"CABS ARE HERE!!!"

Jersey Shore reference in the title, you either know it or you don't, anyway...this post is about Cabinets, kitchen cabinets to be exact, finally! Dave, the landlord got a young man named Jose to come "make it work" and he did just that, it was impressive to watch. He pulled up on his bicycle with his tools in a 5 gallon bucket, used wood out of our scrap heap, and only had to leave for supplies twice.

First he measured where they were to go, then he made a "helper" to hold them up so he could mark where the holes were in the back. He took them down, drilled pilot holes then put them back up, and bolted them to the wall. All by himself! He went out once for screws/bolts, because I didn't have any, and he left again later, because a piece  of tile had fallen off, and one of the hinges was bad on one of the doors. 

I helped him lift these onto the "helper", because it was awkward, doors flying open, but he would have managed. For the bottom cabinets, he had to fill the gap, where the counter top was higher than the cabinets were tall. But with his machete, he planed (plained) this board to fit, but a tile did pop off while he was trying to get a snug fit. We poked around and found a piece of tile, he measured what it was to be and went somewhere to have it cut, wow! Brought back a bit of dry cement, and fixed it, perfecto!

It was almost 5 when he left, but everything looked good. We were hungry, since we'd skipped lunch, we tried Hotel San Jacinto, but they appeared closed so we opted for Thamara's for dinner, which was very nice and $12. We had been invited for dessert at our neighbors, we had fresh banana cream pie and coffee, it was glorious! We sat and visited a bit, then home for some tv. So, I didn't get a chance to clean and fill the cabinets til this morning. But here is the finished product.

Not sure if they will get painted, I'm not really keen on doing it myself...but maybe when Dave hires the painters for the house and fence, they'll do it then. But, it's nice, already hit my head on an open upper door, had to laugh. It's the little things, every little bit helps make it a home.

Tomorrow we go to Manta with Ken and Lyndell, they have dogs to be groomed, and thus 3 or so hours to kill, so they invited us along. I'd like to check out the nursery under the bridge, I found a couple weeks back, want to get some houseplants to homey up the place. Well, that's about it for today, stay tuned, the adventure continues!

Residency trumps lease

I recieved a comment about 'signing a year lease', and while yes it is true we committed to a year lease, it was under the stipulation that our container would arrive and we would be granted residency. When you plan on being granted residency you act that way, then when someone tells you that what you've 'planned' isn't going to happen, you start to act differently. Did that make sense?

While researching how to answer this comment, I looked back at some of the websites and information I originally looked at preparing for the move, some things have changed, and some are still the same. For example, coming from North Carolina, we had to deal with the Ecuadorean Consulate in Atlanta Georgia, even though the Consulate in WashingtonDC was closer. The Atlanta Consulate website is a joke, and actually re-routes you to the DC website, but once there, you click on a link, for more information and it's broken.

And the tool bar down the right side, doesn't seem to work. I remember now, that this is when I emailed the Atlanta Consulate directly asking my questions, sometimes I'd get a response, but only two of four questions answered, sometimes no response at all. Geez, thinking back, this move has been frustrating from the start!

One of the things that has been updated, is the wording stable to the income requirements for the "pensioners residency visa". Many expats since being here have facebook messaged me stating that they recieved their "pensioners visa" without being retired on Social Security, but it seems since we've arrived, they have changed that. Our plan had been our rental property income and Mike's website building business to qualify us for the income requirements, but since arriving we have been told that neither rentals or self employment are stable enough to be considered. One of our rental houses just rented with a two year lease from the Housing Authority (section 8) and since this is techniqually money from the government, we will try it, Fernando is trying to call the Consulate to verify, Good luck!

