Hotel Brothers (2020) - full transcript
2 Canadian brothers travel to Nicaragua in 2008 with only $1000 and backpacks. During many set backs, the brothers build the worlds first action sports resort, and then proceed to build the largest resort in the country.
they were willing to sleep in a tent in
the jungle to build an action sports resort
and that's what they did
so yeah it all started in 2008 my
brother Travis and I were living at our
parents house at the time
and one day we bought some beers and we
had a meeting in the hot tub
about what we wanted to do with the rest
of our lives so that night we did a
quick google research
we looked up cheap land for sale around
the world and nicaragua came up
we booked two tickets to nicaragua that
night
and two weeks later we flew down
here we are in nicaragua we spent the
first two weeks
partying meeting people, we had one goal
on this trip which was to either look
for land or buy some land
we met a guy just walking down the
street and
said he had some property for sale and
it had a well and a jungle in the back
we said hey look man we only have a
thousand dollars, we went to the atm
we took out a thousand dollars we gave it
to him we signed a little
contract then we flew back to Canada. For
the next year we
got jobs at a gas station we came up
with the business plan
we wanted to build the first action
sports resort in the world
but we didn't have any money and we
didn't know where to start
so, during the one year in Canada
that we were working we also posted
online looking for investors.
I first met Lucas and Travis through a
mutual friend that had kind of set us up
to talk about some business ventures
when we got together
i wasn't too sure what to expect,
these young guys came through the door
they're like 20, 22.
they were probably doubling on a bicycle
and they had some drawings in their back pocket
and they were asking me to invest
in them
so we went from there and we talked
about it and we had some similar ideas
and we thought yeah we could probably
make this work, once I looked at them and
I knew
that they had the drive in them that
they could do it that's something that
you're basically born with
so after the one year was up and we
found an investor we went down to Nicaragua
and we started building.
once we got there and we started discussing what was going to happen and what was
going to transpire and started
collaborating these ideas
they just started to flow and and we had
the exact same idea of what we wanted to
do and same goals
to build one of the first action sports
resorts in central america.
actually in the world. So here we are in
nicaragua we bought some
five dollar bicycles some machetes
and every day we would bike from san
juan del sur
out to the property which is about three
kilometers away
and we would just start clearing the
land with machetes every day until we
realized it's only like five dollars to
hire somebody to do it so we started
doing that while we worked on the
paintball field in the back
but we found a crew of workers so we
started building our first little house
it had a zinc roof big gaps between the
walls and the roof. There were bugs everywhere
had one fan, yeah it sucked but we were
starting from the ground up building our dream
one day we bought a baby pit bull
we named him buddy
we built a mini ramp so we'd skate the
mini ramp every single day
the mini ramp is only fun for so long so
we started building the skateboard park
what's up, Bud!
This is how we do it at the Surf Ranch!
so the first time i went to the Surf
Ranch was
February 2011 i was on one of Chico
Brenes's
Nicaragua trips, he likes to take a
bunch of pros
back to his home state kind of show them
what the country's like show them where
he grew up
and that you can skate there and
what a cool country it is
and i'd been in touch with Travis and
Lucas through a friend of mine
in orange county and i don't think Chico
knew him but we were going down to san
juan del sur
anyways and i'd been in touch with them
and i was like let's check out these
guys are opening this surf ranch skate resort it's gonna have a skatepark
I met you know luke and uh
travis and i was like yeah we we have
you know this is we're gonna build a
skate park over here and we're gonna
you know make it skateable and
everything and the first thing I
remember that they had was like this
manual pad right here that's behind me
and that's what we skated and you know
they let us borrow a few surfboards and
everything and we hit the beach and
when we came back we were skating the
manual pad, and that was like the
first thing
that was built pretty much here you know
we pulled up there's actually before we
could even get there we had to cross
kind of like this little river that a
lot of us got out of the um
van, van made it across but it was funny
to shoot photos of that it's me Chico
Kenny Anderson, Luis Tolentino, Danny Montoya, Rob G
Mark Stewart was filming John Coltart
was another photographer
and i remember like us driving through
the jungle
you know there was nothing there we came
across the river and
you know we had to drive through the
river to get to the other side
and i was like oh that's crazy and then
that's when we approached lucas and
travis's spot.
At first sight you know it wasn't much
you know it was like a small little
house and
small manipad and run up so we pulled up
and it was literally they had a slab of
concrete poured and a manual pad and that was it
but you could skate it and it was metal
edge too so we got clips of kenny and
chico skating it
lucas and travis had their house they
lived in and there was maybe
one bungalow that they had started to
build but it wasn't finished yet
and other than that it was just a field
with kind of like jungle trees
beyond it and then and they had it all
mapped out they're like these are gonna
be bungalows here
there's gonna be paintball back there um
you know swimming pool, rock climbing
wall and it sounded like a rad idea but
they had a ton of work ahead of them
you know i was like wow these guys are
taking a major undertaking
but uh you know a great place to do it
like right near the beach in
near san juan del sur in Nica. Travelling down the river
okay river crossing time, with four
pallets
two by fours this is what we do every
day ten times a day
okay hold on
take a little left turn, this is how we
can go this way
this is how we get to our house, ok go!
