If you’ve been to Nosara in the past year or 2, then you have seen Giulio’s handiwork on any number of your favorite Nosara establishments. He’s been designing signs for heaps of different businesses and he’s very busy these days. Thankfully, he took time from his busy schedule to stop by and share his story with me.
I had barely spoken to Giulio prior to this conversation… However, it was great fun getting to know him and I’m pretty we are going to be friends.
He’s intense and passionate, but also one of those people who can take a very serious conversation and make it funny instantly with just a couple of words.
Hopefully you enjoy getting know Giulio as much as I did in this episode.
Fabian is a very interesting man. He had a highly successful career in San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica, leading commercial development projects. However, he dropped everything and moved to Nosara to basically retire and focus on his passion for yoga. Then along the way fell back in love with architecture.
Now he spends his days surfing, practicing and sharing what he feels is ‘true’ yoga and taking on residential architecture projects he is interested in.
I hope you enjoy hearing his story in this episode.
In this podcast you can hear for yourself Andrew’s personal story, how he manages his business, and many of his likes and dislikes about our community.
Andrew Saxton is an interesting man. He does not suffer fools, and he really does not care if people like him or not. He says what he feels, and he is more than willing to back up his position in a healthy debate. His morals and his integrity mean more to him than any amount of money. He is quite disciplined in his personal life and extremely disciplined in his professional life.
I feel these traits are what make Andrew successful and why he is currently Nosara’s leading project manager.
Andrew’s clients satisfaction and proven results speak for themselves. His system is working well and his pipeline is almost always full. He is the first person to admit in a perfect world his job is unnecessary. However, the world is not perfect and people are often scared to build in a foreign country… This is one of the reasons Nosara Design and Build exists.
Hopefully you enjoy this episode and I appreciate you checking it out. If you have any questions about Andrew’s work feel free to check out his website:
There is a pretty solid martial arts scene going on in Nosara. Our kids are fortunate to enjoy high quality instruction in Boxing, Muay Thai, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Karate. There are regular classes available for visitors and residents alike. Sometimes seminars or even tournaments are available in our area and throughout the country.
This past weekend both Kaiya and Elisha had a great time representing Nosara Karate Academy at the 2019 Costa Rica National Karate Tournament in San Jose.
This scrappy little team from Guanacaste had successful showings to be proud of in both 2018 and 2019.
In karate tournaments there are two divisions: Kumite and Kata. Kumite is fighting based on a point system. A punch is 1 point and a head kick is 3 points. A Kata is series of fluid positions and exercises performed in a routine but with no combat. Both Elisha and Kaiya prefer Kumite but understand the discipline learned doing a Kata is important to advance belts and knowledge in the karate system.
The kids want to thank Sensei Isis, her father Sensei Hector, as well as Sensei Edgar from San Jose for training them for the past several years.
2018 National Tournament
9 competitors, 15 medals, 2 National Champions
Kaiya: 1st Kumite, 2nd Kata
Elisha: 1st Kumite, 2nd Kata
Helen: 2nd Kumite, 3rd Kata
Amira 1 medal
Nayra: 2 medals
Tiaja: 2nd Kata
Jameson: 3rd Kata
Lochlan: 2nd Kumite, 3rd Kata
2019 National Tournament
7 competitors, 7 medals, 1 National Champion
Elisha: 1st Kumite, 3rd Kata
Kaiya: 2nd Kumite, 3rd Kata
Amira: 2nd Kata
Nayra: 3rd Kata
Tiaja: 2nd Kata
Kai
Aslan
Sensei Hector with Kaiya celebrating a solid finish
Kai and Elisha enjoyed hanging out watching everyone else compete
One of my favorite pictures
2018 celebration with Sensei Hector
Belt ceremony at Nalu
Sensei Edgar from San Jose
Teasha doing her Kata in 2019
Nosara Karate Academy normally practices on Tuesdays 3:45pm (smaller kids) and 4:45pm (ages 8+) at Nalu and occasionally some private practices at La Banana. Contact Isis on Facebook or stop by Nalu on Tuesday afternoons to see the Nosara Karate Academy in action.
