Plants and nuts

Mike and I have always liked to play in the dirt, no matter what State we moved to, we'd learn the climate and the native plants. We loved to plant things we'd not been able to grow before, and missed things we'd left behind, but always looked forward to the "next season". This season of Ecuador is no different, while in the Crucita house, we took cuttings and tried to start new things to bring to the San Alejo house, all 6-8 cuttings of plumaria have thrived, the oleander did not. When we arrived at the San Alejo house in August we REALLY wanted to spend all kinds of money for dirt and plants, but we just couldn't. We had much more important things to attend to, so here it is November, and finally we have some money to put towards the yard.

We asked around, and found Sosote to be THE place for plants. We made plans with friends who drive for a Saturday excursion to the nursery, they'd been before so knew right where to start and we were in heaven!

We had to show restraint for the getting it home factor, but it sure was fun, like kids in a candy store! We bought 2 bougainvillea for the house (paid for by Dave the landlord) three for us ( planting in pots) monster flower hibiscus, have not seen these flower yet, but she kept saying grande, grande so I'm sure they will have blooms the size of salad plates, one orange, one red we think. Nice size geraniums for $1.50 each, some things suitable for houseplants, palms and elephant ear and a sprinkling of filler, all for about $100!! At Home Depot or Lowes, it would have been three times that! It was really amazing that we got it all in a sedan.

This is only half of the bounty. Couldn't get to planting right away, since it wasn't all going in the ground, but on Sunday at the Charapoto market I found some big plastic tubs that worked great, big tubs were $5 smaller oblong ones $2.50. After a rainy morning dried up I got busy and here's the outcome.

We paid a little extra for the above bougainvillea, as they were pretty special, definatly worth the $6.67 I paid, getting 3/$20. Will check back with them for the "regular " ones at $4 each, buy a couple more for the house, to get them established for Dave.

Now for the nuts! Just up the road from Sosote, is Tagua. Tagua is a nut, it's carved into jewelry and knick knacks and used as beads.  Tagua nut, also know as vegetable ivory, is the seed of a tree similar to a palm but botanically not belonging to the palmaceus but to the ciclantaceus. Its scientific name is Phytelephas Aequatorialis. Tagua grows in the tropical rainforests of some South American countries, mainly Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela, being Ecuador the country that fulfills most of the world’s demand. 

Here's a garage next to one of the retail store where they have dyed them and letting them dry. Everyone inside the retail shops were busy stringing or carving nuts. Sorting them, polishing them, busy, busy.

I bought single beads for .03 cents each to make Veronica a necklace, also got a V pendant. Two pair of earrings for $1 each, why didn't I get every color? I've been with NO jewelry, but life is much more casual. Anyway, necklaces were very cheap, earring sets and bracelets $3-5 amazing! 

Great day! Such a lot to look at in this small little country! We are really enjoying calling Ecuador home, the house is certainly becoming more what we are used to, and our life is becoming more of what we'd hoped. Daily walks on the beach, shell hunting, plans for art projects, sewing projects, getting our hands dirty, finding the best nursery, jewelry making for me and Veronica, special friends, great weather and good food.

What more could we ask for? Life is good, stay tuned the adventure continues!

Net fishing

San Clemente, San Jacinto and Crucita are all working fishing villages, one can see the fishing boats "docked" on the shore or the roads across from the Malecon, when not in the water. What one doesn't see until one lives here are the net fishing, I tried looking up net fishing ecuador, but didn't get much info, so I'll just report on what I've seen.

As far as I can tell, the net is set out by the boats, and the men on shore pull it, scooping the fish into the net as it moves thru the water. There are five to eight men working one tether, and each net has two tethers. The men have belts that they tie the tether on to, for precaution, they all work together, like tug o' war, pulling the rope, and at the same time moving to the left or right. In the above pictures, they have come to our side street, and are pulling, pulling, pulling until they move down the road to the next side street. When the tide is low, they do all this from the shore, but as you can see, there is no beach at this particular moment.