at this point we were running out of
money so we needed to figure out how to
make more money
one day i bought this internet stick
i was in the little house sitting on a
bucket and i had my laptop on this
wooden desk
and i started playing online poker
my brother came in
he had two girls with them they wanted
me to go party with them and i was like
no no i'm gonna play online poker
this tournament lasted for about 16
hours
and i ended up going to the the beach
during that day
in the morning and i came back at around
six o'clock he was still on his computer
and he said he's he was up and
i ended up winning like four thousand
dollars that was the money we used to
buy paintball guns
we had them shipped down to the property
and we opened up the paintball course
a video....video....no video
we first met luke and travis in granada
when we were at
a hostel called the bearded monkey
we ended up having a few drinks with
them that night
and we were out on one of the main
streets
and one of the guys we were with saw
somebody steal a camera right off the
table
across from us from another tourist and
the guys actually ended up running and
chasing
down this guy caught him and
got this girl's camera back so that was
kind of our funny story for
how we met them we ended up going to san
juan
a few days later and who was there
again we ran into luke and travis
and at that time we're staying in a
hostel
in san juan a few days later all of a
sudden we had
bought a mattress and we were living in
luke and travis's unfinished house on
the floor in their kitchen because it
was a one bedroom house and
luke and travis were living or sleeping
in
the one bedroom and then we were
actually
sleeping in the kitchen of their
unfinished house
we i guess thought that was a great idea
at the time
all four of us were outside
having a barbecue kind of in and out of
the house
and all of a sudden all four of us went
into the house for
one reason or the other and i remember
turning around
and these three guys
in bella clavas all walked in
to the house and two of them had knives
and one of them had a gun and
right away luke was in the kitchen and
he says
we're getting robbed being the only girl
there was a kind of a few other thoughts
going through my mind at the time
and i remember i didn't want to go
towards the bedroom because that just
kind of meant danger for me so i was
almost relieved actually when they kept
me
with the boys and we all went down
like face down in the kitchen head like
hands behind our head and
they're pointing the gun at us and
someone just keeps saying
dinero, dinero, dinero, they just didn't
believe us
so then they just started digging
through all of our stuff
while the one guy kind of sat over top
of us with the gun pointed
to all of our heads while we were face
down in the kitchen
so they took our camera i remember they
came over to me
and i had a couple silver rings on my
fingers and they took
took the rings right off my fingers they
took
everything down to the electric shaver
that the boys
had in the bathroom and then one by one
they put us all into the shower
of this bathroom and then
so we're all four of us huddled up in
the shower
and they with the guns still pointed at
our heads and they
throw a blanket over our heads and we're
all kind of sitting there under this
blanket
nobody's saying anything and
um and then they leave
and we're like okay like when
when can we like when can we get up so
i don't remember how long we ended up
sitting there
for um because they didn't have a car
like we believe that they came on foot
so we couldn't really hear if
if they were still there so we probably
sat maybe
10 minutes until we figured out that
they were gone
and so we're all kind of a little worked
up by this point
and luke and travis
for some reason jump in the car and
they go we need to we need to find them
so they jump in the truck and they're
driving up and down the road trying to
find these three people
and they never obviously they never did
find them
so we went to the police the next day
and nothing ever really came of it
and like that was uh that was the end of
our
stay in nicaragua i think we packed up
our stuff and left it was the next day
or
the day after that and continued on down
south um
down to costa rica. The next day we
rented a hotel
in the capital city and then a day after
we flew back to canada
because we were too scared
so we went back to canada and back to
our parents house
we had to get jobs again. So this park
got
flooded all the trees fell down
check it out
500 dollar fine, do not pass if we get busted, pay 500 bucks
we are passing.
after three months of working at the car
auction cleaning cars we're like yeah
i don't want to do this anymore and we
can't let these kids that robbed us ruin
our dream
so we said you know what let's go back
to nicaragua
and finish what we started
so here we are back in nicaragua and
this time we came full
force every day we work on the property
and we started building the rest of the
units
the standard rooms the villas we
finished up the skateboard park
one of the workers grabbed our
skateboards and they drew
penises on his face, and he skated around the skatepark
first try ready, first try ever
Ready for this....
If I was a backpacker, I would stay here.
why would you stay here?
because it's amazing!
because you got Marvin doing 360s
nice
there's the surf ranch for you
we also bought this big giant airbag from china. Once we got the airbag
we wanted to jump off of it and there
was no tower so we put a ladder up to it
and i
climbed up on the top and jumped off the
ladder the ladder
kicked out and hit the truck but i
managed to jump onto the airbag
so it works. We turned our old water
tower into
a tower that you can jump off of into
the airbag
my dad was the first one to jump off of
it and he did a belly flop first try
and after my dad did it everyone else
wanted to do it so
one day we had this big event we just
invited
everybody from all the hostels in town
and it was crazy
so after we had the airbag competition
we started focusing on
finishing the skatepark
just finished the rest of the units we
finished the villas the standard rooms
the deluxe condos we've finished the
pool
the restaurant
it needs some wax
there we go, wax the down ledge as well.
Just a little bit.
all these people that we knew in town we
had them
come out and we had a pool party one day
we hired everybody that we knew and we
opened up
if you're planning ahead and looking for
some hot destinations we've invited
lifestyle bloggers sasha devoetz to the
program
okay now this was an article that you
were just mentioning to me in the
commercial break that you wrote about
nicaragua and it
really picked up uh yeah it just went
huge and i think one of the reasons for
that is that there's this
misrepresentation around nicaragua that
it's a dangerous place
but actually that is in the past for
them now
there's a really great resort owned by
two canadians
from kelowna and it's the Surf Ranch Hotel
and Resort, and it has everything from
skateboard parks to yoga
to hanging out by the pool and
accommodations you know one of the
reasons that my article went so viral
is because so many people have visited
there and they wanted other people to
know how special that place was right
yeah okay cool
so we just lost the drone into the
jungle we gotta go find it
i got to download the map, it's like...
i think it's over there in the bushes
up top
on the other side of the road? yeah
alright, lets go find it. okay.
time is against us, we gotta
find it before someone else finds it
that's the last known location. In this field?
ya 150 feet in there.
we have to get in there somehow?
with all the chickens? so we asked the
neighbors where it was they said they
saw it
and then after they said no no we don't
know where it is
so we're going to jump the fence. So we
got close enough to see
where we are and it looks like it
crashed right inside some bushes
and these guys over here looking for it
let's go find it
when i looked at them i saw two kids
that you know they had it together and
they had goals and dreams
and they were willing to do whatever it
took to put it together and that's
something that
not everybody has in them how many
people are willing to go live in a tent
in the jungle and focus on a dream for
five years
that most people are going to tell them
that isn't going to happen
I first heard of Surf Ranch
through a buddy i worked with at an
outdoor store back home in tennessee
he told me he was like an investor and
something down there
and that we should go and i was like you
know what i got some free time
no worries so we went down there for
probably close to two weeks or something
like that and it was amazing i was
i'd never been there before and just
being able to go down there and surf in
a new spot and just see a different
country and
um it was special to me it's something
that i think about all the time when i
first met
luke and travis it was awesome i think i
met him that day that i got there
and we all got to hang and then i think
immediately we started
planning a little surf mission to Popoyo
I found the website through someone's
recommendation found the package that
was available through the surf ranch
my wife and i were both overseas at the
time
and we were looking for a cool little
vacation a cool little
uh adventure thing to do instead of just
sitting at
a regular hotel and drinking pina
coladas kind of place
by the time it was all said and done we
had talked to lucas and travis enough
times
about the surf ranch and their plans
that we just ended up investing
in the initial location in san juan del sur
buying two of the units.
It didn't really
feel like we accomplished
anything until we had our first big
party with a group called free and easy
from canada
there's about 300 to 400 people and that
day
i was like okay, like we, we did it
we did it
Tits out for the boys...tits out for the boys.
Tits out for the boys...tits out for the boys.
Tits out for the boys...tits out for the boys.
Tits out for the boys...tits out for the boys.