All of Central America, including Nosara, has problems with petty theft. The Nosara Security Association is trying to deter and prevent house break in’s as well as all other types of crime we experience. Private Security is the only real solution we have for this.
In this breakdown Rich shows how the Beaches of Nosara could feasibly link up to drastically decrease crime in our community.
We’ve heard every objection and tried loads of different ways… Private Security is THE only method which works 99% of the time.
Your neighborhood should have a WhatsApp group to link into. Send me a message if you need the info.
If you have a location we can utilize security cameras, please let us know.
These new security cameras like Ring are working extremely well and we appreciate the photos of ‘creepers’ and attempted break-ins. We’ve identified several people already with these so thank you.
Main point: If we have private security in each neighborhood we can eliminate most of the crime we experience.
Please get with your property manager or myself ASAP so connect about linking up your neighborhood.
*I am willing to do a personalized webinar for your neighborhood until November 2019.
In this episode, Rich sits down with Del Mar Academy founders Haley Macmillan-Ord and Jessica Sheffield to discuss updates with Del Mar Academy and their side of the story with opening and operating a school deep in the jungle.
Short version (14 minutes):
Full version (55 minutes):
Most people understand opening and operating any kind of school is not easy.
Opening a school deep in the jungle in a small town hours away from major civilization (via sometimes horrendous roads), zero supplies, very few students, plus so much more… Well that is even harder.
But this is exactly what the Del Mar Academy founders did back in 2007.
People new to Nosara might not be aware of what Nosara was like just a short decade or so ago… Nosara used to be a tiny little town with very challenging access, almost zero publicity, no private schools, very limited medical care, and overall was an extremely challenging place for expats to live if they had kids.
However, Nosara of today is becoming a popular, well-heeled tourist town mentioned by major publications such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Outside Magazine, CNN, FOX, and so many others… There are doctors, dentists, chiropractors, the supermarkets are improving, there is a wide variety of restaurants and there is a chance the main road will finally be paved.
But it was not always this way. Del Mar Academy helped bring Nosara to the forefront of options for families looking for a spot in Latin America which is a big factor why Nosara is filled with families and nature preserves instead of nightclubs and condo developments.
The success of Del Mar Academy is now helping other private schools to open and operate, plus Del Mar Academy helps the local public schools a great deal, as well as providing scholarships to local Tico’s. Now that Del Mar Academy is a foundation their goal is to drastically increase their funding so they can provide more scholarships and increase environmental awareness not in Nosara but throughout the world.
Many (most) of my podcasts thus far have been pretty serious topics… But not this one. This episode is with Harry Knight from Surf Simply and we pretty much joke around from start to finish. We did a short version and a long one as well. If you want to hear the full conversation hit the bottom link.
Harry is one of my favorite people.
It took me a couple of years to realize this though. At first impression he sometimes may seem overly technical and kind of nerdy. But if you hang in there and get to know him it turns out he’s super funny and likes to joke around and is pretty sarcastic. If you give him enough time you’ll find he’s an open minded, caring person who gladly will explain where he’s coming from on most everything and overall a downright pleasant person to be around.
In this podcast Harry and I joke around a good bit bantering about all kinds of things. We talk about Surf Simply’s new resort, surfboards, flying around Guiones and Nosara, we debated whether England or the US is the bigger imperialist power, education systems, wave pools and solving peace in the Middle East and too much more to mention.
BarriGuiones is an organization improving Playa Guiones and Nosara. Gerardo is the Project Director and is the ideal person to lead this project. He stopped by to speak with Rich for a 2019 update about what they’ve accomplished and where he is looking to go. Along the way there’s lots of discussion about development in Nosara and likes and dislikes or our area.
We hope you enjoy this discussion. The first version is a short one and later on we will release the full discussion.