They pull, step back, pull step back, then the one on the end unties  the tether, drops it, then moves to the front, and it continues. There are many ropes tied together to makes this tether, and when one rope is no longer needed they untie that length and store it, you can see the pile of rope on the street, and also note they are all barefoot. ( barefoot on sand, but barefoot on the road?) They continued to pull and move the net down the coast, probably half mile til they had low enough tide and beach to stand on. Then the collection begins.

Here's another day, when the tide was low enough for them to be on the beach, the truck is waiting for them, it carries the fishermen from place to place, but also is ready to collect the bounty. You can see the boat, keeping things in order and that's a blur of pelicans waiting for a snack.

Above is one line of tether pullers, and the next photo is the other line of tether pullers.

Once the net gets to shore, they corral the fish into a smaller section of net and then collect them like the following picture. The net bags are then dumped into the back of the above truck, and locals will come to buy from the back of the truck. The truck driver is probably a "broker", taking the fish from the fishermen to market. He may take some of the fish to be cleaned, but the bulk are sold entero. The net pullers job is over, and sometimes they move on to another net, sometimes they do the loading into the truck.

Whenever you want to know where the fishermen are, look up and you'll see the swarm of frigate birds and pelicans. If there are tourists or kids around when the net comes ashore, the fishermen will let the kids have smaller fish to throw up into the air to watch the birds feed. A little too Hitchcock for my taste, but fun to watch from the safety of my porch.

I'm not sure if all the boats do this net pulling, maybe to supplement the other catch? I usually only see two or three net pullers a week, so everybody's not doing it...with time will come better spanish and I can ask questions.

I think that's it for today, we've made plans to go to the town with all the nurseries on Saturday, it's called Sosote, and on the way to Porto Viejo, so next week I'll post our findings. Excited to get some "houseplants" and some more things for the garden and our pots. Stay tuned, the adventure continues!

Beach Combing

Seashell,  hard exoskeleton of marine mollusks such as snails, bivalves, and chitons that serves to protect and support their bodies. It is composed largely of calcium carbonate secreted by the mantle, a skinlike tissue in the mollusk’s body wall. Seashells are usually made up of several layers of distinct microstructures that have differing mechanical properties. The shell layers are secreted by different parts of the mantle, although incremental growth takes place only at the shell margin. Seashells may be univalved (as in snails) or bivalved (as in clams), or they may be composed of a series of plates (as in chitons). 

 Shells are frequently ornamented with complex arrangements of spines, folia, ribs, cords, and grooves, which in some species provide protection against predators, give added strength, or assist in burrowing.  Many seashells are brightly coloured in complicated designs by a variety of pigments secreted by special cells in the edge of the mantle. In some cases there is an obvious camouflage function, but in most others the significance of the colours is unclear.

Seashells are collected all over the world because of their endless diversity, elegance of form, and bright colours. They also have been used to make jewelry, buttons, inlays, and other decorative items throughout history. In ancient times certain varieties, such as tooth shells and cowrie shells, were even used as money. (Above article is taken from Encyclopedia Brittanica, photos are mine)

After several months of collecting, we've started to clean, sort and think of what to do with all these treasures from the sea. We recently found a small art supply store that has good prices on canvas, so we will pick up a couple and start playing with some art projects.

The process of sorting began, not quite finished yet, looking to get some plastic bins to keep them in, keep them clean and organized. Have been having a rough time trying to find out what my shells are called, who knew there were so many?! I have found some posters with pictures and names, but the wording is so small I can't read the names, maybe on a larger computer screen you can read them.

So I see I've got some Limpets, turkey wings, and Chinese hats. More to come, we were out combing again today for about an hour when the Internet went down. Stay tuned...the shell finding adventure continues!

