19/03/2013
Well its been a year today since I arrived on my island of paradise and what a year it has been.
The ferry pulled into the docks around 11:00 am and the nerves started kicking in. What am I doing moving 2000+ miles away from friends and family? At least when I moved to Oklahoma I was only 3hrs away from everyone (although, looking back, I didn't take advantage of the 3 hour drive nearly enough) and now I'm four airport or three airports and a ferry ride away from those I know and love and a lot more money to get home too.
I just finished breakfast service for some great guest and started thinking, wow a year ago at this time I was hoping and preying I'd get on the cargo ferry without a reservation. I did and the adventure began. Pulling off the boat I had to try and get my barrings correct as I hadn't been on Vieques since 2002 and trying to remember where the la casa was was going to be a bit of a challenge. One wrong turn later I was "home".
The place was locked up like Fort Knox with all the wrought-iron bars on the windows and wrought-iron gates on all the doors and me with about 25 keys in my hands trying to figure out which key opens what and how to get into the house, didn't take a long as I feared it would've so off to a good start I thought.
The "good start" thought quickly went away with the cool ocean breeze as I started walking through the property, that had been empty for the past 5 years or more and was replaced with a thought of "what in the hell have I gotten myself into?"
First things first, go get cleaning supplies and get to scrubbing. Yep my first day in paradise was spent cleaning and rethinking my decision. If memory serves, I did more rethinking then I did cleaning. It's one thing to move somewhere where you don't know anyone, it's another thing to move where you don't speak the common language. Wow, its been a year (still wrapping my head around that).
I quickly realized that getting the place clean and livable was beyond me so the search began for someone to do a good once over all over and I was lucky to find Adrienn and what find she was. Adrienn got the house cleaned from top to bottom in only eight hours, I'm sure I'd still be trying to get the place as clean as she did...THANKS ADRIENN!!!
I arrived with, what I thought was, a good chunk of money and thought "yep this is doable, no worries". Foolish, simply foolish thinking.
After my first few days I ventured up to the estudios to see what I needed to do to get them ready for guest. I didn't know what to expect or what all was needed, I did know that my folks had had the entire house and estudios totally set up and furnished so how bad could it be? BAD, that's how it was. My folks had a person supposedly watching the place, all he watched was the money he was getting for all the stuff he stole and sold. The house was all but empty except for a few dishes, fridge, stove and washing machine, the dryer was gone. It should be said that the washer/dryer my folks had was the stacking kind. Wow stills a stackable dryer, I mean why not take both, I'm very glad both were not missing as laundry would have been a real bitch since, at the time, there was no laundry mat on the island.
I made a decision, a wise one in my opinion, to concentrate all my efforts and funds on the two estudios, as the house was not going to make me any money to survive on. So the "remodeling" began on a Monday and I thought I would have both estudios up and running in a couple weeks and then the money would start trickling in, I got part of that master plan correct. It took more like a couple months and of course more money then I thought it would to get them ready for renters. Oh, the part I got right, the money did come trickling in, a very very very slow trickle (thank God I still had unemployment benefits coming in once a week, but that too soon ended).
I woke up one morning, about a month after being on the island, and realized that I hadn't been to the beach yet so I took the day off and spent it at the beach. Yes, it took my a month to realize I lived on an island with some of the best beaches in the Caribbean, how sad is that?
My neighbors to the North of me, great Midwest people, were my first guest, well not my neighbors as they had their own house but their son and daughter in-law where here for a visit and Anita and Jerry's place was a bit too small for all of them. It was good test run as I know they would be honest on what they thought of the estudio. That test run turned into a MAJOR plumbing problem that ate up over $500 of what little I had left from the remodel and furnishings of the estudios. The "bright" side (notice the quote marks) was that the plumbing from upstairs was backing up into the downstairs shower and thankfully my guest had no idea of the issue at hand.
There were plenty of times I thought to myself, self, it's time to head back stateside and forget about this dream. The only thing that kept me going was knowing that I had friends coming to visit and I had to hold out at least until they came and went. The worst part of friends visiting-is when they leave-I always get a bit depressed after they're gone but then I head to the beach and have some peace in knowing they will be back :).
I've made a few friends here, those of you that know me will know that I don't make friends easily (may have something to do with me being an as***le) and that I'm not good with meeting new people or small-talk with strangers. Oh sure put me in a restaurant setting with customers and it's like we are best friends since forever but not so much in the real world, a lack of self confidence is to blame I suppose.
Robbie (sorry Rob couldn't resist) and I were at Al's Mar Azul one night grabbing a bite and beer and we met Karen, a very recent expat from the states and Karen and I have become good friends helping each other out over the past year, well her helping me out more then I've been able to help her...thanks Karen for everything, I'm sure if not for meeting you I would have left this island a long time ago. Karen and I decided to partner up on a food cart (the pictured as this pages profile pic) and try and get some revenue flowing for the both of us. Now that has been one hell of a challenge as we are still waiting on all our licenses and permits. We started this "adventure" back in October of 2012 but I think we are close now...from my lips to God's ears.
