadful consequences if we don’t consider the future outcomes to our actions. The most difficult ones are the actions that are like a time bomb. If, when you cut down a tree on a steep slope , immediately you had a landslide, no one would do it. But, what happens is that you took the tree and left the roots, and until the roots decay, the tree is still holding the slope together. But eventually (and this could be ten years and more for some trees) the roots will be gone - and then the slope will start to move. As you drive around Costa Rica, you can see slopes that have moved - usually about this time of year.
Posted in buying land, conservation, earthquake, finca, forest, landslides, resources, trees | No Comments »
September 19th, 2008 fmorgan
Here in Costa Rica, there are about 2,000 different kinds of trees, at least 150 of them are good for lumber. You would think seeds would be easy to get.
Nope, not at all. Generally when we try to order seeds, we find 4 or 5 different types readily available. These would be teak, gmelina, mahogany, cocobolo, and acacia. Everything else is fairly unpredictable.
I personally am not fond of monocrop plantations. They are not very interesting and for native species, not very good. Native trees grow better mixed — like in nature.
The majority of the rare trees we plant are from seeds that we collect within our plantations. This year, the only way we were able to find almendro was from our own trees. All of our cebo was from our own trees as well. A big bonus this year was finding balsamo, a very rare tree with wood as valuable (if not moreso) than cocobolo.
When we first arrived in Costa Rica, I thought to grow trees would be as easy as calling up a tree nursery, ordering the seedlings, and planting them when they arrived. I figured some day we would have a nursery, but just because of volume. The truth is, the only way that we could get the seedlings we needed was to have our own nursery. Nothing else worked reliably.
I am sure it is frustrating for some of our clients that in January they might order, say, 500 cristobal trees and I have to say, “It depends on if there are seeds.” This really emphasizes that what we are doing is working in an area that requires the cooperation of nature, and nature at times will decide that this is not a good year to produce certain seeds.
A good example is our mango trees on our property this year. I was starting to wonder if the mango trees we had actually did produce fruit, because for two years there was none. But this year they more than made up for it and there were mangos everywhere! The same thing is true for seeds we need in the plantations — we can’t just plant whatever we would like, because at times, Mother Nature doesn’t give us any seeds.
Another thing we often do is collect seedlings, or as they are called in the USA, wildlings. Currently in the plantation where we live, there are lots and lots of seedlings that have sprouted in the last month or so. We will go out and carefully extract them from the ground and put into bags, to plant inside the farms. Often, these are the best possible seedlings because they have already shown their vigour in surviving.
Aside from the very popular plantation trees, we never know exactly what we are doing to have to plant, but, that keeps it interesting.
Posted in acacia, campo, cebo, finca, forest, forestry, mahogany, nursery, seedlings, teak, tree owners, trees, wood | No Comments »
July 18th, 2008 fmorgan
After living in Costa Rica for nearly 4 years, I am finding that I am turning bilingual. Not like Amy who can speak English and Spanish very well - I have enough problems with English. This is not to say that I can’t communicate well in Spanish, I do, it is just I mangle it at times.
When I say I am turning bilingual, I mean that there are words that between English and Spanish, I select the one from one language or the other, depending on the concept I am trying to express, even though they both, in theory, mean the same.
A good example is months of the year. July means hot, dusty, Fourth of July - grass dying, daylight until 9 pm, etc. Julio (Spanish for July) means planting seasons, mud, everything super green, well into the rainy season with no sign of dry for the next 6 months. If I say that it is July now, my brain gets seriously confused. Darkness here is at 6 pm and we have roughly 12 hours of daylight. That should be March, but no, it is too warm. Much easier for me to think, it is julio now.
Another word is nursery, as in our tree nursery. My family had nurseries in the USA, and a nursery is something with a plastic over it and a source of heat so you can start plants early while there is still threat of frost. Excuse me? Costa Rica doesn’t even use the word for frost, unless maybe it is referring to what builds up inside the freezer. What we have here is a vivero, where you put up shading material so that the new seedlings aren’t cooked by the sun, even during the rainy season. Also, since we tend to start the seedlings during the dry season, a water supply is important - and there is no need to worry about heat, except perhaps heat stroke!
One last example is when we are talking about measurements of wood. The standard measurement here is a pulgada cubica (cubic inch) which doesn’t mean a square inch like in English. It is 132 square inches. Usually, in the USA we are used to using board foot (BF), which is 144 square inches. The reason is that a pulgada cubica (usually just said pulgada) is 1 inch by 1 inch by 4 varas. What is a vara you say? It is 33 inches. So, 4 x 33 = 132. A curiosity is that they used to use varas for measuring land in Texas. So, I think readily in pulgadas now - which is a good thing because it is how you buy wood here. You can imagine the confusion when people first start dealing with wood here and someone says that it is 1 dollar per cubic inch!