So, after we opened, the name got pretty big.
and we continued our business relationship with Chico Brenes
who brought professional skateboarders
down
originally, so at this point we were
flying down pros three times a year
and we teamed up with chico
to start the first skateboard camp in
central america
the first time i heard about the Surf Ranch
was from a fellow skateboarder of
mine
named chico brenes he had been talking
about the surf ranch for a long time so
we went there and
and i really had no um no expectations
all i knew is that it was you know kind
of like a beach town and and
uh i was super excited and then when we
got there
it was just like it blew my mind like
what they did with the property and
how everything was set up with the skate
park
and they had a rock climbing wall
and a pool and a swim up bar and
it was just it was unbelievable it was
it was amazing
so the first time
i heard about the surf ranch was
through chico so when uh jose
rojo told me that he was going to
nicaragua with chico because chico would
always go down every
i think he probably still does he goes
down every year i guess to do these
things he just had
one um he brings a couple dudes down
usually
and we go they go skating and go to the
surf ranch i told him i was i'm in
i wanted to go because i've never been
to nicaragua before
and you know i'm always down for a new
place so
uh when i hit cheeks up he was like yeah
absolutely so
i was in my name is chico brenes i was
born here in nicaragua
i left uh to the united states in 1985
it was like during the whole revolution
and during the war that was happening
you know i remember
i was living in uh in the capital in Managua
with my aunts and everybody and i
was going to school over there when
everything was going on
and they were recruiting like small
kids to go fight you know and i was 10
years old at the time but i was a little
bit taller
so my mom got scared that they were
gonna just recruit me and take me so she
was like
you know let's go to the states so over
the years we stayed in touch via email
and they would send me
updates on how the ranch was coming
along and then when it finally opened
and uh you know i plugged it for them on
transworld because
i thought it looked rad and like who
wouldn't want to go to
nicaragua on vacation to skate and surf
but in the photos they would email me i
couldn't believe it was the same place
it looked amazing
and they said you know we're gonna be
doing uh these skate camps with chico
and his shop Central
the first skate camp that we did at the
surf ranch was in 2013
you know and they already had the park
and everything like set up and
everything so we did a demo for the kids
we had a contest for the kids you know
the first one that we did it was good
like a lot of people showed up
I was surprised of all the people that came
out of like everywhere
even from you know neighboring countries
like Costa Rica, El Salvador people just
came out of the woodworks right
it was crazy and i was like whoa man you
know maybe
this could work we started bringing you
know pros and all kinds of people and
doing demos for the kids and everything
we brought over 30 professionals here to
Nicaragua
gift from the gods...gift from the gods.
Cheers!
we skated with the different skate
campers that were there, skated the park
pretty much every night in the evening
when it cooled off
honestly the trip that we took to
nicaragua it being my first time like
it was the best it was probably one of
my favorite trips i've ever been on and
i've been a
pro skateboarder for going on 20 years.
Yeah the surf ranch was rad
nice dudes i'd definitely go back
I can't speak highly enough
of Lucas and Travis because what they
did with the property and
and just how the hospitality and
everybody that worked there was just so
kind and so just
it was just amazing i mean i would
recommend this place to
anybody, anybody
and sure enough man, it looked as good as it did
in the emails and photos it was insane
it's just they have the pool
and the bar and uh the rock wall super
nice apartments with
air conditioning the skate park is super
fun
like bungalows with rooftops you can
hang out on everyone that worked there
was cool
good food they'll take you into town
they'll take you to the different
beaches to surf
it's insane it's really impressive.
After the skate camp
a big group of white water rafters
booked out the whole resort
and we ended up partying with them one
of the people
in this group was Melinda Clarke, an
actress from Hollywood
and our friend from Canada, Tom, he was
down here at the time
yeah we just got along really well and
Melinda
actually invited us to her wedding in
California
so our friend Tom, my brother and I, we
said yeah let's go to California we've
never been before so
let's go check it out
we rented a red Camaro and drove down
to Dana point
we could of took that train all the way back!
made the journey to be here with them
especially on this most gorgeous day
her parents live one mile up the beach
in a beautiful home
my better self my good angel
I am bound to you.
after going to california and seeing all
these huge resorts
and nice houses we kind of got the
inspiration to go back
and build the biggest resort in
nicaragua we talked to our investors at
the first resort to see if anybody was
interested in helping us buy the land
so after
we decided to invest in the first place
we saw that they were trying to branch
out and kind of create a real brand for
themselves
and that once again just the whole
kindred spirit we were just like man
that's really cool so now they're
they're not just focusing on this one resort,
they're trying to have multiple
locations and really make it a uh
maybe not global but at least a regional
brand and we're just like well that's
really cool you know and just
investing in that whole area gathering
more land
more resorts all that kind of stuff we
we went ahead and we did all of that
in hopes that obviously one day it'll
be a giant brand and we'll be
super successful, I will say one thing
about that the it's funny because you
know you always have these people who
in your life who they
they don't have the vision so with that
lack of vision they're just like i can't
believe you do that it's so
it's so crazy and maybe it is a little
bit crazy but then
you know who's ever gotten anything done
by playing it safe
you know being risk takers is
really what
has separated those who are successful
from those who just kind of
follow the curve and just kind of go
with the flow so we
kind of think the idea of being movers
and shakers
is kind of cool and that's why we have
done what we've done
we decided to invest in the land because
i mean first of all who doesn't want to
invest in a beautiful country
um on a giant 25 acre piece of property
overlooking the pacific ocean
I mean just just on paper alone it's
like a dream come true
and the fact that it was it was even
more untouched than
san juan del sur location there was just
so much potential there is so much
potential in that area
and driving around and seeing
seeing what it is now or what it was
a few years ago and being able to
picture what it can become in the future
is extremely exciting
so this is the land, just put the down
deposit on it
it's got a 180 degree view of the ocean
and it's sick. I'm standing up on
the top area there's the truck down there
this is where all the condos are going
to go all around here we bought
25 acres out in Popoyo, we made a design
online
and we started building this house
pretty much after that we sold the
second house we started building that as well.
we're building the first two houses in
Popoyo.
we're almost halfway check it out, I
can't wait until this is done man it's
gonna be sick
we sold the third house and then we sold
the fourth house
the year is 2015 and we're building our
second resort
Surf Ranch Popoyo, check it out!
we're heading out to Popoyo, check on the
guys
they're building the the gypsum on the
ceiling and also putting on the roof
on house one, we have a couple of guys
building uh the third lot
there's about five machines out there so
we're gonna go check up on those guys
and see how everything's going
so how do you fly that thing
controller
uhhh, it's still good, still good
oh it's gonna be good footage
We're standing on house one, over here is house two
and right now we're building house three
well this is the master
sala.
Let's see if these all work.
open it up good to go
come on there guys i'll show you around
come on to the master bedroom here, there
you have your master bed
Let's check out this
come on out let's check out the pool
bam! three houses down
I'm driving from san juan del sur out to
Popoyo.
I got some materials in the back
some brooms,
nails, wire, so i got to drop it off
because the guys ran out of materials
we've got to make sure everyone has
everything they need
we had all four houses sold and we were
finishing them up we were building them
and we were almost done
but when everything seems to be going
good bad things happen
one day we were driving out to Popoyo,
and there's a huge fire on the hill
making its way down towards the houses
so that was kind of the first sign
of bad things to come a few days after
that
we went to Managua
and Travis and i were getting lunch at
hard rock cafe, we were sitting outside
on the patio
and then all of a sudden....
the roof caved in!
