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Future of Rivas area..Thoughts?
Submitted by markwayne on Sat, 2006/01/28 - 00:18.
The Rivas area, SJDS, Rancho Santana, district is among the most popular tourist and investment destinations in the country today. Many of us have taken a serious look if not made investments in this area already.
If we project out 5-10 years from now what kind of changes and differences would any predict for this areas future?
If we look at NW Costa Rica 10-20 years ago and track the changes and development..perhaps a similar picture could be drawn?
I think we would all agree that there will be much more deveolpment as far as gringos buying property and opening hotels and the like...so many private residences as well as gated private communities are already being built...
I wonder if the infrastruture such as paved roads south and north of SJDS and Tola area to the better beach areas will ever be built and the development that will follow these improvements.. I would think also (hope) that the town of Rivas will have more and better amenities (a movie theater..more and better stores and restaurants, health facilities).
I am certain also that the areas around lake Cocibolca will attract investment. One of my concerns is that with the influx of money and investment this may attract organized and less organized crime "ala CR" as the bright economic future of the area becomes known to the ever expanding population of the country and its needs.
Curious if others could look into a crystal ball and see the future of the area what thoughts are out there as to the future and quality of life issues...
Thoughts,comments..?
Polishing the ball to see clearly
As i read these comments i can't help but think how so many people are missing whats really going on. In the U.s. we are selling our markets and or businesses to the world. Now we are deciding some people are good to do business with and others are not, this is creating an insecurity with people living here especially with the educated poor US citizen. The more you see the more you realize its time to do the most sane thing you can, find some place else to set up shop. Nicaragua has bad press in the states, but if you educate yourself you find out what you thought you knew is missleading information. This springs forth great curiosity, and just another example of miseducating the peole of the US by who?..... Looking from the outside in; cheap land, friendly people, this gives a fella the idea he can make something happen. This is the attraction and every californian over 40 remembers when he could buy on the beach for less than 20k, now look 1-2 million. Investing in Nicaragua, after gathering your facts, going there looking around you find out the opportunities found here are REAL and better than you could imagine. I only hope the nica's can handle the roller coaster coming at them your country is going to change. The Japanese see it, the Europeans see it, even brain washed Americans can see it. If the US dosent open its eyes economically alot of americans especially the educated and talented are going to flee north America for greener pastures, please don't mow this lawn this can be good or bad depends on how people react to it.
News
Just getting back from a week in SJDS and other parts of Rivas.
* Japanese investors building a new port, fish processing plant and resturant at the south end of SJDS bay.
* Japanese building a hospital about 2KM outside SJDS. Supposedly two fulltime paramedics will be on staff.
* Real estate prices are going hypersonic with lots in some developments recently doubling.
* The Pellas family bought a port facility in Rivas and there is a lot of speculation that the coastal road (Chocolate Road) may be getting paved in the near future. Hard to believe but I also talked to a fellow who lives 5KM north of SJDS on the Chocolate and he says surveyors recently came through marking the road.
* I am standing up a Drupal site for Eric Blackburn, a writer and boat captain, who has lived in SJDS for the last 8 years to focus on SJDS news (SJDSnews.com).
good topic MarkWayne . . .
Greetings:
I am working on my morning coffee so I might post more later when I'm a bit more active.
The area you speak of is the one I am most familiar with, where I have property, know lots of people, etc.
The area, especially at the beaches is starting to change. I think in 2006 you'll see some significant improvements in the tourist infrastructure; for example in Popoyo/Guasacate Beach.
Certainly in 5-10 years you'll see a mini-SJDS type of scene down there where now, you can come and sleep on the beach and, while not recommended, nobody will bother you. That specific area is a very small peninsula so it only has so much room to build on the sandspit down there.
Regarding Rivas, yeah I wish there would be a new centro commercial built there that had first run movies, that would be great. Rivas really hasn't changed too much since I first came to visit about three years ago, except you see more surfers, backpackers and in general, more north americans cruising around.
But, there is still no nice hotel there that is moderately priced. The Nicarao appears to be in a phase of serious remodeling, and it is a $50 a night place at any rate. When I finally found Hotel Don~a Lila I was so happy, but it is not near the the center of town. I think a nice B&B type place would work great if it were in a nice colonial style house near the plaza. I expect someone else has had that idea and will be working on making that happen.
