Vive Verde!
We awoke up to the beginnings of a bustling San Pedro day. Before we headed out to Secret Beach, we needed to do a little grocery shopping.
Last night, we had noticed a Publics (looking at you Publix) grocery store and our local connection told us it was a good place to shop. With reusable shopping bags in hand, we headed out. The store was well stocked and had all the things we needed, including rum [emoji]
More or less across the street from the store was a small fruit stand which was surprisingly well stocked with fresh produce, including our fav, avocados!🥭
We were really wanting to get the authentic experience to see if we wanted to buy. We stayed the first night in San Pedro at a cool hotel, but we really wanted a real flavor for what it was going to be like to be off-grid in Secret Beach. So we rented Vive Verde, an Airbnb which is a Mennonite house very close to where we were going to be building, fully off-grid, Starlink internet, solar, the whole thing. We stayed there for the remainder of our trip, four days.
It was a great experience.
It was exactly what we needed to know and got a real feel for what it was like to live in a relatively minimal local experience. Of all the things to know, the big one was power management. The house had a mini-split air conditioner and ceiling fans in the living space and bedroom. As an incentive to manage our power consumption well, there is an extra charge if the generator kicks on! And, or course, we were there in September. The hottest, most humid, buggiest time of year! We managed quite well and never over-consumed our power.
Vive Verde is located on Crazy Gringo road. Someone told us the story that if you’re the first to build on a road, you get the name it. When I saw our neighbor, I yelled out ‘hey are you Crazy Gringo?’. Yep. And it just so happens that crazy gringo has a house in Kuna, Idaho. What are the odds of that? We were living in Kuna, Idaho just a few years ago!
Viva Verde was a very nice place and we loved it.