A Day on the Nicaraguan Beachfront

Dear International Living Reader,

Jack didn't stand a chance. My little 3-year-old held tightly on to my arm with one hand and to his father's leg with the other but couldn't keep his footing. A hundred yards offshore, wave after wave was breaking, some eight and nine feet. His sister was out in the fury of it, riding each wave toward us. It was all Jack could do to keep his little head above water, all the while giggling uncontrollably.

We spent yesterday morning at on our piece of Nicaraguan beachfront. We don't technically own it, but yesterday we might as well have. Not another soul in sight...all 2 kilometers to ourselves. It's not only a long beach, but wide and sandy. Behind it, the hill rises where we'll eventually build a house.

Bill Bonner (my friend and boss and the founding publisher of International Living) has started on his. His foundation is in, and the rebar stands tall all around it. It will be a two-storey traditional-style hacienda with four bedrooms, about 4,000 feet in all. Construction, which began last month, is scheduled to be finished next February. Bill worked with an architect we've gotten to know well over the past few years on the design, and a Nicaraguan, a partner and a friend, is managing the construction.

Our house will be next-door. But these are big lots, nearly an acre each, and we're cutting down as few trees as possible for the infrastructure and the house construction, so, standing on our lot where we intend to erect the house, we couldn't see anything of Bill's foundation.

That's the idea here. Privacy.

What we could see standing on our hillside, in two directions, was the crashing Pacific. To the left, cliffs and a small cove...to the right, the horizon where the sun falls in a burst of orange and scarlet every evening.

These lots are part of Los Perros, a 1,000-acre ranch contiguous and to the south of Rancho Santana, on Nicaragua's south Pacific coast. You know about Santana. This is where, for the past six years, we've been developing a private community for International Living readers and friends. The plans at Los Perros, the most recent extension to Santana, call for a limited number of lots (47), each bigger than typical for this part of the world, the smallest about three-quarters of an acre, the largest nearly 5 acres, each carved out of the landscape and guaranteed to have a view of the Pacific even a southern Californian would envy.

We've been in Nicaragua for two weeks, first at Norome, now staying at Santana. We're taking full advantage of what this place has to offer. Spanish-language lessons in the morning (there's a Spanish instructor on staff)...followed by a ride on horseback through the hills or along the beach (this is the only place I know in the world where you can ride horseback on a beach and no one will object)...then lunch, a swim, and maybe a ride on the Wave Runner. My daughter has been learning to surf. Jack has collected a bag of sea shells to take back to Ireland with us.

We've fallen into the pace of the place, and, I have to admit, it's hard to power up my laptop in the morning. I'm speaking psychologically, not technically. We have a fixed-cell line in the house where we're staying and could send and receive e-mail all day long if we wanted.

There's a DVD player in the sitting room and a library of DVD's down in the Clubhouse. Here at Santana, the master plan has been expanded to include a new bar, a spa, sauna, and workout center, a lap pool, a bodega for shopping, more gardens, and, within the next year, a small commercial center built around a central square in the Spanish colonial style.

All the comforts of home...in an idyllic tropical setting. And next door at Los Perros, lots of elbow room...space to build a house you might pass down to your children and they to theirs.

It's remarkable to me what this place has become...is becoming. When we bought the land at Santana, the only way in was on horseback. We had an idea for what Nicaragua and Rancho Santana could be...but almost didn't believe it ourselves. Who could have known, really, six years ago, what course this country would follow? If you knew it then, you might not recognize it today.

Kathleen Peddicord
Publisher, International Living