This just collapsed over me and Luke.
within a second we jumped
it was just reflexes, we made it but it
still hit us it cut us up a bit
so at that point we were like okay
bad things are coming and shortly after
that what happened with travis's truck
so i bought a brand new truck it was a
ford ranger 2017.
One day i was driving to managua
and the gas throttle was just stuck
and i looked behind me in my rear mirror
and there was smoke everywhere
this guy just happens to pull over
suddenly the whole truck
is engulfed in smoke! so he's not hot
dogging it? this is like the gas has gotten
stuck down or something that's correct
according to the poster
he said that he was driving along when
suddenly he says the accelerator
stuck that's when he pulled over was
able to put it in park
set the emergency brake and get out but
you can hear the thing revving like crazy
and the smoke that you're seeing
isn't coming from the tires it's coming
from something that's called
diesel engine runaway things like this
typically don't happen anymore but
basically
what's gone wrong is some sort of engine
fuel mixture
and is revving the engine out of control
according to some things i read on the
internet just turning the car off
doesn't stop the engine
basically what you have to do is smother
the engine co2 fire extinguishers can
take away the
oxygen from the engine and that can
sometimes get the engine to cut out
or what i believe to happen in this case
is it just burns itself
out eventually that revving stops and
the smoke clears do you replace the
whole engine or do you need a whole new
car i think it's a brand new car you
take that right back to the dealership
and say we've got an issue
i didn't know if the truck was going to
blow up or not my girlfriend
and i were in the truck and so i pulled
over to the side
i tried to turn the ignition off but it
just kept smoking and the smoke started
entering the vehicle so we both got out
and just
she ran forwards and i ran backwards and
i ended up filming the whole thing
The civil war in 2018 broke out,
we already had
tickets booked to go to Japan.
In order to get to Japan we had a drive to
the Managua airport, they would build
these roadblocks
there were guys on the street writing all
over our windows
tires were burning everywhere all the
roads were blocked so we had to
go through the jungles all the way to
Managua
It was crazy!
I got to Managua first. I was
in my hotel and just outside the hotel
there's this like big flower statues
that the government built and everybody was
tearing them down there's probably like
200 to 300 people
and they were sawing this big statue
down so i was in my hotel room i was
filming the whole thing by the time i
got downstairs people were jumping on it
so we went across the road to this
little pub
it was pretty full people were drinking
so we started drinking and
i see on the tv behind my brother
i see the statue falling repeatedly over
and over
and then i look closely and there's a
guy running
the statue fell on him and killed them
the next day we flew out to Japan
walking the back streets in Japan
what did we find here?
it was pretty fun in japan we got to
explore a new culture
and get some ideas for our future hotels
so our two-week trip was up and we had
to fly back to Nicaragua but at this point
the whole country was
crazy so we couldn't fly back to
nicaragua we had to
divert our flight to costa rica and here
i am again
for the fourth time since the regime's
crackdown on the nicaraguan people began
on april 18th because i believe that it
is vital
now more than ever for the united states
to support
the people of nicaragua in its fight to
re-establish
democratic order
We flew to Costa Rica
with just our backpacks on
same feeling as when we went to
Nicaragua for the first time.
we didn't know that we were gonna be
stuck in costa rica for the next
six months so during that time we had an
idea
to build an automated hotel so we spent
the first few months in
tamarindo costa rica trying to find a
lease on a hotel
that maybe we could renovate and open up
we found a good deal on this hotel it
was a seven
unit apartment building with a
restaurant that was attached to it
so we bought it and we started renovating.
so with both the restaurant and the
hotel combined
Surf Ranch has become very popular we
were full every single day
Travis's friend that he met back in
Canada he invited him down
to do a promotional commercial for the
hotel
he came down and yeah he filmed the
hotel
and a bunch of activities that we offer
and just their family is just such a um
such a they just have such a warm vibe
and such a
welcoming vibe and we stay i don't
remember one night we stayed up with
them until
i don't remember late but it was just so
cool to see
that family vibe and it translates into
the way that they run their
hotel it's just such a welcoming place
and then Nicaragua got better
and people started traveling back to
nicaragua
so now that we had the first resort in
san juan del sur which we opened up again.
we had the surf ranch in Tamarindo, Costa Rica.
Now it's time to go back to Nicaragua
and finish
Surf Ranch Popoyo.
well since it was rainy season too a lot
of houses were being flooded
a lot of people didn't have work, less
tourism now
so before we opened up we decided to
give back to the community, go hand
deliver food to all the houses in the
area
and just help people out
once we felt comfortable we opened up
the resorts again
and we started building in Popoyo, it's
time to
start on the apartment complex and one
of the largest buildings on
the coast of Nicaragua.
Welcome to the surf ranch
I'm at the Popoyo site and we're about
to begin construction on the apartments
so as you can see behind me there's
nothing here whole resort
it's nothing
so the apartment's going to go right
here
and then over here the pool
yeah it's gonna be cool man looking back
at this when everything's done
we started the same process as we did with
the houses got the machineries there
leveled up the whole area built the foundation
I am standing on top of the world man, this is going to be the Condos.
right now it's just all dirt.
Ride em Cowboy!
I'm out here in Popoyo, we just finished
the the lots for the apartment it's
gonna be 180 feet
long by 60 feet wide
yeah it looks like they did a good job.
It's gonna be 18 units
yeah it's looking good because right
behind me you can see the lot,
it's pretty big
so we have a lot of work ahead of us so
once you enter the reception you come up
the stairs and then you enter the
apartments which are gonna be right
behind me
so everything at the resort's gonna have
ocean view
and uh yeah it's like feels like you're
on top of the world
should I fly it across here, or go high, then fly it this way?
Travis just flew the drone, crashed it.
two thousand dollars down the drain
gotta find it now
GoPro smashed, this doesn't move.
It's on its last life.
we have four houses done we're just
about to start on uh
put the walls up on the apartment so as
you can see right now
you see all the blocks we have they're
making progress
yeah here check it out
we started building the apartment
complex same idea as kind of what we did
in san juan del sur we would sell the units
online to people
on Facebook, eBay, Craigslist, one by one
we sold them and we used that money to
build the apartment complex
you know what if it was any bigger i
could hang onto here and you could lift me up.
It's kind of crazy to see that this used to be...
all dirt when we first came and scouted
out the
property and now we have it up
three-story building, all right so
we've done one of the units one of the
apartment units
and today we're just gonna start
furnishing it up
let's check it out
looking back onto it how this all
started
where it was just an idea in a hot tub
of getting out of our comfort zone
it's definitely a place i would go back
to like every year you know
depending on the season you could go
when it's surf, surf season skate and surf.