Before we moved to Costa Rica, I was talking to a little girl whose parents were North American and Costa Rican. She had two sets of grandparents, one who was English speaking, the other who spoke Spanish. She was completely bilingual. Once while making conversation in Spanish, I asked her about her abuelos (grandparents) in California. She told me she had no abuelos in California, only grandparents. In her mind, the parents of her tico father were the only abuelos she had, the others where grandparents. At the time I was amazed, but now I am starting to understand.
Posted in Spanish, business in Costa Rica, communications, cultural adaptation, language learning, nursery, trees, wood | No Comments »
July 3rd, 2008 fmorgan
We use motorized brush cutters (weedwhackers) a lot in the farms. Pretty much all day long you hear them running. Here in Costa Rica, they are called motoguadañas, or motorized scythes. They even cut the grass on the lawns with them rather than using lawnmowers, because the lawns are not rolled smooth.
A motoguadaña here costs about 250,000 colones, or in 2008, 500 dollars. When they are used about 7 hours a day, you can expect them to survive about 2 years before they start to become more trouble than they are worth. Generally speaking, you have to clean the motoguadañas once a week (grease, clean, etc.) or they will deteriorate much more rapidly. The consumption of fuel for a day is about one gallon. That doesn’t sound like much, except down here that costs about 6 dollars now. The mixing oil is a bit more. A good operator can cut about 3,000 square meters a day, or a bit less than an acre.
All of this adds up when you have 750 acres or so. We cut the grass on every bit of the land around our trees once every two months for the first two years. After that, it is about every 6 months. The trees grow really fast in our part of Costa Rica, but so does everything else. You have to keep up with it or it will effect the final shape of the tree and their growth.
Before there were motoguadañas, there were guadañas, or scythes. After a lot of research, we decided that scythes might just make a good replacement for the motoguadañas. It is a bit hard to believe, but in the hand of a person who knows what they are doing, a scythe is actually faster and less work than a motoguadaña.
At least, that is the theory.
Yesterday, the scythes arrived. Since it isn’t the easiest thing in the world to get shipments here, I went ahead and ordered 13 of them. Since we can make our own snaths (the handles), I ordered 5 of them in different styles so we would have something to go by. We also got all the stuff to sharpen the blades.
To prepare people for the coming of the new and improved motoguadaña, I showed them a video of a young girl beating an operator of a motoguadaña in a contest. They were impressed, and of course, since it was a little girl (about 11 years old I believe), I am sure they are convinced they can do at least as well as she!
It appears to be true. Yesterday, I showed Ignacio, our gardener, the scythe. After I explained how it worked, he was off and running. He is convinced that with just a little time, it will be faster than a motoguadaña.
One really big advantage is that the women can use the scythes, whereas a motoguadaña (commercial size) is a bit much for the average sized Tica. Many of the women in the area would love to work clearing the grass but could not before. There isn’t a lot of work for the women in the area, so this opens up possibilities. One other benefit that I really didn’t expect is safety. You wouldn’t think a knife that is nearly a meter long would be safer - but motoguadañas throw a lot of debris and those who operate them often don’t consider this. The other safety issue is your hearing. The steady noise of a motoguadaña can’t be good for your long term hearing and it masks the sound of a snake as well.
So far, the scythe experiment is going very well, although there was a pretty startled look on the faces of the people working nearby when I walked out of my office holding a scythe for the first time, looking like the Grim Reaper…
Posted in campo, conservation, cultural adaptation, culture, importing, scythe, trees, wood | No Comments »
March 29th, 2008 fmorgan
We had a visit from a tree owner and spent a full day with them. They have been with us for a while and we have had numerous conversations with them. I always appreciate their visits because we have so much in common.
The good news is that after reviewing their trees they told us that there wasn’t anything they felt was wrong at all with them and they were thrilled at the size and quality. This of course was wonderful to hear. We do try very hard to do a great job and be diligent in following through with people, but as with all things that are part of nature, there are imperfections. I worry about imperfections. It is probably true that I don’t see the forest for the trees at times. If I see 5% of the trees not doing well it bothers me (and we replace them), and I can forget that means we have 95% growing very well. Our tree owners are always less critical than I am.
