The beginning:
Jay and I met in the Fall of 2016 in Atlanta, Georgia. How we met and fell in love is another story, but I will simply say that we soon knew we wanted to build a life together. I love to travel so something that was very important to me was that we traveled well together.
So, in the summer of 2017 we planned our first international vacation of 10 days of adventures in Nicaragua. We had an amazing trip and were enamored with the country. As we walked the beaches of Popoyo, we started dreaming of opening a hostel on the beach if not in Popoyo, somewhere in Nicaragua.
After we got home, we talked more and more about what for many is just vacation talk and soon decided to start moving toward that dream. That meant I needed to close my business and Jay needed to sell his. I needed to sell my apartment and Jay needed to sell his house. All of these things doable.
While Jay was working to sell his business, I planned a reconnaissance trip to Nicaragua with my sister for the month of July of 2018. I had made an appointment to look at properties with a real estate agent and booked 2 weeks of immersive Spanish in Leon. About a day before I was about to pull the trigger on a plane ticket, massive protests broke out in Nicaragua over social security reform. This turned into the April Rebellion or Nicaraguan Spring. I followed the Nicaraguan news closely for the next few weeks. It was heartbreaking on every level and one thing became clear. Jay and I were not going to open a beach hostel in Nicaragua. This left us with the question, well then where? And so the adventure began.
Melting Elefante in Popoyo, Nicaragua