Planting Seeds

We decided to venture away from the coast for once to check out a one of the wonders of the world, Omatepe Island in Lake Nicaragua.

Volcan Concepcîon

Omatepe Island is unique in many ways. It is the largest freshwater island in the world with two massive volcanoes, one of which is still active. The lake has sharks, and is connected to the Carribbean via the San Juan River.

The lake shore

There are many farms on the island, the rich volcanic soil supports crops year-round. One such farm is unique to the island as well, demonstrating Permaculture Design and giving back to the locals. Finca Bona Fide is located on the northeastern slope of Volcan Maderas, with a superb view of Volcan Concepcion.

Bona Fide Nursery

veggie garden at Bona Fide

They are researching different varieties of food crops to create more dependable and longer lasting harvests for the locals. Chris Shanks has been introducing many new food crops to the island, and sharing the seeds with the locals. He has planted many varieties of avocado and mango, hoping to dine on them year-round.

Cob Bathrooms

outdoor sink and tree platform

Project Bona Fide also has several programs that benefit the locals. “Café Infantil” feeds 60 children breakfast six days a week, and teaches them about basic dental care and hygiene. They are also building a Community Center, to serve as a library and school for English.

fresh roasted coffee and cane sugar ready to mix with cacao

We toured around the farm, sampling delicious bananas and fresh roasted cacao with coffee bits. We took in the sunset with the sound of the wind generator humming with the persistent breeze.

howler monkeys a'bound

cacao flowers, on the trunk!

evidence of the ancients

We took the opportunity to climb Volcan Maderas, through coffee and cacao forests to the crater lake at the top. Trekking through the moss covered trees with our intrepid guide Marvin, who definitley resembled a mountain gnome, we reached the top and took a dip in the mud pit of a lake. Not as refreshing as you would have hoped after climbing 4000 verticle feet... but unique once again.

Aubrey and Marvin try not to get lost in the enchanted forest

After returning to the mainland, we met up with some mutual friends that Loren had actually met 4 years earlier. Roy and Linda are constructing an "Earth Ship" (click to visit their site), a house built into the hill and made mostly from old tires and cob. They live on a precipitous slope overlooking the many wave options, perfect for sussing out that next session.

the front of the Earth Ship

The house is complete with an outdoor shower covered in passionfruit vines, and the greywater feeds their garden located just outside the kitchen window. The local builders were pretty psyched on the idea of building with trash, which as we know, there seems to be shortage of...

tires form the walls

detail of walls showing cans used to fill in space

Moving north though the country, we came to another unique place, Los Cardones Eco-lodge. They have created a low impact and beautiful resort right on the beach in front of some great waves.

natural construction means low-impact

Compost toilets convert last night’s dinner into valuable fertilizer, and solar panels provide enough light to dine. We discussed the possibility of having a Permaculture Design Course there in the future. The seed has been planted.

baño ecologico

More seeds were planted with the help of Holly Beck and her partner Ryan, on their new little homestead in Northern Nicaragua (click to read her blog surf life nicaragua). They are building a few casitas to rest in while waiting for the next session, and we helped them plant a garden that will hopefully feed them and their caretaker, Osmar, and their many amigos.

Sharing the seeds

the garden crew gettin' dirty

They have planted a small food forest, including almendras, mangos, avocados, limes, and gunabanas. We helped pull out some crabgrass in preparation for planting nitrogen fixing groundcover under the little trees.

la Casita de Ryan y Holly, con sus arbolitos

Aubrey diggin' it

It was nice to catch up with friends, share some good laughs, make good meals, sample the 12yr. Flor de Cana, dig in the dirt, and wash ourselves off in some fun waves.


Our time in Nica was just about up so we ventured on, just barely making it through the border at Honduras. This was our most difficult crossing yet, and still we finally made it through with a little help from good 'ol trusty green dollar!

We are now in El Salvador. Looking out over the waves, feeling very grateful for the opportunity to experience this trip. Thank you all for your support and for taking the time to read our blog! Stay tuned, there will be more to come!

Waves Of Optimism

The average storm drain in Rivas Nicaragua

It is hard not to get cynical while traveling through Central America. It seems as if nobody cares about pollution or socio-economic issues, especially the locals. Trash covers many towns and beaches, while people lie in hammocks watching the offshore winds blow it into the sea.

Offshores are great for surf, not so for trash into the sea

The reality is the majority of people in Central America and many other poor countries in the world are more concerned with survival than pollution. The economic situation is pretty dire in Nicaragua: the average daily wage is US$5. Gringos show up with their flashy sunglasses (like us) and blow that in a minute ordering a few cervezas.