I think one of the reasons they gave us such high marks was that they visited trees that they own with someone else (people they bought with before they knew about us) and were much less pleased. In fact, nearly 50% of their trees were replanted after 2 1/2 years and it was obvious that the care just wasn’t being done. It appeared that their trees were planted and then ignored. Also, some trees were planted in areas that were not appropriate for those trees.
Worse yet, when they arrived, it was obvious that the area had just been brushed out, i.e. all the undergrowth removed, and all nearby trees owned by other people had brush about six feet tall, which will choke out the trees. An example is their acacia. Their acacia with the other people after 2 1/2 years is the same size as ours after 6 months! If there was ever a good example of the difference between growing trees correctly or not, this is one.
The bad news for them, of course, is that they have to deal with this, but also it is sad because we in Costa Rica need every bit of lumber we can get. To plant and not try your best to produce the best trees you can just seems to me to be so short-sighted. After all, it isn’t like there isn’t a good market — no, correct that, a great market — for the wood after it is grown.
On top of that, it is hard enough for people to have the confidence to have people in a foreign land grow trees for them, and to not do the job hurts everyone, not just your own business. Thankfully, we have many people who have visited us (and some visit yearly) and so have seen the plantations for themselves and can attest to our quality.
After all, it really is about quality. The price of wood is shooting up as the supply dwindles. For us, to achieve our goal of reforesting a significant amount of land, we have to make sure to meet the obligations we have to those who have trusted us to grow trees for them.
I am happy to be able to say it appears that we are acheiving more than they expected.
Posted in acacia, business in Costa Rica, conservation, finca, forest, forestry, investing, tree owners, trees, wood | No Comments »
January 19th, 2008 fmorgan
Mixed species planting on one of our tree farms
One of our contract forestry engineers told us about a “plantation” that went astray. Many years ago in Guanacaste a person bought a lot of land, about 200 hectares or about 500 acres. He planted all sorts of different trees on it and then left it to grow, planning on coming back in several years to start realizing profit.
This is pretty much what you do up North, buy some land, plant some trees and go away for a long time because everything takes a long time to grow. Perhaps your kids will have a harvest. Here it isn’t that way as growth rates are up to 10 times faster.
Sadly, he never registered any of the land as a plantation, so MINAE doesn’t think it is. Now MINAE is rejecting his request to cut any trees because the “plantation” looks like secondary growth (it IS secondary growth because it wasn’t cared for) and he has no proof to the contrary. There are never permits issued to cut anything inside secondary growth.
This is so common down here. People assume that the laws of Costa Rica are the same as up North and go from the idea that if it is my land, I can do with it as I wish. This is not true at all here. In fact, Costa Rica now has a law in place that to start a business activity, you need to have it approved and how it will effect the waterways particularly. Even for us to build a modest workshop for building furniture and processing wood, we had to go through various steps.
Our plantations look like parks, all well cared for and no brush. I have had more than a few people wonder why, and this is why: If it doesn’t look like a plantation (i.e. rows of the same species), it is secondary forest unless you register with MINAE that you planted that way and it was the plan.
There are lots of abandoned plantations in Costa Rica. Around 1997 there were a lot of trees planted and not cared for. The plantations that are teak are pretty much a waste, and the few plantations that have natives, if they were left alone like this and not documented, are now part of the protected zone and untouchable. It is really sad, too, because there is not enough wood available in Costa Rica, in fact, only half of what is needed. If these investors had actually put in the kind of money and attention that is necessary to do it right, they would be retiring comfortably right now.
It isn’t like all of this information is not available. It is all documented in the forestry law, but a lot of investors just listen to their neighbors. You shouldn’t accept legal advice regarding plantations from anyone besides a registered forestry engineer, preferably two or three. Then read the law for yourself.
Posted in MINAE, buying land, finca, investing, trees, wood | No Comments »
January 19th, 2008 fmorgan
Yesterday wasn’t particularly exceptional and that is the scary thing. Because I don’t punch a clock, I often don’t think about how many hours I work. As I was reviewing what to write today, it occured to me just how many things happened yesterday.
Usually I’m awake by 3:30 or 4:00, but yesterday the day started at 2:00 AM. I tend not to sleep very long — it runs in the family. So, when I wake up, I just get up and work. If I need a nap later in the day, I take one. Predawn is a good time to connect with people in other parts of the world. We have a distributor in England, so it is the best time to call. Usually around 4:00 or so Amy will wake up, and this is our time before the day starts in earnest. Our general manager has been known to show up as early as 4:30 to talk about the day, since he knows we are awake.