In the general area, there are more opportunities for people to live in the midst of the local people than there are gated communities. But it is a decision, a personal decision that people make that says "I want to live behind a gate, fence, and a guard."
There are many reasons someone may want that sort of thing, but you're really missing being in Nicaragua when you live like that. If you are at RSA, Iguana, or some of the other places like that, your interactions with Nicaraguans would normally be limited to the gardener, maid, poolboy, etc. For me that is not enough.
However, if you have lots of stuff, an extremely nice house and live amongst the general population, there will be those who will want to relieve you of so many trappings of western society. Or we can just call it stealing if you like. So there needs to be a cuidador or full-time help there to ensure that your stuff stays your stuff. It's not that big of a deal though, IMO. Just letting your neighbors know that you've got your *stuff* together and intend that it be yours going forward.
Speaking of the beach areas that aren't "gringo gulches" I'd mention Limon I and II, Santana Beach, Guasacate Beach, Las Salinas, and El Astillero as options.
There have also been traditional beach access issues recently. In Pie de Gigante I believe there was a problem where all of a sudden the access was blocked that people had used forever. That is not right, and creates a bad vibe amongst the locals. I hope that the big property owners can provide continued access and not create a bad situation.
The lake is seeing investment, especially closer to the C.R. border. I had an option to buy a manzana on the lake just across from Ometepe but didn't buy because the volcano started acting up and ashes were landing all around. Also, it was Alcalde land and I like having a real escritura and titled property.
Which is another issue, there are lots of land that the locals have that is not properly titled, therefore it is either difficult or risky (probably both) to buy the land. That is something that hopefully will be better resolved in 5-10 years as international investors buy those properties and successfully transform the current forms of ownership (which can be more like "right to inhabit", not "right to own") to good clean titles.
In the meantime, most investors will end up looking at the gated properties more just because it is assured that you will have good title. It takes a lot of due diligence to buy a non-titled (or funkily-titled) property and most people won't or can't go through all of that.
I guess the coffee kicked in after all . . .
;-)
Doors of hope fly open when doors of promise shut. -Thomas D'Arcy McGee
Sadly . . .
nothing says "Ugly American" like our distrust of the "other" and rubbing our wealth in the "others" face. We ruined the north with distrust and separateness and we're only just learning now that by mixing the socio-economic groups do we keep ghettos from forming and the animosity that ghettos create. I hope it's not a mistake we export. Fences make for shit neighbours.
Export not needed
Ghettoes do not need to be exported; every Latin capital and every large city there has them, they just have much smaller buildings (a.k.a. shantytowns). You do not need fences, if you use barb wire and broken bottle tops cemented all around the perimeters of your "place", as is in almost every Latin country. Bringing wealth in does not necessarily introduce locals to anything they haven't seen before; there are rich locals, and what they have and how they live is not a secret. The difference between a so-called ugly American and a rich local isn't all that much.
There is a difference
We live amongst people who feel three car garages and 10000 square foot homes for a couple seem necessary or desirable. They are Canadian. If they want to gate that's fine, stupid but fine. Most of those who would break into their homes are the children of their same neighbours, don't tell them that though. If it were an enclave of "other nation here" that wanted to live apart, have us as maids and gardeners . . . you can believe they would be a target.
Let the market decide?
Hey, wait a minute, didnt, just yesterday, you advocate letting the market decide things without interventions? Well, why not encourage the market decide what happens there? If one allowed or favored that then it would not be possible to force one's culture on anyone else; people either buy it or not. Least with the market deciding (whatever that means) one would not be troubled trying to figure out at what point the increasing wages would induce gluttony in the local population, especially since those wages are none of your business, as you stated, oh, less than 48 hours ago? O.K., right, too sarcastic, and I know it is only a crystal ball, but if people want to preserve what many outline here, the best way is to not go there at all, and encourage others not to go, and to encourage those there with any money to leave, fast. There is no way to separate money from its effects. Bringing money there doesnt give Nicaraguans something new to want; they already want money, and if they get it, they will start a process which is exactly like what you do not want to happen. Even if, magically, all non-Nicaraguans were kicked out, and lots of money came into the country, the building of "Little America" would be in full swing without "Americans".
the markets are like the press
it's only free if you own one . . . "If one allowed or favored that then it would not be possible to force one's culture on anyone else; people either buy it or not." The US owns the market, where they go they will most certainly take the best . . . and sadly the worst of that culture. More often than not, that worst . . . will spoil native cultures like it has for centuries.