So, there ya go, the reason that yes, even tho we "signed" a year lease, we were looking for other accommodations, because if the Section 8 lease doesn't qualify us for residency, we will have to leave Ecuador on Dec 23rd. You are required to have round trip tickets, so our plane tickets are for Dec14th I think, but they are headed back to Atlanta, and there's no reason for us to go there...we will just stay here in South America and continue our adventure. I've looked at Airbnb and Flipkey for Peru, and can rent a furnished apartment in Lima or other larger cities for under $600/month. (Flipkey is how we rented the Crucita house)

Above is my new motto, and I must say, just because this move has NOT gone according to plan, and all our worldly possessions may be lost forever, it still has been an amazing adventure! Mike and I are glass half full people, so it's been somewhat easy to "see the bright side of things" (Some days are better than others, but...) we didn't set out on this journey thinking it would be all roses and sunshine, we knew there would be hiccups, and we CHOSE to do it anyway. We are going to make the best of it, no matter what happens, no matter what obstacles are put infront of us, as long as we have each other, and our pups, HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS.

So, dream big, expect the worst, hope (pray) for the best, and live life to the fullest. We are not guarenteed tomorrow, but today...today is a GIFT. Stay tuned, the adventure continues!

The utility bill was WHAT?

Dave, the landlord told us last month that he'd recieved the utility bills, he vaguely told us what each one was, but never really got us a firm number. As another month was ending, and we were trying to nail down some things with him I sent him an email, asking the total owed for utilities, the answer I got, was not what I expected.

Internet was the highest, $38 per month. Then the power and the water, $15 each! Yep, even for two months, that's only $106! Our gas (for stove) was initial cost of the tank $58, but when it needs refilled, it'll only be $3, that won't be for another month probably. Our cell phone (which we purchased for $24.99) has been operating off the same $10 we put on it back in mid August! Our drinking water was $6 for a new 5 gallon bottle, and $1 for refills, we use less than 2 bottles a week.

We will purchase a small television soon, and at one point thought about DirecTV, but with the Roku, and Netflix, we've decided we don't need to spend the $49-79 monthly. Weve decided to buy another cell phone, we are not usually away from each other, but with the addition of more friends, we may be, and better to have contact than not.

We looked at some "furnished rentals" the other day with Joffre, the reason why we were looking is because if we can't get residency, our visa is up in December and we'll have to leave Ecuador. We would probably go to Peru where we can stay for 183 days just with our passport, in that time, hopefully sell one of our rental houses, then be able to come back to Ecuador June 2015 and get an Investors visa with the deposit of $26,000 in an interest bearing CD.

If we have to leave in 3 months, there's no reason to start purchasing new items, hence the reason to find a furnished place. Be a little more comfortable for what little time we have here, but what we found would NOT be more comfortable...of course we want cheaper, who doesn't? But what that got us was ...let's say more rustic...we looked at one that had "battery electric", outside bathrooms and kitchen, no windows, yes, really, NO GLASS, but did come with mosquito nets. (You'd have to!) that was $10 per day, um, no thanks. Another place we looked at was tiny but cute, $250 per month, but shared outdoor space, and no internet. Might as well stay put, really try for our residency, so we don't have to leave in December, and start fresh. 

In our meandering the other day, we ran into the owners of these cute little bungalows, new construction, 2 bed only $40,000. Which reminds me, in another post I said some other bungalows were $60k, that's wrong, they were $35k. Joffre found us land for sale $9000, and a house for $39,000 with financing for 5 years, if we qualified. (Which we wouldn't) So, if we do sell a rental unit, Joffre is our go to guy, we spent a couple hours with him, he even closed his hardware store, I tried to give him $5, but he wouldn't take it. Great guy, really glad we met him, even with our limited spanish, we get it when he jokes, and he's very patient with us. We did tell him "lo siento, Mi espanol poco poco" and he said "Rapido!" Translated, I'm sorry, Im learning spanish little bits at a time, and his response was to learn it faster. We all laughed!

Enjoy friends and loved ones, start planning your own adventure, and of course, stay tuned...because ours isn't over yet!!

