Before we even start dreaming about building anything, we need a road. Currently to access our beautiful piece of land we need to trek through a bit of vegetation and then climb up some sort of stone wall. Not super handy to get customers in.
We talked to people about the road. We debated how to do it. Then as said before we found godsend Gunawan our baby architect.
Here he goes drawing stuff while we are having coffee
Gunawan visited the land, then looked at the road (well or the absence of it rather) and said he would draw the plans for the road. Finally, someone in this team that knows what they are doing when it comes to building! Wait, this is why we pay him. Gave ourselves a little pat on the back for spending that money.
You would think building a road is quite straightforward right? Pile up some rocks, put little walls on the sides so the rocks stay where they need to be, start from the entrance and go all the way to the land. But you would be wrong. You need to calculate filling volume, weight of the rocks, put sustaining walls, gutters, etc.
I am blessed with two wonderful brothers. Not only they are both amazing human beings in their own different ways, but also they are both very useful: Middle Brother is a construction engineer (broadly described), Baby Brother is a business lawyer (even more broadly described).
Baby Brother had his fair share of work over the last few months with proofreading contracts and rent terms and shareholders agreement. Now I can leave him in peace for a bit while I annoy Middle Brother. I sent him the road plans, then he calls me and talks to me about gutter sizes and road incline and protection sidewalk. Once again, it hits me: I know nothing about building.
But that is why we hire people that know what they are doing. We are now in the process of getting this road started, we are hoping sometime this month. The first brick of the road that will lead to the first brick of the dive shop. Exciting times!
Less exciting this weekend was the amount of wild vegetation that has grown everywhere in the last couple of months, which makes it difficult to walk around, see where everything is and even go up the land. So Julia and I went to the local market, bought a couple of machetes like you do around here and then cleared a good chunk within a couple of hours. Yes I know we can hire people to do that. But we didn't (although some random guy did take pity on us and stepped in for a bit, to show us how to do it properly). The things we do that we never thought we would ever do. Chopping stuff with a big machete feels oddly soothing, I have to say.
Julia giving a go at machete