The people may be lying in hammocks during the heat of the day, but that is because there is little work. It could be argued that they could be more proactive and seek work, but the capitalist reality is not their reality. Furthermore, many people do not have transportation to get them to the bigger towns where there may be employment.

There are some heavy waves down here...

A light amidst this darkness has emerged in Gigante, Nicaragua. A small fishing town with a population of about 400, they had no public transportation to get the kids to school or for the local businesses to get their sacks of rice from the city. Then a couple gringos with a mission showed up.

Adam Monaghan and Nick Mucha were Peace Corps Volunteers in Honduras directly after college. They wanted to continue humanitarian work, and live closer to the beach. They found this calling in Gigante. They created a project they dubbed Waves Of Optimism, or Project WOO (http://www.projectwoo.org/), to address the needs of the town.

Adam Monaghan of Project WOO

They first performed a rigorous census of the community and consulted with its leaders. Then helped the locals get what they wanted and what they felt they needed most to become more successful in the capitalist world that is rapidly overtaking neighboring villages: a bad-ass bus.

Adam and Marlon take pride in their bus

Enjoying the ride

The WOO-Mobile is an old coffee delivery truck, which WOO had converted to people hauler. They put in folding benches so that the bus could double as a materials transport while not delivering students to their teachers- whom he also helped. WOO raised the money for the salaries of three full time teachers, much of it coming from the rich gringo homeowners in the neighboring bays of the south coast of Nicaragua.

WOO also started an after-school program to help the kids with their homework and to teach them English and organic gardening. We joined in the fun with Club WOO, and Aubrey brought out the paints for the kids to experiment with. We demonstrated how they could use local materials to paint- palm fronds make great brushes and ground up bricks make nice pigment.

Palm fronds for brushes and ground-up rocks for paint

Aubrey demonstrating color blending

The results

Face Painting is fun too

WOO employs two other locals full time. Marlon drives the bus and heaves the sacks of rice into the rig for the passengers, and Norma runs the after school program and takes care of the books. Norma is also training to take over the project full time in the near future, and well deserved, as she embodies a huge wave of optimism that can be felt by anyone in her presence. Both Norma and Marlon are super stoked to be working for such a different project, and to be contributing to the education of local kids.

Norma (in the bright green shirt) joining in the painting

WOO is an example of what two motivated people can do when they put their minds to it. It is also an example of grass roots organizing at its best: they worked with the locals every step of the way. Adam stresses the importance of community buy-in for the success of any project- if the locals are not into it, and more so have a vested interest, a project will not be successful.

They have created a great model that could be applied to any community in need, and used by any humanitarian organization hoping to help. Take the time to look at their website and support the work they are doing! (http://www.projectwoo.org/)


Thanks for reading- stay tuned for more adventures as we return north, making our way back up, across many borders, for the long journey home!

Plastic, Plastic, Everywhere- Does anybody care???

Playa Champerico, Guatemala

After returning to Mexico and driving further south, we have realized that the most pressing issue for the ocean and humanity is not human waste or chemical pollution, but plastic waste.
Plastic has become the number one pollutant in the open ocean, outnumbering plankton 6 to 1 in the North Pacific Gyre (source: Algalita Marine Research Foundation).

Esquintla River, Guatemala

Plastic debris in the ocean is not only unsightly, it is harmful to marine life. Birds, fish, and turtles consume the plastic because it resembles food.

Plastic does not bio-degrade, it photo-degrades, that means it breaks into smaller and smaller pieces. It breaks down to the point at which even plankton consume it, as it slowly sinks to the bottom.

Don't trash this wave, please! Aubrey setting up.

Traveling through Central America, the story is no different: in fact it is the worst we have seen. Local trash collection is often unsatisfactory or completely absent, because it is either voluntary or costs money.

At Playa Zonte in El Salvador, we saw a local man throw a bag of trash onto the beach. We explained to him the problem with plastic in the ocean.

Local ripper Jimmy Rotherham rising above the plastic

Unfortunately, he viewed plastic and leaves in the same category, as “basura” (trash). The local practice is to throw everything into the ocean. Currents drag the trash further out to sea, into the Gyre. As a result, the volume of trash is not obvious on the coast.

In El Salvador, many people cannot afford trash collection, or are unwilling to pay. They believe that the government should take care of it. Because of this, most trash is either burned or thrown to the wayside.

some nice set-ups in El Salvador

Education is a huge factor- the people do not see why plastic pollution is a problem. It has yet to affect them, and their health or their pocketbooks.