Fishermen and their boats

One thing about living on the coast is the scenery, it's always changing. At the moment the tide is high, and our little stretch of beach has no sand, waves right up to the rocks, but give it an hour or so, and it'll be nice firm sand, perfect for walking on. (Absolutely taking the pups today)

I've been collecting pictures of the boats, and will share them and some info with you. Here's something I found I thought was worded quite well... native Ecuadorians have been harvesting the sea. In this respect the land and its people have been blessed, as these waters are famously stocked with fish from the size of minnows up to monstrous Tuna and Marlin. This burgeoning wealth arises from a "happy accident" of geography and oceanography that places Ecuador at the collision point of two very different ocean currents. From the south and originating in the frigid Antarctic, the cold Humboldt Current sweeps up the South American coast, bringing with it nutrients, plankton and krill (a tiny crustacean that underlies the oceanic food chain). As this current rounds the continental bulge where Ecuador juts into the Pacific, it meets the El Nino current, a much warmer flow of water that travels south from the area off Central America. As these warm waters mix with the colder, nutrient-rich northerly flow, the population of small fish explodes. Of course, small fish attract larger fish, and the result is a bonanza for both sport fishermen and commercial fisheries. 

Ecuador has become a leading South American producer and exporter of Tuna, and this success has helped the fishing industry buy modern ships and processing equipment based in the port city of Manta. Shrimp is one of Ecuador’s largest seafood exports and the warm waters of the Bay of Guayaquil are home to many shrimp farms. For Ecuadorians, this golden harvest from the sea has helped improve the lives of thousands of people who live in the once economically depressed coastal region.

Here is a boat coming to shore, the net is in the water, and you can see the man climbed the stairs to the truck, has a gray bin. He gathers fish out of the net and into the back of the truck, all the while trying to keep the hungry Pelicans  and frigates away from the catch.

Sometimes the boats get unloaded on shore, and the fishermen bring buckets of "waste" back to the birds.  In this last photo, the white headed birds are the famous blue footed boobies. Sometimes the boats go out at night, sometimes in the morning, it must have something to do with high and  low tide.

I thought I had taken pictures of a boat being built, but I can't find it now. Believe me they do make them from scratch, with very little power tools, if any. If I spoke better spanish, I could probably get some more info about the boat building process, and fishing industry in our small village, maybe next year...when it's time for the boat to go in the water, it's all hands on deck, and the whole family comes down to the shore. Some of the boats keep their motors on while "docked", but others are taken off and stored elsewhere, they all are covered for protection, some have shirts, some have tarps or rugs. The government subsidized these motors, sold them at about half price, $700 instead of $1400.

The boats above are sometimes "parked" on the street, when the tides will be really high, they've been doing this so long, it's amazing to watch them maneuver them on just the small wood rollers. Pulling those nets and carrying those motors, these guys are pretty strong! Mike helped the guys one day, he thought they were pushing the boat out, but soon realized they were bringing it to shore, and said it was way too much hard work!

Hope you enjoyed my light hearted post today, the adventure is continuing, so stay tuned!

This week in Ecuador

This week, has been like many others, ups and downs- now this is normal in every country in the world. Not unique to Ecuador, life has ups and downs. Monday we walked down to Hotel San Jacinto for Al muerzo, but they were closed, so we tried another cute little place we'd been meaning to try, Thamara's.

Had a nice lunch, and even ordered a dish to take home (para javar) for dinner. It's off the Malecon about a block down a side street, but still had a nice breeze. We will eat there again for sure. After lunch we walked thru the neighborhood on the way home, and had a nap. By dinner, we still weren't really hungry, so the shrimp rice (camaron arroz) will wait for another day, that's a way to stretch your budget.

Tuesday I went into PortoViejo with our neighbor Lyndell, we left the husbands home, so it was girls loose in the "big city". We started at the mall, (typical ladies, right? Wrong) that's where the Hyper Market is, this store is what we in the States refer to as one stop shop, everything from clothing, cosmetics, shoes, to groceries and kitchen sinks. I bought two gallons of paint (already mixed) not sure if they do custom tinting, they don't have paint chips or a machine. Also bought a spray nozzle for the hose, a small shovel, some planters and bathroom/shower storage. 

