Nuevo Mundo

By: A Photo Journal By Lauren Stocker | May 21, 2008 | Travel

      You enter into a world that is not your own. Here, respect and a good sense of humor are your ticket to the places you want to go. With that earned respect, doors are opened to the lives of people and places you would otherwise never be able to touch. In my case, Efrian Contreras Espinoza, a respected local patriarch, and my new housemate Tim Kelly, a San Juan Del Sur land developer were the gatekeepers to my new world. They handed me the key to a land of “Earthships,” unmarred surf breaks and cherished people.

  In San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua, gringos are no longer a novelty. Surfers, property speculators and tourists from all over the world are frequent visitors. During my monthlong stay, I met countless surfers from the United States, and others from Portugal, Australia and even Norway. Many come for a short stay, usually a surf trip with good friends, and end up being drawn by the lure of the land. Visitors quickly become mesmerized by the mountainous coastline and constant offshore wind created by the large volcanic Lake Nicaragua that makes for some of the most ideal surfing conditions when the right swell hits the warm coast.

Lauren Stocker

But I want to take you away from the tourist streets of San Juan Del Sur and deeper into the local southern barrio. A 5-minute drive on a dirt road, across a creek via a taxi driver who accelerates at the sight of an 8-foot boa constrictor crossing the road, brings you to a small barrio called El Carrizal. Here, the local characters have soft smiles, kind hearts and hard hands. The land and people of El Carrizal unknowingly were branding themselves onto my heart, daily burning their distinct mark deeper and deeper. Espinoza was the center, the ultimate patriarch of the tight-knit community. Strong in stature, Espinoza quietly demanded a certain degree of respect. Espinoza is the cuidador to Kelly’s land, meaning caretaker. While sitting with a fellow coworker and friend on Kelly’s land, an older, sun-weathered Nicaraguan man made his way over in our direction. My friend leaned forward and said, “That’s Efrian, when he comes over here, it is definitely worth a stand-up handshake.” With the consent and hospitality of this man, I spent most days from sunrise to sunset working, surfing and laughing with his sons, friends and employees.

Four years prior to my visit, Kelly naively came to Nicaragua on a mere surf trip as most do. He returned several times after his first trip, and a little more than a year ago, he left San Juan Del Sur, having invested in 140 acres of land with plans to return and develop a socially conscious and ecologically friendly community. Just before Kelly made his decision to purchase the land, his friends and business partners Brooke Rundle and David Kniffin, came down for good waves and to see what all the fuss was about. After a short visit, Rundle, a commercial real estate agent and resident of sunny Santa Barbara, Calif., decided to leave corporate America and live full time in “the wild west” of Central America, and Kniffin, a Los Angeles resident who was equally as struck by Nicaragua’s mesmerizing qualities, decided to put to use his experience of building Earthships in Taos, N.M. And so, Kniffin began making plans to break ground on Kelly’s virgin parcel of land in the hills of El Carrizal in December of 2007.

These Earthships, you see, all started in 1969 when Michael Reynolds graduated with a degree in architecture from the University of Cincinnati. He took his newly acquired skills and revolutionary mind to the mountainous desert of northern New Mexico. There he began the evolutionary process of what 30 years later would produce the Earthship, incessant requests from all over the world to build these structures, and Garbage Warrior, the new full-length documentary film by Oliver Hodge. “If you can’t use the by-product, then don’t use the product.” says Reynolds.  On this premise, the Earthship was spawned.

Public concern for the environment is not a new thing. Obviously it has taken a number of strong individuals to keep up the good fight and slap the public till its blue in the face about the consequences that comes with its careless polluting lifestyle. Even at the start of the ’70s, the media was informing the public about the effects of garbage thrown to the ground on streets and highways. Reynolds responded by building a house out of the materials the public was throwing away. This created the first beer-can house in 1971. Since then, Reynolds has been perfecting his craft and spreading the good word about how to live sustainibly and consume our own garbage in the ever-impending crisis of climate change and resource depletion. 

Lauren Stocker

While getting on the plane to Nicaragua, I knew I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but I liked that idea. I was ready to see what was waiting for me on the other side.  I knew absolutely nothing of Earthships before I made my trip. It was just some “thing” I heard they were building down there. It had nothing to do with me, or so I ignorantly thought. I had other plans for what I thought my trip would entail. Little did I know that I was walking into one of the most educational and rewarding experiences of my life. I was to become a part of a growing community, a community where sustainable building and living “off-grid” was the grease that allowed two different worlds to collide and mix together with ease. American Earthship builders worked side by side with a group of local Nicaraguans and helped train them in how to build a home out of tires and recycled bottles. The Earthship will cool itself, create its own power, and catch and filter its own rainwater. An Earthship is completely off-grid, meaning it does not rely on public utilities and is therefore independent of economic fluctuations. According to Kniffin, the goal in the development of this new community is to “employ local community members and demonstrate that aside from the obvious securities of living off-grid, the best development — and consequently the best investment — is one that invests in the local people and community.” Kniffin points out precisely what makes El Carrizal function and become the magical world that it is: The belief in these words and each other has created a strong and beautiful bridge between our two worlds and the social and developmental extremes that exist in San Juan Del Sur.

When I first arrived in El Carrizal, a majority of the Earthship was already built and standing tall. I was immediately entranced, as most are, by the unique structure built of household garbage. Kniffin had arrived a week earlier, and two of the Earthship crewmembers, Phil Basehart and Seth Larsen, both from Taos, were arriving in a couple days. This was their second round of building and training the Nicaraguans from their wealth of knowledge and experience in building Earthships all over the world. With the help of Kniffin and the Earthship crew, I worked alongside the local men, as well as Espinoza’s sons, relatives and friends on a daily basis. What the locals now know as Casa Llanta (or “Tire House”) is a big deal and a source of constant excitement within the community, especially among the family members of the Nicaraguan workers. Mothers, wives and children would stop by and watch us build for hours. Brave and curious kids would come and help without being asked, just wanting to be apart of the action. We hope their curiosity continues and Tire House will always be a family affair.

Lauren Stocker

Most of the existing homes in El Carrizal and surrounding impoverished areas are made of tin and wood slapped together haphazardly. They provide shelter, but as a home they are inefficient and uncomfortable in the changing seasons. As you can see in the pictures that accompany this article, a one-bedroom home houses a family of five. This type of household is not uncommon. With the solutions that an Earthship provides, such as filtered rain water, solar or hydro powered energy, and recycled tires rammed with earth that act as thermal mass heating and cooling systems, it shows how relatively easy it is for people to build a home such as this with just a little bit of help from their friends. The majority of the building materials are free and can be found at any local dump. This is the epitome of turning trash into art — sustainable living art.

Make a trip out to San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua, if you get the chance. If you go in search of waves, you will find them, but I assure you will find much more than that.

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