Almost
as fast as you can say the Ketchi Maya words na' taat paal, well
Charley Wolf bought himself twenty acres of jungle bush land in
the Central American country of Belize, sight unseen. It was late
one Friday night at home in the sixth district of Vienna, Austria.
With his wife Gigi and their son Charley in the bed dreaming the
night away, Charley sat up surfing the Internet for their piece
of paradise.
Charley
Wolf was indeed a dreamer of dreams so far fetched they supported
the notion of many that he was a borderline madman. But when Charley
was ever questioned about his schemes and brainstorms, he would
smile the devilish grin and simply say, "let's all be patient
and see in the end just what Charley Wolf makes of his life".
After
months of monitoring several Belizean real estate websites from
afar, Charley finally homed in on a specific property of modest
proportions. According to the advertisement offered up by way
of a yahoo search and subsequent link to a nameless tropical real
estate website, the land was a piece of virgin jungle in the remote
wilds of Belize, in a place referred to in the ad as simply "Toledo".
And although the wire transfer of the required funds took less
than two minutes, in the end, the entire process from transfer
to title would take Charley Wolf over a year and a half to complete.
Later
accounts would emerge that in fact Charley Wolf had cut a deal
over the Internet with an 'expat' Texan real estate agent. The
entire process was negotiated completely over the Internet with
countless emails and a handful of wire transfers between US bank
accounts for Charley and the Belizean lawyer Charley found, you
guessed it, also over the Internet.
And
in that regard, they say if you sleep with dogs you are likely
to awake with fleas. With that old adage crystal clear in Charley's
mind from hard lessons learned from lands lost in hidden valleys,
this time around he planned to have some insurance against the
riff raff that plagues the real estate industry worldwide.
Therefore
Charley placed between himself and in this particular case the
lone Texan, a smart and classy Belizean legal assistant from one
of the most prestigious legal firms that Charley was able to locate
through the US's embassy list of recommended lawyers in Belize
over the Internet, Charley through his lawyer controlled his destiny.
It
should be noted that Charley's approach in narrowing down the
US Embassy list of lawyers again was scientific and logical is
it's application. For Charley simply picked the Belizean law firm
with a certified lawyer born the same year as he too had been
born, that being the year of nineteen hundred and fifty-five,
the year of the shark (1955).
The
choice turned out to be the best Charley had made in quite a while.
For the legal assistant not only provided the weight of the entire
law firm behind her calls and letters to all those concerned representing
the local seller of the land. She also insured till the title
was transferred that all those concerned got what was coming to
them, the good and bad of what that can entail.
And
so with new found self assurance, Charley Wolf walked about the
streets of his homeland their in the sixth district of the city
of Mozart, Vienna, Austria with a piece of titled land awaiting
he and his in Belize. The sheer joy of what Charley knew lay ahead
of him was close enough a catalyst to push any a man to madness
in anticipation of the adventure.
However,
it was neither adventure nor fortune that sent Charley Wolf to
the Internet in the first place looking for his family's place
in paradise. No what sent Charley Wolf searching is the deep love
and devotion he and his Gigi have for their Charley the fourth.
That
said, with their child's best interest in their hearts, Charley
Senior and his dear wife Gigi, with little hesitation as the Viennese
are known to be, made their minds up and in turn, allowed the
lease of their flat with Gunther Havalka to expire. As for the
little belongings that they had acquired in the three years since
Charley the fourth came to be would be comfortably packed away
in boxes and placed on leave in the basement spaces of the social
building Gigi's mother Hermi had called home for the last fifty
two years. The items would stay safe and dry until their possible
return.
With
their loose ends comfortably placed away in secure storage, Charley
Wolf and family flew off from the city of Vienna in late November
just as the cold fog of far eastern Europe settled in for the
long dark winter. From Vienna the Wolfs flew through the hassles
and misconfigurations of Charles DeGaulle Airport in Paris.
From
Paris the economy fares took the family through seven time zones,
two featured Hollywood films, three meals and an arrival breakfast
snack. |