It's a regular mall, two stories, escalators, cosmetic stores, nail salons, cell phones, clothing, pet store, food court, pretty typical. From there we went to another hardware store Kywi, nothing for me there, but I should have bought the stand up fan at Hyper Market because it was $15, and Kywi's were $25, shucks. We left the car in the underground parking, where it and our purchases were safe and took a $1 taxi into downtown to find the fabric store.

So many fabrics! So many of them horrible material...lots of 60's polyester, not anything I want to sit on or make clothes out of here at the beach. Lyndell was looking for fleece to make dog beds, and the warmest and softest they had was velour...not quite what she was looking for. I was wanting sheer curtain fabric, and all they had were shiny, may have been ok, but not what I wanted. We decided to check the store in Charapoto on our way home.

Here's another fabric store we went to, really heavy upholstery stuff and vinyls, not what we needed today.

Back to the car, and a little groceries. Charapoto fabric store had what I was looking for, non shiny sheers for the windows and decorative cotton blend for drape panels, or throw pillows (or both). Phone was dead by then, so no picture (sorry Joan). It was a good day, us girls had a blast, and I got some things to make the house more of a home, but I was glad to get back to Mike and the pups. Camaron arroz for dinner? Yes please.

Wednesday we painted, we turned the music on in the master bedroom and got busy. We have toyed with the idea of renting a furnished place, but figured this place needed painting anyway, so we may as well make it pretty until we decide what to do. Dave knows it needs painting too, so maybe he'd absorb the cost. Getting our container is feeling VERY OUT OF OUR REACH, and we rented this unfurnished house expecting to have our stuff to furnish it, well, if that's not going to happen, maybe we should find something furnished instead of having to purchase everything new. I mean, even our bed is borrowed, someday he may want it back, then we have to purchase one. Then if we don't stay, we have to sell it or store it...finding a furnished place may be best. So torn, we like the location, and the garden space we've been working on and the painting did turn out very nice, it's becoming more of a home. 

Today is Thursday, I've tried to work on container stuff this morning, have gotten nowhere, and needed to move on to something positive. Today we will try Hotel San Jacinto again for lunch, then maybe I'll do some sewing. So far no plans for Friday, but we haven't been to the beach all week, so we really should take the pups. I'd also like to do some yard work at Daves place, and bring home some cuttings and plant babies. Best to get all the free stuff we can before we take a trip to the nursery, most of our freebies are doing great. And I noticed some volunteers...that's strange

Tomatoes?! As volunteers? Ok, what's next? You better stay tuned...the adventure continues.

Charapoto 480 years young

Back several weeks ago our go to guy in San Jacinto, Jeffrey (Heffrey) the owner of the ferreteria (hardware store) told us of a festival in Charapoto. He wanted us to go with him, he had told us what day, but we had forgotten. We had planned to go to Charapoto with Jim and Marty to the Sunday market, and as we were sitting in the square waiting for the guys, we saw Jeffrey, he told us he was going to the festival and were we still going to go? Just then the guys showed up, and Marty speaks the best spanish, found out there was no mercado today, because the foods of Manabi festival was going on, but they would go to the festival instead. The buses were incredibly full, so we all jumped in a $5 taxi and took off. Even with limited spanish, we had a fun time with Jeffrey, he went around to all the booths finding us the most authentic things to try. We tried something that tasted like pumpkin spice soup, a fermented drink of some kind, very salty cheese and the gelatinous bread pudding dessert thing we've had once before. 

We saw the parade it was the same parade we'd seen before, the cheerleaders and marching bands being the bulk of it, so no pictures, except Jeffrey insisted we get my picture with this cowboy, so glad he smiled...we continued to walk the booths, and finally left the crowd to find a quieter place for lunch. After lunch we walked a little more, but Charapoto is only about 4 x 6 blocks, so we had really seen it all, and were ready to get back to the beach. Said adios to Jeffrey and looked for a bus. Here's some pictures from one of our local gringos, John and Mary MacDonald taken of Charapoto.

