Kismet

So going back to after our Honeymoon but before our first trip to Cabrera, I first discovered some videos on YouTube of a retired couple, Judy and Richard, who had already been living in Cabrera for a couple years as of Spring 2014. They were a wealth of information and seemed like very honest people who had known Barry Soloman right about the time Barry launched DRescapes.com and were prominent characters in Barry's interviews with expats videos. They had purchased an ocean view lot above the city of Cabrera and I remember watching the videos over and over and showing them to Thomas.  I kept thinking, "I want to hang out with them! We would have so much to talk about!" We were avid fans and watchers of all of DRescapes video and no one featured in the videos ever 'spoke' to me like the Judy and Richard. I remember someone on the DRescapes tour with us in Summer 2015 asking about the retired couple and Barry indicated that they were still around, but no, they hadn't yet built their house to his knowledge.

Fast forward to November 2015. We are now Caribbean home owners and all of our available mental energy is thinking about how we will finish paying off the house and what items take priority on our TO DO list.  I decide to re-watch a video where Judy and Richard are sitting in the shade at the top of their ocean view lot with the town of Cabrera visible behind them down the hill and I think to myself, "Wait a minute! That view looks really similar to ours..." Cut to video of a little shack structure built to protect the cows. "...Holy Crap! I've seen that structure before!"

Holy Crap!

Sure enough, the property just on top of the coliche (gravel) hill that you can see straight out from the house is the high point of their property!  We were going to be neighbors! That interview series occurred under the tree that we see topping the highest point in our little neighborhood.

The view from our pool deck...straight out under the
tree on top of the hill is where the video was shot.

A quick e-mail to Barry and we were in touch! We e-mailed back and forth and both sides of the conversation were thrilled that our little neighborhood was shaping up to be such a nice group of people. Judy and Richard were friends with the young American family that built the house next to us (whose three kids are the same age range as mine) and when all the houses are finally built, we're going to all be fairly close together on the hill. So, it's nice that so far we all seem to get along. Turns out our real estate agent Sebastian (whose wife is expecting in March) and another American have purchased lots further down the hill past the newly built house, and frankly there are no more usable lots left.  So this could be our future group. We're almost all American except for Thomas (the German), Sebastian (Argentina) and his Dominican wife. It's a good sign when the real estate agent thinks it's a good place.  

When Thomas arrived in mid-December he got to meet Judy and Richard in the flesh!  It was awesome to hear their familiar voices on the other end of the WhatsApp call (the only way to stay connected when traveling around...in my opinion way better than skype or facetime because of the texting option when the data connection is poor) They even took Thomas to their Dominican friends' home for an authentic DR pig roast for Christmas Eve. I was happy that he was among friends for the holidays.  Within my first 3 hours in Cabrera we ran into Judy at Garcia's, and it was as if we had been friends forever. They are a very smart sweet couple who love to travel and had been looking to spend their retirement somewhere warm and where their money would go further. Exactly like Thomas and I.  Like I said in the title...fate.