Hello from Andy Lee

[AndyLee]

Hi Everybody, I'm happy to be back posting on Planet-Love and to see all the familiar names and read all the updates. I'm especially happy to read that IV met her guy, got married and is now expecting their first child. Wow, congratulations IV!!!!!
Thanks also to Robert and Benjio and JWR for warm greetings.
I'm one month away from my fourth anniversary living in Colombia. Looking back it's been a heck of a ride and I'm not finished yet
Just to recap quickly, I came to Colombia after first exploring retirement options in Jamaica, British Virgin Islands, Asia, Portugal, Scotland and Costa Rica. Quite a variation in terrain and climate, but these were places that held my interest for brief periods of time.
When I came to Colombia I was 61 and I limited my search to women aged 30 to 60, and wound up dating women 24 to 58. I sort of adapted Dennis Levy's method to fit my own personality and needs. My method was to meet the woman online through either Latin American Cupid or Colombian Cupid, write letters back and forth to sort out our interest in each other, then meet on Skype to get further acquainted. After several visits on Skype I would either travel to her city to meet her, or she would travel to mine. This was sort of parallel to Dennis' method, with the distinction that I stayed in one place much longer. For example as I lived near Pereira for nearly 2 years.
Whereas Dennis had "coffee" with like 300 women in a 3 year time frame, I had "dinner" with 19 during the nearly 4 years I've been here. I always sort of admired Dennis' traveling stamina as much as I admired his ability to meet women.
Any of the 19 women I dated would have been a good wife but there was always a holdback. Either the chemistry wasn't there, or there were other factors that precluded a longer term relationship. Now I'm in a committed relationship and I'll talk more about that another time.
Here is a list of places I've lived and the length of time I stayed in each:
Bogota, 1 month
Bucaramanga, 2 months
Barranquilla, 1 month
Medellin, 2 months
Santuario, Risaralda, near Pereira, for 10 months the first time and 10 months the second time.
Roldanillo, Valle del Cauca, 2 months
La Unión, Valle del Cauca, 8 months
Popayán, 6 months
Cali, 5 months
Currently I'm back in Pereira and hoping to build a house in the mountains near here early next year.
I've also visited many other cities and towns during my travels, especially Cartagena, Santa Marta, San Gil, Manizales, Armenia and Barrancabermeja.
Places I want to visit soon are Buenaventura, San Andrés and Providencia, Sierra Nevada near Santa Marta and the river that turns 5 colors in the spring, http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/featured/most-psychedelic-river/20470
That's about it for now, y'all take care,
Andy

[InnocentVixen]

Hey Andy, nice to see you again! I think you were still around when Woody found the forums, yup, I married that guy ♥


Glad to see things are going good for you, that river looks amazing, it must be the first time I truly see anything remotely interesting from a female point of view to visit Colombia 


Is Santuario the place where you plan to build your house? you have spent so much more time there compared to the other places. I always find interesting to hear what foreigners find interesting while moving to a new area. It's a huge contrast to what I see here where people tend to stick to their own little bubble, mostly retired couples or vacation houses.

[V_Man]

Hi Andy, good to see you back again.

[AndyLee]

Hi, IV and V,
I am enjoying reading up on all the comings and goings since I was last active here. I'm impressed with you IV, you and Woody make an excellent couple, Good Luck and God Bless your partnership, your marriage and your  coming parenthood. I'm very happy for you.
V, I always enjoy reading your posts, insightful and entertaining and with a great attitude.
IV, I stayed in Santuario for many months because I like the friends I have made there and the terrain and the climate and the culture suit me to a tee. I had my favorite sidewalk cafe where I would meet up with friends almost daily and shoot the breeze. I lived in a nice house at the edge of the village and walked to the village every day. Along the way I would get greeted by shopkeepers, school children, people just coming and going. I felt very much at home there.
I only moved away from Santuario because my love life took me elsewhere. If I had found a partner with the right circumstances who could have lived with me in Santuario I would have stayed there. But, unfortunately, the pueblo is nearly two hours from the city and has only about 7,000 people, so the employment, cultural, shopping and entertainment opportunities are just not available.
However, there are hundreds of nice pueblos all over this country. I've got my eye on a couple small cities between Pereira and Armenia. We're also checking out the pueblos within one to two hours of Medellin, which is also in the climate zone that suits me. We'll see how things go for the next few months then make a decision.

[InnocentVixen]

Santuario sounds like a lovely place, I hope you guys find something with the perfect balance for both of you

[Hector_Lavoe]

Welcome back Andy Lee! 