You could go
when it's winter here so you're just
chilling in the warmth
i mean i recommend it to anybody that i
you know know or
ask about nicaragua because i mean i
i can't wait to go back there, i'll go
back there in a heartbeat
yeah it's just some really amazing
memories and
it's just amazing to see what you know
luke and travis have done
and it just feels like an amazing surf
trip every time you go there so yeah i
can't wait to get back down
Did you get the video? Ya dude it was awesome.
so what do you want to do now?
film the next one! alright let's go.
the jungle to build an action sports resort
and that's what they did
so yeah it all started in 2008 my
brother Travis and I were living at our
parents house at the time
and one day we bought some beers and we
had a meeting in the hot tub
about what we wanted to do with the rest
of our lives so that night we did a
quick google research
we looked up cheap land for sale around
the world and nicaragua came up
we booked two tickets to nicaragua that
night
and two weeks later we flew down
here we are in nicaragua we spent the
first two weeks
partying meeting people, we had one goal
on this trip which was to either look
for land or buy some land
we met a guy just walking down the
street and
said he had some property for sale and
it had a well and a jungle in the back
we said hey look man we only have a
thousand dollars, we went to the atm
we took out a thousand dollars we gave it
to him we signed a little
contract then we flew back to Canada. For
the next year we
got jobs at a gas station we came up
with the business plan
we wanted to build the first action
sports resort in the world
but we didn't have any money and we
didn't know where to start
so, during the one year in Canada
that we were working we also posted
online looking for investors.
I first met Lucas and Travis through a
mutual friend that had kind of set us up
to talk about some business ventures
when we got together
i wasn't too sure what to expect,
these young guys came through the door
they're like 20, 22.
they were probably doubling on a bicycle
and they had some drawings in their back pocket
and they were asking me to invest
in them
so we went from there and we talked
about it and we had some similar ideas
and we thought yeah we could probably
make this work, once I looked at them and
I knew
that they had the drive in them that
they could do it that's something that
you're basically born with
so after the one year was up and we
found an investor we went down to Nicaragua
and we started building.
once we got there and we started discussing what was going to happen and what was
going to transpire and started
collaborating these ideas
they just started to flow and and we had
the exact same idea of what we wanted to
do and same goals
to build one of the first action sports
resorts in central america.
actually in the world. So here we are in
nicaragua we bought some
five dollar bicycles some machetes
and every day we would bike from san
juan del sur
out to the property which is about three
kilometers away
and we would just start clearing the
land with machetes every day until we
realized it's only like five dollars to
hire somebody to do it so we started
doing that while we worked on the
paintball field in the back
but we found a crew of workers so we
started building our first little house
it had a zinc roof big gaps between the
walls and the roof. There were bugs everywhere
had one fan, yeah it sucked but we were
starting from the ground up building our dream
one day we bought a baby pit bull
we named him buddy
we built a mini ramp so we'd skate the
mini ramp every single day
the mini ramp is only fun for so long so
we started building the skateboard park
what's up, Bud!
This is how we do it at the Surf Ranch!
so the first time i went to the Surf
Ranch was
February 2011 i was on one of Chico
Brenes's
Nicaragua trips, he likes to take a
bunch of pros
back to his home state kind of show them
what the country's like show them where
he grew up
and that you can skate there and
what a cool country it is
and i'd been in touch with Travis and
Lucas through a friend of mine
in orange county and i don't think Chico
knew him but we were going down to san
juan del sur
anyways and i'd been in touch with them
and i was like let's check out these
guys are opening this surf ranch skate resort it's gonna have a skatepark
I met you know luke and uh
travis and i was like yeah we we have
you know this is we're gonna build a
skate park over here and we're gonna
you know make it skateable and
everything and the first thing I
remember that they had was like this
manual pad right here that's behind me
and that's what we skated and you know
they let us borrow a few surfboards and
everything and we hit the beach and
when we came back we were skating the
manual pad, and that was like the
first thing
that was built pretty much here you know
we pulled up there's actually before we
could even get there we had to cross
kind of like this little river that a
lot of us got out of the um
van, van made it across but it was funny
to shoot photos of that it's me Chico
Kenny Anderson, Luis Tolentino, Danny Montoya, Rob G
Mark Stewart was filming John Coltart
was another photographer
and i remember like us driving through
the jungle
you know there was nothing there we came
across the river and
you know we had to drive through the
river to get to the other side
and i was like oh that's crazy and then
that's when we approached lucas and
travis's spot.
At first sight you know it wasn't much
you know it was like a small little
house and
small manipad and run up so we pulled up
and it was literally they had a slab of
concrete poured and a manual pad and that was it
but you could skate it and it was metal
edge too so we got clips of kenny and
chico skating it
lucas and travis had their house they
lived in and there was maybe
one bungalow that they had started to
build but it wasn't finished yet
and other than that it was just a field
with kind of like jungle trees
beyond it and then and they had it all
mapped out they're like these are gonna
be bungalows here
there's gonna be paintball back there um
you know swimming pool, rock climbing
wall and it sounded like a rad idea but
they had a ton of work ahead of them
you know i was like wow these guys are
taking a major undertaking
but uh you know a great place to do it
like right near the beach in
near san juan del sur in Nica. Travelling down the river
okay river crossing time, with four
pallets
two by fours this is what we do every
day ten times a day
okay hold on
take a little left turn, this is how we
can go this way
this is how we get to our house, ok go!
at this point we were running out of
money so we needed to figure out how to
make more money
one day i bought this internet stick
i was in the little house sitting on a
bucket and i had my laptop on this
wooden desk
and i started playing online poker
my brother came in
he had two girls with them they wanted
me to go party with them and i was like
no no i'm gonna play online poker
this tournament lasted for about 16
hours
and i ended up going to the the beach
during that day
in the morning and i came back at around
six o'clock he was still on his computer
and he said he's he was up and
i ended up winning like four thousand
dollars that was the money we used to
buy paintball guns
we had them shipped down to the property
and we opened up the paintball course
a video....video....no video
we first met luke and travis in granada
when we were at
a hostel called the bearded monkey
we ended up having a few drinks with
them that night
and we were out on one of the main
streets
and one of the guys we were with saw
somebody steal a camera right off the
table
across from us from another tourist and
the guys actually ended up running and
chasing
down this guy caught him and
got this girl's camera back so that was
kind of our funny story for
how we met them we ended up going to san
juan
a few days later and who was there
again we ran into luke and travis
and at that time we're staying in a
hostel
in san juan a few days later all of a
sudden we had
bought a mattress and we were living in
luke and travis's unfinished house on
the floor in their kitchen because it
was a one bedroom house and
luke and travis were living or sleeping
in
the one bedroom and then we were
actually
sleeping in the kitchen of their
unfinished house
we i guess thought that was a great idea
at the time
all four of us were outside
having a barbecue kind of in and out of
the house
and all of a sudden all four of us went
into the house for
one reason or the other and i remember
turning around
and these three guys
in bella clavas all walked in
to the house and two of them had knives
and one of them had a gun and
right away luke was in the kitchen and
he says
we're getting robbed being the only girl
there was a kind of a few other thoughts
going through my mind at the time
and i remember i didn't want to go
towards the bedroom because that just
kind of meant danger for me so i was
almost relieved actually when they kept
me
with the boys and we all went down
like face down in the kitchen head like
hands behind our head and
they're pointing the gun at us and
someone just keeps saying
dinero, dinero, dinero, they just didn't
believe us
so then they just started digging
through all of our stuff
while the one guy kind of sat over top
of us with the gun pointed
to all of our heads while we were face
down in the kitchen
so they took our camera i remember they
came over to me
and i had a couple silver rings on my
fingers and they took
took the rings right off my fingers they
took
everything down to the electric shaver
that the boys
had in the bathroom and then one by one
they put us all into the shower
of this bathroom and then
so we're all four of us huddled up in
the shower
and they with the guns still pointed at
our heads and they
throw a blanket over our heads and we're
all kind of sitting there under this
blanket
nobody's saying anything and
um and then they leave
and we're like okay like when
when can we like when can we get up so
i don't remember how long we ended up
sitting there
for um because they didn't have a car
like we believe that they came on foot
so we couldn't really hear if
if they were still there so we probably
sat maybe
10 minutes until we figured out that
they were gone
and so we're all kind of a little worked
up by this point
and luke and travis
for some reason jump in the car and
they go we need to we need to find them
so they jump in the truck and they're
driving up and down the road trying to
find these three people
and they never obviously they never did
find them
so we went to the police the next day
and nothing ever really came of it
and like that was uh that was the end of
our
stay in nicaragua i think we packed up
our stuff and left it was the next day
or
the day after that and continued on down
south um
down to costa rica. The next day we
rented a hotel
in the capital city and then a day after
we flew back to canada
because we were too scared
so we went back to canada and back to
our parents house
we had to get jobs again. So this park
got
flooded all the trees fell down
check it out
500 dollar fine, do not pass if we get busted, pay 500 bucks
we are passing.