Aubrey reading to Jimmy's kids

We are starting by educating the children. Aubrey has been reading a children’s book by Joel Harper, “All The Way to the Ocean”, to local kids. The book explains what trash does when it reaches the sea.

Students of the Traveling School learning Permaculture

Loren also taught a group of girls enrolled in The Traveling School and Introduction to Permaculture. They were all excited at the opportunity to create careers in the environmental field.

Libertad beach clean up

We did see signs of progress in La Libertad. A group of local women were picking up trash along Playa La Paz at Punta Roca. This is a step in the right direction, but a small band-aid at best.

We need to change our thinking about plastic, and see it as a resource. If plastic were worth money, not a single piece would be left on any beach.

A wood gasifier running a tractor. Plastic could be used as a substitute for wood

New technologies are here to use waste plastic. Gasification is not new, though the burning of waste plastic for electricity generation is a new idea. An Australian company named Ozmotech has created a generator to burn waste plastic at high heat to turn a steam turbine, with no exhaust.

Also, a woman in India has figured out how to turn waste plastic of all categories into fuel and high viscosity oil. What if you could clean the beach to run your car!

Plastic is made from petroleum after all. Why not return it and burn it! We can solve two problems with one solution- plastic pollution and the energy crisis.

We hope to find more of this along the way...

We are heading south to Nicargua to see what we can find there. This will be our final destination, and we will turn around retracing our steps and revisiting friends we met and projects we started along the way.

The Easy Road, and What is Sustainablity?

We have been blessed to take the easy road. We have the means to buy a bus ticket, to get on a plane and fly 3,000 miles down to Mexico. We are able to bring our surfboards, an extra bag full of books, presents, art supplies, special favorite food items and have our personal backpacks stuffed to the brim with lap-tops, cameras and other random gear.

Mexico City- Can it ever be sustainable?

Arriving in Hualtulco’s picturesque palm lined airport we are pleasantly surprised to be greeted by our friend Pepe who has come to escort us back to his home where our Truck and our home on the road, Ellie the Dodge has been awaiting us.

Why are we here again? To share ideas about sustainability? How much carbon have we created to make this journey? How is it we are giving talks about environmental awareness yet we ourselves are sucking up diesel fuel to power our way across borders?

It would be very easy to go on and on about the details of our daily lives that conflict with the mottos of being sustainable. In the end only nature is truly sustainable. We must design systems that mimic nature, regenerating resources rather than depleting them. So, we continue on…

The bottom line is many of us take the easy road because we can. We use what we have, and maybe that is the best we can do for now. We talked about bailing everything, just riding bikes or kayaking down the coast (hah, talk about new ideas!).

The justification for driving is that we are carrying tools and supplies to do projects, and hope to introduce novel ideas that may improve lives and the environment, thereby offsetting our impacts. Also, reality is we knew we wouldn’t be able to cover as much territory and be as equipped with any other method of transportation.

Once again, there are many ways to do things, there are many ways to live. We are blessed to have choices.

We found that we are not the only ones who chose the easy road. We were disappointed but not surprised to find that the composting toilet we built for Pepe had not been used. He has three other toilets for his 10 cabañas and it obviously wasn’t a necessity for him.

But after a week here we were able to talk him into getting it going again and helped him construct a privacy structure for it. It will serve as an extra toilet for his many customers from all parts of the globe.

Privacy structure built from local materials

The "Nature Toilet"

We checked out another property in town that is owned by a man from New Zealand. The only toilet they had on the land was a composting toilet, which they have been using for the last 5 years. They add lime powder (calcareous, or cal) and have not had to empty it yet, and it didn’t smell.

Colorful Composting Toilet

The Slow Sand Water Filter we constructed before we left town last October is still up and running, getting a lot of use from Pepe. Our recent water quality tests turned out good and we have been drinking from it for over a week, with no ill effects.

Tastes Great!

Loren gave a talk and showed a slideshow on Permaculture to an interested group of some traveling Irish and Aussie surfers. They were builders and educators, and hoped to learn more about Permaculture down the road.

Passionate about Permaculture

The Water Bottle Re-fill program has been working as well, and everyone seems to be enjoying the benefits of less plastic being used. The customers are happy to pay less for water, and the business owners happy to earn more money from the repeated sales.


All the while we have been enjoying some fun surf sessions. We were greeted by the familiar transition of coming from a cold climate with white skin, to the scorching blast of the tropical sun that singed our pasty flesh. Those midday surfs will do it! Mornings and evenings are the best working hours- you’re a bit safer from heat stroke.

Stay Tuned! We will be heading further south to Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua- in search of good work and good waves!