A New Chapter in Our Lives

I have to say, it feels good to be back! I have been revisiting my blog more often recently, and took that as a sign that it was time to get back in the driving seat.

We eventually sold the finca in Copacabana at the end of February, unfortunately we had to drop the price considerably in order to do so, but it has been worth it.

We have moved just over an hour south, to Marinilla, we visited it eight years ago, and it is listed on my \’Towns & Villages\’ page,  like Copacabana, we live about 7km outside town, the climate is totally different, because instead of being in a Valley at 1600m above sea level, we are now on top of the mountains at 2200m, and at times it is cool to say the least, but I always have to wear a hat, even on a cloudy day, being that much nearer the sun, I keep burning my head, if I don\’t!

We found our current house thanks to Omar Ramirez who owns casafincaraiz.co and has the patience of Job, every time we had a buyer for our old house, we would go out with Omar looking at property, find one we liked, and then our Buyer would drop out, this happened two or three times, before we finally managed to sell, and buy at the same time. We now class Omar as a friend, and we will continue to keep in touch, but even buying this property was not plain sailing for us, because it is what is called pro-indiviso, that means there is one plot, but it is divided up amongst various owners, and this can cause a real headache, especially if you want to build on the plot. However having taken Omar\’s and legal advice, we are in a safe situation, because we have our own deeds, stating we own 22.5% of the total plot, and the original owner provided a legal document to our seller stating the boundaries of our lot, and after we have lived here five years we can apply to have the lot totally legalised, with a deed / escritura 100% in our name. I guess it\’s a bit like leasehold in the UK.

We should have moved in on March 2nd 2020, but like all things Colombian, nothing goes to plan.

Because of the environmental contamination in the valley, which included Copacabana, Medellin and a number of other towns, they have a system of pico y placa, where vehicles are not allowed on the road at certain times on certain days, depending on your vehicle registration number, and on March 1st we received a call from the removal Company to say that due to high contamination, a Pico y Placa Ambiental had been declared, and his vehicle was off the road all day on March 2nd, but if we were prepared to move quickly, he would move us that afternoon (March 1st), we had the keys to the new house, and other than some last minute packing, we were ready to go, so we said yes , so at 4pm they arrived, and by 8.30pm we were in the new house, I have never seen such a quick and efficient team of movers, they were brilliant, friendly and helpful.

Our new house is a downsize, and like the old one needs a lot of work, before it is the house of our dreams, but we have considerably more land, where our plot was only 330m in Copacabana, here we have nearly 2500m, planted up mostly with Avocado trees.

Access  to Main Road

Parking Area with Gate to access road

Carport and BBQ area (no longer exists)

Front door to House

Cabaña /Apartment across from house

Rear of house with chicken coup (No longer exists)

Garden and Orchards

This will give you a taste of the outside, the inside will come later.

Fortunately for us, Omar has a list of reliable contacts, and we only had to mention Building work, and within a week of us moving in, he arrived at the door with Jaime Marquez, but this is a story for another Post.