after three months of working at the car
auction cleaning cars we're like yeah
i don't want to do this anymore and we
can't let these kids that robbed us ruin
our dream
so we said you know what let's go back
to nicaragua
and finish what we started
so here we are back in nicaragua and
this time we came full
force every day we work on the property
and we started building the rest of the
units
the standard rooms the villas we
finished up the skateboard park
one of the workers grabbed our
skateboards and they drew
penises on his face, and he skated around the skatepark
first try ready, first try ever
Ready for this....
If I was a backpacker, I would stay here.
why would you stay here?
because it's amazing!
because you got Marvin doing 360s
nice
there's the surf ranch for you
we also bought this big giant airbag from china. Once we got the airbag
we wanted to jump off of it and there
was no tower so we put a ladder up to it
and i
climbed up on the top and jumped off the
ladder the ladder
kicked out and hit the truck but i
managed to jump onto the airbag
so it works. We turned our old water
tower into
a tower that you can jump off of into
the airbag
my dad was the first one to jump off of
it and he did a belly flop first try
and after my dad did it everyone else
wanted to do it so
one day we had this big event we just
invited
everybody from all the hostels in town
and it was crazy
so after we had the airbag competition
we started focusing on
finishing the skatepark
just finished the rest of the units we
finished the villas the standard rooms
the deluxe condos we've finished the
pool
the restaurant
it needs some wax
there we go, wax the down ledge as well.
Just a little bit.
all these people that we knew in town we
had them
come out and we had a pool party one day
we hired everybody that we knew and we
opened up
if you're planning ahead and looking for
some hot destinations we've invited
lifestyle bloggers sasha devoetz to the
program
okay now this was an article that you
were just mentioning to me in the
commercial break that you wrote about
nicaragua and it
really picked up uh yeah it just went
huge and i think one of the reasons for
that is that there's this
misrepresentation around nicaragua that
it's a dangerous place
but actually that is in the past for
them now
there's a really great resort owned by
two canadians
from kelowna and it's the Surf Ranch Hotel
and Resort, and it has everything from
skateboard parks to yoga
to hanging out by the pool and
accommodations you know one of the
reasons that my article went so viral
is because so many people have visited
there and they wanted other people to
know how special that place was right
yeah okay cool
so we just lost the drone into the
jungle we gotta go find it
i got to download the map, it's like...
i think it's over there in the bushes
up top
on the other side of the road? yeah
alright, lets go find it. okay.
time is against us, we gotta
find it before someone else finds it
that's the last known location. In this field?
ya 150 feet in there.
we have to get in there somehow?
with all the chickens? so we asked the
neighbors where it was they said they
saw it
and then after they said no no we don't
know where it is
so we're going to jump the fence. So we
got close enough to see
where we are and it looks like it
crashed right inside some bushes
and these guys over here looking for it
let's go find it
when i looked at them i saw two kids
that you know they had it together and
they had goals and dreams
and they were willing to do whatever it
took to put it together and that's
something that
not everybody has in them how many
people are willing to go live in a tent
in the jungle and focus on a dream for
five years
that most people are going to tell them
that isn't going to happen
I first heard of Surf Ranch
through a buddy i worked with at an
outdoor store back home in tennessee
he told me he was like an investor and
something down there
and that we should go and i was like you
know what i got some free time
no worries so we went down there for
probably close to two weeks or something
like that and it was amazing i was
i'd never been there before and just
being able to go down there and surf in
a new spot and just see a different
country and
um it was special to me it's something
that i think about all the time when i
first met
luke and travis it was awesome i think i
met him that day that i got there
and we all got to hang and then i think
immediately we started
planning a little surf mission to Popoyo
I found the website through someone's
recommendation found the package that
was available through the surf ranch
my wife and i were both overseas at the
time
and we were looking for a cool little
vacation a cool little
uh adventure thing to do instead of just
sitting at
a regular hotel and drinking pina
coladas kind of place
by the time it was all said and done we
had talked to lucas and travis enough
times
about the surf ranch and their plans
that we just ended up investing
in the initial location in san juan del sur
buying two of the units.
It didn't really
feel like we accomplished
anything until we had our first big
party with a group called free and easy
from canada
there's about 300 to 400 people and that
day
i was like okay, like we, we did it
we did it
Tits out for the boys...tits out for the boys.
Tits out for the boys...tits out for the boys.
Tits out for the boys...tits out for the boys.
Tits out for the boys...tits out for the boys.
