The Story
In 2010, I fell terribly sick in India. I got diagnose with Typhoon fever and everybody including me thought I was going to die. I was not in peace with this idea. I felt that my life has been purposeless. I traveled the world for years in some of the poorest places on earth, realizing the inequalities, without doing any concrete action to make a difference in the life of those people. I promise myself that if I survive I would do everything I could to have a positive impact on their life. 10 years later it is still my life goal.
Because I worked for many years in tourism and studied hospitality, It made sense for me to use my experience as a way to finance the project. So I decided to open a hotel to do so. After several years of living in Central America, I knew I could have an impact there. So I went to Nicaragua, fell in love with an Island and decided to buy a part of it to build my dream.
At that time I knew nothing about bio-construction so my goal was to build the place with traditional material. When I figured out the high cost of transportation for bringing the material on site I started to look for an alternative way and discovered that the center of Leòn was built with cob (a mixture of clay, sand and straw). I could find most of the material on the island so it made way more sense to build this way. I launch the project and hired Zach a teacher from Cob Cottage Company, Oregon. He came on the land for 5 months in 2014 to share his knowledge with us.
During 5 years, over 700 people participated in the experience. Each and every one of them brought their help, ideas, color and personality to the project. During this time we faced many challenges and to be honest I never could have done it without the help of so many amazing people. That is the reason why we put so much emphasis to build a community around us.
Throughout the years, the project adapted, changed, evolved, grew, to become what it is today. It had a positive impact on me and I believe in so many people. I met the woman of my life there and we had a beautiful baby together. Life is great!
Because I worked for many years in tourism and studied hospitality, It made sense for me to use my experience as a way to finance the project. So I decided to open a hotel to do so. After several years of living in Central America, I knew I could have an impact there. So I went to Nicaragua, fell in love with an Island and decided to buy a part of it to build my dream.
At that time I knew nothing about bio-construction so my goal was to build the place with traditional material. When I figured out the high cost of transportation for bringing the material on site I started to look for an alternative way and discovered that the center of Leòn was built with cob (a mixture of clay, sand and straw). I could find most of the material on the island so it made way more sense to build this way. I launch the project and hired Zach a teacher from Cob Cottage Company, Oregon. He came on the land for 5 months in 2014 to share his knowledge with us.
During 5 years, over 700 people participated in the experience. Each and every one of them brought their help, ideas, color and personality to the project. During this time we faced many challenges and to be honest I never could have done it without the help of so many amazing people. That is the reason why we put so much emphasis to build a community around us.
Throughout the years, the project adapted, changed, evolved, grew, to become what it is today. It had a positive impact on me and I believe in so many people. I met the woman of my life there and we had a beautiful baby together. Life is great!