Ownership
I didnt say I favored it (I don't). But, the idea that the Nicaragua market is owned by the U.S. is laughable. U.S. ownership in Nicaragua is tiny. U.S. products are damn hard to find. U.S. ownership of non-U.S. products is also tiny (too small to measure accurately). Look around. Go in any Nicaraguan city and go anywhere, even people's houses, and the same three little words are the easiest things to find: "Hecho in China". There is nothing uniquely American about making things and selling them (there are other countries in the world - though people never seem to want to place any blame there...). Since Americans are not the ones making the stuff sold in Nicaragua, and did not finance the development of the operations, and do not control the importation of what is selected for sale, and do not own the stores selling the crap, nor do they staff these stores, they can hardly be said to own the market. What happens, eventually, is that local people build a mall, which is called a "gringo mall", even though it is almost always nearly completely full of non-gringos! IBM, Burger King, and Sears did not invent capitalism, nor any culture, and they do not own any market, especially not one in Nicaragua. Nature cultures are destroyed from within.
I hope your crystal ball is correct.
I want to relocate to Nicaragua to become part of the life and culture that is there, not to make it into what I am leaving behind. Having grown up in the southern US, I have seen a lot of what was a unique culture disappear as people from the north relocated there.
Obviously, when new people move in, especially in larger numbers, they will bring in parts of there culture. This is obvious in the influence of both Latino and Asian populations in all parts of the US (their impact has been positive belive me) but we who relocate to Nicaragua need to understand why we want to be there and assimilate into the culture as much as we can.
My crystal ball forecasts a sunny day....
...followed by gathering clouds and an increasingly dark future.....Forgive my pessimism; maybe it's just an accumulation of bad news. But lately I feel the bad guys are winning and I'm slowly realizing that "we" are "them". Without even realizing it, we are contributing to it daily, and even in our efforts to help we play into a system that absorbs our hopefull energies and diverts it to areas of ineffectiveness. My pragmatic side says that the world will continue to spin the way it has until some greater power acts upon it. Trouble is that power today equals money, and it's the forces of evil that have most of it, and have locked in systems that ensures it stays with them or that do-gooders will be confounded by any effort to control it.
Here in Massachusetts (home to loudmouth Kennedy-style liberals who scream for more money, but then can't seem to explain where it all goes) there will be a press conference tomorrow. A Nicaraguan factory worker from Mil Colores which makes jeans for Faded Glory sold in Wal Marts will be speaking in front of a local store, followed by a 2pm conference at Mt. Holyoke College with other garment workers from Columbia and the Phillipines.
I have attended such events in the past and have been active in my churches ongoing support to Solentiname citizens. I fear that many people tomorrow will say and feel many things that will have little impact, and that many many more people will close their eyes as they walk past in search of short-term savings at the cost of longer-term solutions. This is the mindset of the masses. Personal selfishness and petty greed.
A group from our church just returned from Nicaragua last week. With the profits from the pottery that I purchased from San Juan del Oriente last fall the group was planning to bring donations as well as purchase many local Solentiname paintings, to be sold in the States thereby continuing the process. They were told by the Solentiname Cooperative that it had been decided that they would sell no paintings to us for less than $150-$200US, due to many tourists telling stories of great wealth to be made in the art world. This in effect cut the legs right out from under our aid efforts because we find those prices to be very close to the retail selling price in the States. The group was offering 1-2 weeks wages per painting on a steady basis, but they want more than a month. Since I work for one of the more prominant art galleries on the east-coast in Northampton Mass., I understand what the market will bear and can honestly say that their short-term greed may cost them their longer-term solutions.