So, after we opened, the name got pretty big.
and we continued our business relationship with Chico Brenes
who brought professional skateboarders
down
originally, so at this point we were
flying down pros three times a year
and we teamed up with chico
to start the first skateboard camp in
central america
the first time i heard about the Surf Ranch
was from a fellow skateboarder of
mine
named chico brenes he had been talking
about the surf ranch for a long time so
we went there and
and i really had no um no expectations
all i knew is that it was you know kind
of like a beach town and and
uh i was super excited and then when we
got there
it was just like it blew my mind like
what they did with the property and
how everything was set up with the skate
park
and they had a rock climbing wall
and a pool and a swim up bar and
it was just it was unbelievable it was
it was amazing
so the first time
i heard about the surf ranch was
through chico so when uh jose
rojo told me that he was going to
nicaragua with chico because chico would
always go down every
i think he probably still does he goes
down every year i guess to do these
things he just had
one um he brings a couple dudes down
usually
and we go they go skating and go to the
surf ranch i told him i was i'm in
i wanted to go because i've never been
to nicaragua before
and you know i'm always down for a new
place so
uh when i hit cheeks up he was like yeah
absolutely so
i was in my name is chico brenes i was
born here in nicaragua
i left uh to the united states in 1985
it was like during the whole revolution
and during the war that was happening
you know i remember
i was living in uh in the capital in Managua
with my aunts and everybody and i
was going to school over there when
everything was going on
and they were recruiting like small
kids to go fight you know and i was 10
years old at the time but i was a little
bit taller
so my mom got scared that they were
gonna just recruit me and take me so she
was like
you know let's go to the states so over
the years we stayed in touch via email
and they would send me
updates on how the ranch was coming
along and then when it finally opened
and uh you know i plugged it for them on
transworld because
i thought it looked rad and like who
wouldn't want to go to
nicaragua on vacation to skate and surf
but in the photos they would email me i
couldn't believe it was the same place
it looked amazing
and they said you know we're gonna be
doing uh these skate camps with chico
and his shop Central
the first skate camp that we did at the
surf ranch was in 2013
you know and they already had the park
and everything like set up and
everything so we did a demo for the kids
we had a contest for the kids you know
the first one that we did it was good
like a lot of people showed up
I was surprised of all the people that came
out of like everywhere
even from you know neighboring countries
like Costa Rica, El Salvador people just
came out of the woodworks right
it was crazy and i was like whoa man you
know maybe
this could work we started bringing you
know pros and all kinds of people and
doing demos for the kids and everything
we brought over 30 professionals here to
Nicaragua
gift from the gods...gift from the gods.
Cheers!
we skated with the different skate
campers that were there, skated the park
pretty much every night in the evening
when it cooled off
honestly the trip that we took to
nicaragua it being my first time like
it was the best it was probably one of
my favorite trips i've ever been on and
i've been a
pro skateboarder for going on 20 years.
Yeah the surf ranch was rad
nice dudes i'd definitely go back
I can't speak highly enough
of Lucas and Travis because what they
did with the property and
and just how the hospitality and
everybody that worked there was just so
kind and so just
it was just amazing i mean i would
recommend this place to
anybody, anybody
and sure enough man, it looked as good as it did
in the emails and photos it was insane
it's just they have the pool
and the bar and uh the rock wall super
nice apartments with
air conditioning the skate park is super
fun
like bungalows with rooftops you can
hang out on everyone that worked there
was cool
good food they'll take you into town
they'll take you to the different
beaches to surf
it's insane it's really impressive.
After the skate camp
a big group of white water rafters
booked out the whole resort
and we ended up partying with them one
of the people
in this group was Melinda Clarke, an
actress from Hollywood
and our friend from Canada, Tom, he was
down here at the time
yeah we just got along really well and
Melinda
actually invited us to her wedding in
California
so our friend Tom, my brother and I, we
said yeah let's go to California we've
never been before so
let's go check it out
we rented a red Camaro and drove down
to Dana point
we could of took that train all the way back!
made the journey to be here with them
especially on this most gorgeous day
her parents live one mile up the beach
in a beautiful home
my better self my good angel
I am bound to you.
after going to california and seeing all
these huge resorts
and nice houses we kind of got the
inspiration to go back
and build the biggest resort in
nicaragua we talked to our investors at
the first resort to see if anybody was
interested in helping us buy the land
so after
we decided to invest in the first place
we saw that they were trying to branch
out and kind of create a real brand for
themselves
and that once again just the whole
kindred spirit we were just like man
that's really cool so now they're
they're not just focusing on this one resort,
they're trying to have multiple
locations and really make it a uh
maybe not global but at least a regional
brand and we're just like well that's
really cool you know and just
investing in that whole area gathering
more land
more resorts all that kind of stuff we
we went ahead and we did all of that
in hopes that obviously one day it'll
be a giant brand and we'll be
super successful, I will say one thing
about that the it's funny because you
know you always have these people who
in your life who they
they don't have the vision so with that
lack of vision they're just like i can't
believe you do that it's so
it's so crazy and maybe it is a little
bit crazy but then
you know who's ever gotten anything done
by playing it safe
you know being risk takers is
really what
has separated those who are successful
from those who just kind of
follow the curve and just kind of go
with the flow so we
kind of think the idea of being movers
and shakers
is kind of cool and that's why we have
done what we've done
we decided to invest in the land because
i mean first of all who doesn't want to
invest in a beautiful country
um on a giant 25 acre piece of property
overlooking the pacific ocean
I mean just just on paper alone it's
like a dream come true
and the fact that it was it was even
more untouched than
san juan del sur location there was just
so much potential there is so much
potential in that area
and driving around and seeing
seeing what it is now or what it was
a few years ago and being able to
picture what it can become in the future
is extremely exciting
so this is the land, just put the down
deposit on it
it's got a 180 degree view of the ocean
and it's sick. I'm standing up on
the top area there's the truck down there
this is where all the condos are going
to go all around here we bought
25 acres out in Popoyo, we made a design
online
and we started building this house
pretty much after that we sold the
second house we started building that as well.
we're building the first two houses in
Popoyo.
we're almost halfway check it out, I
can't wait until this is done man it's
gonna be sick
we sold the third house and then we sold
the fourth house
the year is 2015 and we're building our
second resort
Surf Ranch Popoyo, check it out!
we're heading out to Popoyo, check on the
guys
they're building the the gypsum on the
ceiling and also putting on the roof
on house one, we have a couple of guys
building uh the third lot
there's about five machines out there so
we're gonna go check up on those guys
and see how everything's going
so how do you fly that thing
controller
uhhh, it's still good, still good
oh it's gonna be good footage
We're standing on house one, over here is house two
and right now we're building house three
well this is the master
sala.
Let's see if these all work.
open it up good to go
come on there guys i'll show you around
come on to the master bedroom here, there
you have your master bed
Let's check out this
come on out let's check out the pool
bam! three houses down
I'm driving from san juan del sur out to
Popoyo.
I got some materials in the back
some brooms,
nails, wire, so i got to drop it off
because the guys ran out of materials
we've got to make sure everyone has
everything they need
we had all four houses sold and we were
finishing them up we were building them
and we were almost done
but when everything seems to be going
good bad things happen
one day we were driving out to Popoyo,
and there's a huge fire on the hill
making its way down towards the houses
so that was kind of the first sign
of bad things to come a few days after
that
we went to Managua
and Travis and i were getting lunch at
hard rock cafe, we were sitting outside
on the patio
and then all of a sudden....
the roof caved in!
This just collapsed over me and Luke.
within a second we jumped
it was just reflexes, we made it but it
still hit us it cut us up a bit
so at that point we were like okay
bad things are coming and shortly after
that what happened with travis's truck
so i bought a brand new truck it was a
ford ranger 2017.
