Fall clean up

As the Northern Hemisphere wraps up spring and heads into summer, we here in Ecuador are doing our fall clean up. The river swelled and brought tons of debris down to the ocean, which then churned it up and spat it out all along the coast. Look back a couple of posts to the "we thought we walked into a war zone" and you'll see what I mean. We knew from experience the province we live in Manabi would send trucks and crews to clean up, it was just a matter of when, well it was last week. We were at our friends house on Sunday, celebrating Mike's birthday and saw first hand what a great job the clean up crews did.

Just a few piles remain, but the over all effort was amazing, it was almost impossible to get from the shore to our friends house the other day, beach goers would have had nowhere to sit...here's one just a couple days before the clean up.

So much treasure, but unsightly and pretty dangerous. Now it's all cleaned up, good job Manabi! 

Meanwhile down at our house, the rock mover came in and started moving rocks around. It started on the other side of the White  house, reinforcing the sea wall, then came to our beach and took the rocks from the sand infront and added them to the the sea wall.

Some men had been working in the lot next door, burning the brush and trash, pretty sure they were clearing it out to make boat parking easy if high tide should threaten. They got the rock mover to move the big yellow bouy and after all the rocks were unearthed, they had the sand filled in and made flat. So much parking now! 

They worked til sunset and then the earthmover came back a second day, and moved some more rocks around, not as many spectators on day two, but these little guys came to see the commotion...we lovingly call them the "urchins".

I think the older boys name is Daniel, but I can't hardly understand them, not only their spanish, but they speak another language I don't speak, "Children". They show up in the morning fully dressed, go about their adventure, and by the end of the day they've stripped down to saggy undies and are playing in the ocean. They scramble up the rocks, climb over boats, and as you can see on our fence. I'm not sure who they belong to, but we've seen a couple of the fishermen scold them or tell them to quit bugging us, it takes a village...I love the life they are living, foot loose and fancy free, no Nintendo, or Play station, just sun and fresh air adventures!

Our adventure continues too, so stay tuned!!

At the Beach

We're on the Beach at Crucita! : D

Questions from readers

This morning I will answer some questions I've received from readers. Many questions refer to other Americans or Expats; An expatriate (sometimes shortened to expat) is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country other than that of the person's upbringing. The word comes from the Latin terms ex ("out of") and patria ("country, fatherland"). Here in South America they call us Gringos, and because the locals know we have more money than they do, sometimes will charge us more, they call this "gringo tax". When one becomes aware of this, they know to haggle price BEFORE services are rendered, such as for a taxi or labor. It doesn't happen so much for food, not at restaurants, but maybe at the street vendors. You just need to remember from one to the next how much you paid, and if the price seems high, tell them " it's too much" and apparently they'll come down. When I'm walking we will get to do more of this, so far all our eating out has been with our guides.

Speaking of guides, our Quito driver, Jose called last night to check on us, that was nice. And Wolf is making me a doctor appointment, someone he went to when he had broken bones, said the price would be $30-50, including X-rays. Wolf also said the house across the street from him on the hill is for rent, we'll go see it, and find out how much. Just from the little we've seen of Crucita, we've decided we'd like to stay after our rental contract here is up. Which reminds me, I'll post a map, it's been awhile.

Ecuador has Provinces, instead of States. We are in Manabi province, Esmeraldes is the Northern coastal province, and Guayas is the coastal province just to the south of us. But we think with the proximity of Manta (192,000 pop) and Porto Viejo (300,000 pop) this is a pretty good place to be, now it just depends on the weather, but so far it's been glorious! Crucita has approx 15,000 population, of course that doesn't count chickens or dogs.

When in Quito, fellow travelers at breakfast said they had just come from Cuenca (600,000 pop) the third largest city, and said it was full of expats. (Guayaquil 2.2 million pop and Quito 1.6 million pop) I think the reason they gravitate to the larger cities is for the similarities to the States. They probably are not waking up to roosters like we are, or having the milk man walk down the road selling out of his 5 gallon bucket. The roads are all paved, or at least cobble stone, and the choices for eating and shopping are huge in comparison. But that is one of the reasons we chose this place, was how different from the States it is. We were looking for a different life, and boy have we found it! 

The peritos, or doggies (as Wolf calls them) are enjoying themselves. Shadrach loves a nap in the hammock, and Veronica is enjoying the warm weather. 

One last item, (this post has gotten long) we are on the west coast, but in the Eastern time zone. Of course they are not on Daylight saving time, so it's one hour different this time of year. So, there you have it. I'm posting some links to some blogs you might enjoy, because of our young age, We won't encounter all the things that are important to some of you, but I will post my medical experiences as they happen with the broken ankle. 

http://johnandmarylivingitupinecuador.wordpress.com/author/johnandmarylivingitupinecuador/

http://clarkeandbrenda.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2009-01-01T00:00:00-06:00&updated-max=2010-01-01T00:00:00-06:00&max-results=50

http://nanlevin.wordpress.com/2014/06/03/cafe-de-pacoche/

Hope these work, I'm such a novice at cut/pasting. Buenos Dias!