Four-months into this little adventure of mine I was flat broke I'm talking the kind of flat broke that having one meal a day was a good day and the kind that you get pi**ed when the little cheap frozen pizza you are buying for your one meal a day went from $1.65 to $1.75. On a good note I was losing weight, not near enough but some.
As stated before it was friends coming to visit and friends I'd made that kept me going that and the thought of my first High Season. I just kept telling myself "lets get thru the High Season and see how it goes before making any life changing decisions". I'm very happy that I held on until High Season, I had absolutely no idea what to expect but I have been very very surprised and happy with how it has been going. The best money I never spent was TripAdvisor. 90% of all my guest have come from TA and assuming their reviews are truthful (don't know why they wouldn't be) all of my guest have enjoyed staying here which really makes me feel good, no, great! I've never done anything like a B&B before and I just kept hoping I was doing it right and it appears I am. Service is service, doesn't matter if it's a restaurant, casino or B&B, give the best service you can and continue to go above and beyond your guest expectations and offer what the competition doesn't and do a better job at what your competition does.
Although the Manzanares luck has followed me here, or I'm at the origin of it. It seems each time I get a little money set aside to try and survive on during the low season something pops up to deplete what little I had put back. Roof leaking, starter in the PR Jalopy went out, blown gaskets on the jalopy, boy did that really set me back a lot of money and most recently I had to replace all the PR Jalopy's tires. Sadly, I won't be home for the Thanksgiving holiday as I had hoped since what little I had has been spent on unforeseen issues. It sucks, but at least I have some good friends coming down for a visit in April, May and September. I'm so very excited to see them some I haven't seen since they moved to GA a long ass time ago. Having a place in the Caribbean is like having a pool, you get to see your friends more often. At least with a place in the Caribbean your friends don't disappear come winter :)
All and all I'm pretty happy with things, I wish my job had not ended at the casinos, as I truly loved working there, but being here has shown me that I can do things I didn't think I could or rather never thought I would. A year or so ago if something broke I'd toss it out and buy another one and now I look at it and figure out how I can fix it-well maybe not FIX it but at least figure out how I can rig it to keep it working.
With two acres of overgrown land that needs clearing I've come to enjoy working on it. It's a slow slow process and I don't have the right tools/equipment to do it like it should be done but with a w**d whacker, riding mower and now a chain saw (thanks so so much to my brother Carlos for sending it to me) land is starting to get cleared more and more each week. And thank you to the mystery person who took a brush hog to the top of the hill, I don't know who you are but you have saved me a weeks and weeks and weeks of work...THANK YOU!
I want to thank Karen for keeping me alive with food and a partnership in our food cart adventure, hopefully sooner than later. I want to thank Becky for the hell (she put herself) thru in bringing the oven and for turning me onto Amazon which gets stuff to the island that I need and a big thank you to Anna Bo Banna for constantly talking me off the cliff or talking me out of taking a long swim in the ocean. I know there are many many many more to thank for all they have done for me over this past year, please accept my thanks and my apologies for not mentioning you by name. To all my cousins on the main island, it is so nice to know that FAMILY is only a ferry ride away :)
So it's been a year today, almost to the hour, since I've arrived in paradise and what a hell of a year it has been. I've learned to relax a little bit and not look at everything as the end of the world if it doesn't got as planned. Slow moving island life will do that to a person. I've learned to live on little and that one doesn't need all the creature comforts to survive. I've learned that friends truly are the best things in life and thou money is great, it's not a great a true friends. I've learned that even with over 200+ channels TV is full of crap and I mainly watch only six channels. I've learned how great Facebook is with keeping up with friends and family and that it has it's crappy parts you really can't beat it for staying in touch and for free.
A big part of me is thankful my job in OK came to a close and forced me into this corner. I'm thankful I made the decision or rather felt I had no other options to give this B&B and Caribbean island thing a go. I'm thankful for the little things that I was never thankful for before, things like ground beef at the store on the day you want some, a baconater now and then when I go the main island, seeing the gas tanker coming off the cargo ferry when you're gas tank is on e, I'm thankful for the few friends I've made, I'm thankful for all the different people I've met staying at the B&B, I'm thankful for being able to watch March Madness in an open air bar with an ocean breeze, I'm thankful I didn't crack all the way under the pressures of the past year and I'm thankful I didn't give up on myself who knows, maybe one of these days I'm gunna learn to like/love myself.
OH WHAT A YEAR ITS BEEN! I couldn't have done it without a lot of you and I'm TRULY THANKFUL FOR THAT!