I also like to take the earliest part of the day to do research and learn things. If I learn something early in the morning, I tend to remember it much better than later in the day, although I never have much of a problem remembering things.
Back to yesterday. At 6:00 we needed to go up to our Monte Cristo plantation where our house and furniture factory are. Amy needed to meet with construction and woodworking. I needed to meet with tree nursery and wood harvesting. We returned to the office at 8:00. We are currently living at the office because our house is being finished. Between 8:00 and noon I worked on an order for decking and on learning Sketchup for doing drawings of projects.
At noon, I took visitors to one our first plantation. Some of our earliest tree owners came to visit us and see their trees. They were amazed at the size of the trees and how much they had grown in the last year. One of these visitors is a good test point for us, because they have their own trees on their own property and also have us growing some trees for them. They have told us that it is cheaper just paying us to grow the trees.
I got back to the house about 5:00 pm and caught up on emails and forums. About 6:00 pm one of our contract forestry engineers showed up to talk to Amy about the residency laws as they relate to forestry. We have a potential buyer who wished to use an investment in reforestation as a way to get residency. Unfortunately, everything is up in the air now so there is nothing concrete that can be said. I had several other things to discuss with him, including explaining our project of plantation to permanent rainforest. It took a while for him to get it. As he said, no one is doing this here, although he knew that it is done in other countries. I will meet with MINAE to explain our long term goals. It thrills me to know that my Spanish is now at the point that this will not be too difficult.
I finally finished the day at 7:00 pm and tried to stay awake. I fell asleep about 8:00 pm. This morning I slept in until 3:00.
Posted in finca, nursery, tree owners, trees, wood | No Comments »
January 16th, 2008 fmorgan
Today I went to visit a new finca (farm) that we are looking at buying. We already have one finca for planting this year called Quebradon, but it only has enough space for 35,000 trees, which might not be enough this year. There is another, much larger, finca connected to it that we visited today.
By we, I mean myself and Nelson, our general manager. We didn’t drive to it, we took the ATV. When going back into the campo, it really makes sense to use an ATV instead of a car — after all, if the ATV gets stuck, you can just lift it out.
As time passes we have to find larger farms, and that generally means more remote. Also, this helps us keep the price down on trees. It does raise the cost a little while planting, but not that much. It is a blance between accessibility and price. More remote generally means better land, since it has not been farmed for too long. There is always much more wildlife as well.
Visiting a finca is usually done from horseback, especially the larger fincas. This finca is 183 manzanas, or about 311 acres, or 128 hectares. It has about 30 hectares of forest and the rest is pasture. Remember that 100 hectares is a square kilometer, to give you a perspective on the size.
As usual, the owner figured since I am growing trees what I want to see is trees! Not really, what I want to see is pasture, because that is where we grow trees. But what happens is that I first got a guided tour of the forested areas. This of course is the roughest section of the finca to travel in. Think the downhill ride/slide in the movie Man from Snowy River! I can’t believe the kind of terrain I ride on regularly. Today one spot was really bad and we actually had to dismount to help the horses go up it. It was worth the pain though — at the bottom of the hill was the largest Spanish cedar I have ever seen. We also had a snack of heart of palm — very nice. You haven’t had heart of palm until you have had it fresh.
You know that you are in trouble when visiting a finca and the owner asks twice if you know how to ride horses before you start. He really wants to make sure you can handle what you’re about to go through. Thankfully he gave me the best horse and the best saddle. His saddle was just a piece of leather with stririps tied on with rope, and he still rode better than me, but that’s no surprise. I swear some of the Tico cowboys defy gravity when riding. Perhaps they superglue themselves to the seat.
This finca is off the grid, that is, there are no electrical lines or phone. However, it does have power. First of all, the electrical monopoly here has a program of renting out solar panels that will give you enough power for three lights and a TV for 2 dollars a month. Also, within this finca is an mini-hydroelectric system that used to work. It can be repaired and will be.
The finca looks like a winner for sure. It is a good price and well suited for our planting. With this finca and our other that it is connected to, it will mean about 265 manzanas connected together, or 450 acres. One side connects to the reserve that extends from there to Arenal to Tilaran to Bagaces — I think that would be about 60 kilometers. Just a little bit inside the reserve I am told is a 100-foot waterfall. It should be fun to visit.
The next step is to have a forestry engineer review the titles to the property for any issues (such as it can’t be sold because it was a government gift house) as well as determine which areas can be planted with what species. After that, we make the deal.
Posted in buying land, campo, finca, forest, horses, off the grid, trees | 3 Comments »