One day i was driving to managua
and the gas throttle was just stuck
and i looked behind me in my rear mirror
and there was smoke everywhere
this guy just happens to pull over
suddenly the whole truck
is engulfed in smoke! so he's not hot
dogging it? this is like the gas has gotten
stuck down or something that's correct
according to the poster
he said that he was driving along when
suddenly he says the accelerator
stuck that's when he pulled over was
able to put it in park
set the emergency brake and get out but
you can hear the thing revving like crazy
and the smoke that you're seeing
isn't coming from the tires it's coming
from something that's called
diesel engine runaway things like this
typically don't happen anymore but
basically
what's gone wrong is some sort of engine
fuel mixture
and is revving the engine out of control
according to some things i read on the
internet just turning the car off
doesn't stop the engine
basically what you have to do is smother
the engine co2 fire extinguishers can
take away the
oxygen from the engine and that can
sometimes get the engine to cut out
or what i believe to happen in this case
is it just burns itself
out eventually that revving stops and
the smoke clears do you replace the
whole engine or do you need a whole new
car i think it's a brand new car you
take that right back to the dealership
and say we've got an issue
i didn't know if the truck was going to
blow up or not my girlfriend
and i were in the truck and so i pulled
over to the side
i tried to turn the ignition off but it
just kept smoking and the smoke started
entering the vehicle so we both got out
and just
she ran forwards and i ran backwards and
i ended up filming the whole thing
The civil war in 2018 broke out,
we already had
tickets booked to go to Japan.
In order to get to Japan we had a drive to
the Managua airport, they would build
these roadblocks
there were guys on the street writing all
over our windows
tires were burning everywhere all the
roads were blocked so we had to
go through the jungles all the way to
Managua
It was crazy!
I got to Managua first. I was
in my hotel and just outside the hotel
there's this like big flower statues
that the government built and everybody was
tearing them down there's probably like
200 to 300 people
and they were sawing this big statue
down so i was in my hotel room i was
filming the whole thing by the time i
got downstairs people were jumping on it
so we went across the road to this
little pub
it was pretty full people were drinking
so we started drinking and
i see on the tv behind my brother
i see the statue falling repeatedly over
and over
and then i look closely and there's a
guy running
the statue fell on him and killed them
the next day we flew out to Japan
walking the back streets in Japan
what did we find here?
it was pretty fun in japan we got to
explore a new culture
and get some ideas for our future hotels
so our two-week trip was up and we had
to fly back to Nicaragua but at this point
the whole country was
crazy so we couldn't fly back to
nicaragua we had to
divert our flight to costa rica and here
i am again
for the fourth time since the regime's
crackdown on the nicaraguan people began
on april 18th because i believe that it
is vital
now more than ever for the united states
to support
the people of nicaragua in its fight to
re-establish
democratic order
We flew to Costa Rica
with just our backpacks on
same feeling as when we went to
Nicaragua for the first time.
we didn't know that we were gonna be
stuck in costa rica for the next
six months so during that time we had an
idea
to build an automated hotel so we spent
the first few months in
tamarindo costa rica trying to find a
lease on a hotel
that maybe we could renovate and open up
we found a good deal on this hotel it
was a seven
unit apartment building with a
restaurant that was attached to it
so we bought it and we started renovating.
so with both the restaurant and the
hotel combined
Surf Ranch has become very popular we
were full every single day
Travis's friend that he met back in
Canada he invited him down
to do a promotional commercial for the
hotel
he came down and yeah he filmed the
hotel
and a bunch of activities that we offer
and just their family is just such a um
such a they just have such a warm vibe
and such a
welcoming vibe and we stay i don't
remember one night we stayed up with
them until
i don't remember late but it was just so
cool to see
that family vibe and it translates into
the way that they run their
hotel it's just such a welcoming place
and then Nicaragua got better
and people started traveling back to
nicaragua
so now that we had the first resort in
san juan del sur which we opened up again.
we had the surf ranch in Tamarindo, Costa Rica.
Now it's time to go back to Nicaragua
and finish
Surf Ranch Popoyo.
well since it was rainy season too a lot
of houses were being flooded
a lot of people didn't have work, less
tourism now
so before we opened up we decided to
give back to the community, go hand
deliver food to all the houses in the
area
and just help people out
once we felt comfortable we opened up
the resorts again
and we started building in Popoyo, it's
time to
start on the apartment complex and one
of the largest buildings on
the coast of Nicaragua.
Welcome to the surf ranch
I'm at the Popoyo site and we're about
to begin construction on the apartments
so as you can see behind me there's
nothing here whole resort
it's nothing
so the apartment's going to go right
here
and then over here the pool
yeah it's gonna be cool man looking back
at this when everything's done
we started the same process as we did with
the houses got the machineries there
leveled up the whole area built the foundation
I am standing on top of the world man, this is going to be the Condos.
right now it's just all dirt.
Ride em Cowboy!
I'm out here in Popoyo, we just finished
the the lots for the apartment it's
gonna be 180 feet
long by 60 feet wide
yeah it looks like they did a good job.
It's gonna be 18 units
yeah it's looking good because right
behind me you can see the lot,
it's pretty big
so we have a lot of work ahead of us so
once you enter the reception you come up
the stairs and then you enter the
apartments which are gonna be right
behind me
so everything at the resort's gonna have
ocean view
and uh yeah it's like feels like you're
on top of the world
should I fly it across here, or go high, then fly it this way?
Travis just flew the drone, crashed it.
two thousand dollars down the drain
gotta find it now
GoPro smashed, this doesn't move.
It's on its last life.
we have four houses done we're just
about to start on uh
put the walls up on the apartment so as
you can see right now
you see all the blocks we have they're
making progress
yeah here check it out
we started building the apartment
complex same idea as kind of what we did
in san juan del sur we would sell the units
online to people
on Facebook, eBay, Craigslist, one by one
we sold them and we used that money to
build the apartment complex
you know what if it was any bigger i
could hang onto here and you could lift me up.
It's kind of crazy to see that this used to be...
all dirt when we first came and scouted
out the
property and now we have it up
three-story building, all right so
we've done one of the units one of the
apartment units
and today we're just gonna start
furnishing it up
let's check it out
looking back onto it how this all
started
where it was just an idea in a hot tub
of getting out of our comfort zone
it's definitely a place i would go back
to like every year you know
depending on the season you could go
when it's surf, surf season skate and surf.
You could go
when it's winter here so you're just
chilling in the warmth
i mean i recommend it to anybody that i
you know know or
ask about nicaragua because i mean i
i can't wait to go back there, i'll go
back there in a heartbeat
yeah it's just some really amazing
memories and
it's just amazing to see what you know
luke and travis have done
and it just feels like an amazing surf
trip every time you go there so yeah i
can't wait to get back down
Did you get the video? Ya dude it was awesome.
so what do you want to do now?
film the next one! alright let's go.