There are a great many good people who hope to improve Nicaragua, but there is little unity and much differing of efforts. While we are down there trying to reinvent the wheels of aid for each circumstance, the powers of selfishness and greed continue to focus only on the money. Roadways to the beaches will be built, but with much graft and theft. These roads will lead to growing homes and developments that will ultimately drive the market up, attracting more greedy investors. For the short-term things will look up with an infusion of foreign money, but as things pick up momentum, who knows?..... will the Nicaraguan people set up a system of governance at the local and county levels that is transparent and honest?....will foreigners organize their goals to be something other than return on the dollar?....will we organize cooperative business models that offer fair wages?....can we invest to share rather than to own?
In the spirit of Martin Luther King's recent birthday, I hope that humanity will recognize that sharing with our neighbors in the short-term will benefit everyone in the long-term. Tomorrow I will listen to the speakers at the conference who will give words to much of what I already know, but will they offer me a sound action for what I see needs to be changed?
I will still be moving to Nicaragua next year, and I still beleive that I will find a lifestyle better than here in the USA. I will still find others to ally myself with who will be working for some good cause, although sometimes I question if my small good will make much difference. But I know it will make more difference there than some of the struggles I have been involved in here in the states. I now know that I will not build to own a house. I will choose whom I wish to help with my rent, and forego counting any investment. And ultimately I will retire to watch the zinc rust relaxed that I tried some, failed some, and have settled for an even tie where I bring no harm to others, and maybe even help a few.
There are ways of living that will not ruin the natural beauty
My husband and I hope move to the area, I think many of us will bring the best of our culture. This is an opportunity to gain so much from this wonderful mix of people. Just the people on this blog have so much to offer, many of us are close to retirement and will finally have the time to volunteer and offer to share with the community the many skills we have. (master gardener, potter, sculptor, reading teacher, birth coach, etc). We teachers, we've already had the experience of mixing many cultures together, we had to make it work. I feel lucky to finally have time to get involved in a community, involved in volunteer work .
Also, those of us raised in the USA were taught from early on the importance of keeping the environment clean. We came along after the air & waters were already screwed up... this time we are here in the beginning and can hopefully make better choices. I feel this is a very exciting time to be moving to this area of Nicaragua... strangers coming together with hopes to have a better life, it sure sounds good to me.
sheila blue cayuga studio
p.s. If you're looking for a good neighbor and you have a little piece of land or a little house to sell in SJDS, Tola, Rivas, that whole area, I will be down at the end of February to look and hopefully to buy something!! Any help in finding a place or land would be greatly appreciated!!!
Culture, not beauty, concerns me most
While I liked John's projection and hope it is right, I pretty much has assumed from Granada to SJdS is a gonner. That is, it will become a new Gringolandia.
Two years in Costa Rica just showed me all too much of the results of gated communities, malls, ... . While some will call it progress, I love Estelí. I love it because other than one Esso station, two Shell stations and one Texaco station on the Pan Am (which are apparently Nicaraguan owned and are just using trademarks) and a Payless Shoe Source that makes no sense here, it is like we are in Nicaragua--not in mini-U.S.
This goes way beyond what it looks like. People speak Spanish. They ride bicycles. A guy with a horse cart delivers milk. Vendors walk down the street with vegetables, meat, fish, ... I talk to my neighbors. I say "adios" to people on the street I don't know. People who don't know me come over to ask about my dog.
When DHL calls me she doesn't say "you have a package" she says (even though it doesn't say this on the package) "your magazines are here". The postmaster greets me by name.
Now, I lived in a small town (Benton City) in Washington years ago. It was like this. But, it was 1000 people and Estelí is 100,000. As soon as there are gated communities, a "Gringo mall" and such, this will no longer be the place I want to live. It will have culturally changed.
From my Costa Rica experience, when this "different culture" appears, all too many locals want to be part of it. Thus, the 10 or 100 Gringos are not directly the problem--it is the social impact on the local population that causes what I would call local culture to go away.
But, sure, if you want to buy my .75 acre lot or my friends more like .6 acre lot near SJdS, great. Estelí, not SJdS is my future.
Yes!
I concur completely with fyl. Having spent two years in CR (the same time-frame as fyl), I too don't look forward to southern Nicaragua turning into CR-Lite. But 90% of the inquiries I get about Nicaragua are SJDS and Granada. t'aint for me thank you...