Since you are thinking about building a house in Colombia soon I'd be curious to know your thoughts/insight on the seismic activity/risk in Colombia?

I know historically Colombia has not been rocked as hard as say Chile or El Salvador.  But I understand Armenia (Colombia) is a pretty active area.

If you build from scratch (custom) I suppose you have a better shot at getting something built that would withstand a quake?

[robert angel]

It never occurred to me that in the past few weeks in the Philippines, with a major (at 7.2, stronger than Haiti's)earthquake, then a record breaking typhoon on its heels, that some of the more basic construction fared better than brick and mortar dwellings in both cases.
 
Nipa huts are basically bamboo structures built on stilt like frames off of the ground. They often have large window areas and the walls also allow breezes to flow through. Wind and water can go under. Especially in rural areas, they are favorites. They bend and sway with the elements and while given enough force they'll face destruction too, many will withstand forces that more 'westernized' construction can't.
 
Our home in the Philippines (and my inlaw's home ) is made of cinder blocks, with rebar running through them and then the blocks filled with concrete, which I still think is better, but last year a typhoon took the roof right off my inlaw's and I don't doubt the same could happen to our Davao house. Both are situated to not be impacted by high water, but given how crazy the weather's become in recent years, I wouldn't place any bets.
 
I'd give better odds that the nipa hut would lose some of it's roof, but that it would essentially remain intact come wind or water.

If it wasn't so damn impractical to build and move around in, I'd live in a pyramid! I can't help but think that walls that are thicker at their bases and roofs that allow a certain amount of give and ventilation (hurricane straps) are a step, if more expensive initially, in the right direction.

[AndyLee]

Yes, most of Colombia is affected by both earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, and in some rain seasons, flooding and landslides. In the winter of 2010 there was continuous heavy rains for nearly two months and hundreds of landslides, with hundreds of people being killed. At one point the transportation department declared that 80% of the nations roads and highways suffered major damage.
Armenia suffered a huge earthquake about 30 years ago when something like 20,000 people died, and a pueblo near Manizales was totally wiped out with about 25,000 dead when the volcano Nevada del Ruiz erupted. So, its certainly wise to build for earthquake resistance and to build far enough away from volcanos to be safe. However, for the most part, the construction methods I see prevalent here are not anywhere near earthquake resistant as compared to places like California, where buildings have shock absorbers and high wind resistant ties and fasteners.
Thanks for mentioning the Nipa, Robert, here's a link that further describes the method, and a picture showing a group of people moving one of the nipas by hand. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nipa_hut There are certainly some excellent design characteristics in these little houses.
Many of the toll areas and bus terminals in Colombia are made from bamboo and I have a Colombian friend near Manizales who is building a bamboo house on his finca, and I've toured three bamboo houses in Pereira. I like the methods used in the bamboo houses, and supposedly the earthquake resistance is much better than traditional bricks and mortar. I was at one of the houses in Pereira the day we had a trembler and we all ran outside anyway, no need taking a chance on the ceiling coming down on us.
I am appalled when I look at typical bricks and mortar single family house construction here. The bricks are locally fired and very soft, you can break them just by tapping with a hammer or by dropping them on pavement from waist high. They use re-bar and concrete pillars in the exterior walls, and concrete with rebar top plates, but their concrete mix is usually made on-site and is very dry so they can work it the same day. When it receives impact it just crumbles, even after curing for weeks or even years. The foundation is typically just a frost wall only 16 inches wide and 8 inches deep, dug into the native soil. The ceilings are often poured concrete, sometimes reinforced with re-bar, but again using a dry concrete mix that crumbles under impact. Yee gads, I can't imagine being in one of these houses when the earth trembles, the walls will collapse and the ceiling will fall on the inhabitants, which happens time after time here.
I'm just now learning more about house construction in this climate zone and with local materials like bamboo. I'm still about 6 months to a year away from starting construction so I have plenty of time to learn what I need to know. I've built several houses in the US over the years using typical stick frame construction, but what I learned there is not necessarily useful here. We'll see.

[buencamino]

Probobly the most temblor resistent construction is guadua (bamboo). It is flexable but incredibly strong. It is also long lasting. My neighbor built a house nearly thirty years ago from it and the material is still in good condition. It has to be harvested under certain conditions thpugh such as when when the moon is menguante (waning).

 

[raycjs]

Hey Andy,
 
Welcome back, i stop in and see whats new every once in a while.. seams like all is still the same and guys are still enjoying south America...
 
 
Ray