This is what the Sunday mercado usually looks like. The festival wasn't much different, but there were kitchens set up instead of vendors.

The gastric festival is a big deal, the Ecuadoreans really like their food, and like to share. But this banner says the festival was really to celebrate 480 years since being founded, wow, that's a long time. A good time was had by all.

We are really enjoying our new friends Jim and Marty, we had Saturday brunch at their house, and plan to do Charapoto market proxima semana (next week). Marty is still working, (from home) so while he gets in the swing of things, we're keeping our outings to the weekend, Jim is busy too, they have two guest suites downstairs that he is painting and getting set up for rentals. I have a girls day out planned tomorrow with Lyndell, we'll go to the big fabric store in PortoViejo and do some other shopping. It'll be nice to catch up, and have some girl time.

Bad news on the container, it seems that it has been declared total abandon, which means they could sell the contents "at any time"...we need a lawyer, and one of our local gringas gave me her attorneys email last night to touch base with (no charge), so I better get busy. Hope is not lost, but as I look at the picture above, it brings me back to things are just things, and everything that is REALLY important to me, Mike and the pups, are here safe and sound with me...will keep you posted, but I'm not holding my breath. 

Today is rainy, the first rainy day we've had since arriving in June, but, the powers on, and we have a comfy couch, we're fine. That's all for today, stay tuned, the adventure continues...tomorrow with girls loose in Portoviejo! Watch out!

Won't you be my neighbor

In my early childhood years there was a television show called Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, it really has nothing to do with anything, except this post is about our neighborhood, and it made me think of him.

We've started walking thru the neighborhoods behind our house and the Malecon. Seeing the different architecture styles, looking at landscapes, and just getting acquainted with all the area has to offer. It's hard to tell if we like living here, if the house was fully furnished, we would have a better idea of how it functioned as a real house. We are also learning about living across the street from the ocean, salt, sand, dampness, sound, we are figuring out if we would want this full time, or if we would prefer to live a few houses back. Here's some of what we've seen.

These two houses are the smallest, probably 600-700 square feet. The top one looks to be having a large shade structure being built, that'll add to the living space for sure, our weather here on this part of the coast is 62-85 degrees F all year. (12-35 C) Being so small, these are probably locals, who live here full time.

Love the iron work on this outdoor space, this one may be a long term rental. Short term rentals don't usually have bars, since they don't have much inside except when occupied. 

These bigger ones are probably vacation houses for people working and living in Quito, the capital. They have caretakers that look after them, maybe a neighbor who gets paid $20-40 a month. Some get used more than others, many are only occupied for a week or two a couple times a year.

This house is at least 4 blocks from the ocean, and a mile to town, not sure how many bedrooms, but if I remember correctly asking price was $310k, reduced to $280k. New construction is still going on, there are a couple of these buildings between San Clemente and San Jacinto, 6 condo units to a building, one recently sold in San Clemente for around $80k, I believe 2 bed, 2 bath.

More examples of newer construction, vacation houses. Some have volleyball courts, some have pools. The red one is only one house behind the ocean, but the others are two blocks or more, so they would be considerably cheaper land prices.

There are a couple of these little compounds around town, cute little places, with funky architecture and paint scheme, they are 2 bed, 2 bath and selling in the $60k range. Shared outdoor space only, so you better like your neighbors. The one with the bamboo had a sign for a pizza restaurant, if we can find it again, maybe we'll try it.

Being on a corner is optimum for the breeze factor, even though these were two blocks or more from the Malecon, it seemed nice and cool. One last picture, the local primary school. (With bonus street dog)

Hope you liked our little walk thru the neighborhood, maybe if you come visit, we can do it for real. The weather's great, come anytime, because you know...the adventure continues!