Working on the wall

For some time now, the big earth movers have been anxiously waiting for low tide, so they can go down and scoop up rocks. The wall doesn't appear much different from the road, but from down on the beach we could see a lot. (Photo credit our neighbor Lyndell)

We awoke to no power this morning, so we decided to walk on the beach since it was low tide. We were out about an hour, then the sun started to break free of the marine layer and we realized we needed sunscreen. We went back to the house and even though the power was back on, since we had the beach all to ourselves, we took our coffee and the pups out for more more beach time.

We took bags for shell collecting and walked about 2 miles to the south. I've had these pictures awhile, waiting for a post, and today is it. Down towards the Boca (mouth of the river meets the ocean) there are ruins, sea wall and house ruins. The ocean does what it wants, and apparently back in 1983, the ocean wanted this house.

This sea wall didn't stand the test of time, I wonder how the one they are using now will fare? What we noticed about the rock sea wall, is that instead of making the wall taller, they are widening the base of it.

The tide is back, and the earth movers are gone, til tomorrow when they will scoop more rocks to build up the base of the sea wall. Since we enjoyed having our coffee out there this morning so much, we will do it again tomorrow, maybe I'll remember the camera and can post some more pictures.

In container news:

I thought I had a lawyer working on lifting the abandonment of our container, every week I emailed for an update and she said she would find out. Finally last week, after a full month and then some I got nasty, and she confided in me that her "go to" person in Guayaquil had...disappeared! WHAT?! She said she would see if she could find someone else, but in the mean time I should look for someone else too...so she wasn't liable for any delay. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!

So, here I am back to the beginning...AGAIN. I give up, the Pirates have won.  I don't know what to do, find another attorney? Another month of fees has accrued, that's put us at a grand total of $8820!  I'm wrung out, can't fathom getting out from under this now, I'm thinking better to just start saying it was stolen by bandits!  Call that chapter closed...move on. We do have hope for getting residency with the rental income from our property in the States, after months of "people in the know" telling us we'd never qualify, a trip to the Immigration office in Manta says try it. The other rental property has gone on the market and fingers crossed it will sell quickly. If it sells before our notarizations and apostilles from the States, we can use the proceeds to gain our investors residency.

We really love Ecuador, the weather, the beach, the food, the people, the slower way of life, simpler way of living, LOVE IT. We want to explore other South American  countries, but we really want to put roots down here first. The climate here is perfect, I got enough fall colors and pumpkins on Facebook, and I won't miss the snow and ice, not one bit. Below freezing temperatures are a thing of the past for this beach bunny!

So stay tuned, our South American adventure is NOT over, it continues one cup of coffee on the beach at a a time. 

Day of the Deceased

The inhabitants of the beautiful country of Ecuador place much emphasis on religious festivals and celebrations, taking great care to observe them in the most traditional way possible. The 2nd of November each year is a national public holiday, giving everyone the opportunity to participate in the activities related to one of the most important celebrations of Ecuador - Dia de los Difuntos.

This celebration stems from the belief that the souls of dead relatives visit on this day and families need to ensure that there is plenty of food available for these souls so that they can gain strength to continue on their journey to the after life. This celebration is observed in many countries around the world with a few variations. In Mexico the celebration is called Dia de los Muertos meaning Day of the Dead, but in Ecuador the term Dia de los Difuntos meaning Day of the Deceased is preferred as it is seen to be more respectful. In other countries it may be referred to as All Saints Day or All Souls Day and many of the traditions associated with Halloween have been taken from these celebrations.

In the more rural communities of Ecuador, it is common for families to have a meal at, and even on, the graves of deceased relatives before leaving food for them. In the cities, families generally have their traditional meal at home, but still visit the cemetery to either leave food or flowers at the graves. In many parts of Ecuador this ritual is carried out for three years after a person has died and then stops, presumably by then the deceased person has reached his or her destination.

Traditional foods specific to this celebration are GuaGuas de Pan, which are baby-shaped bread, along with a sweet fruit based drink called Colada Morada. These slightly sweet bread babies can be up to 12 inches in length with a round shaped head and a body that tapers down to a point. They are decorated with icing and have something sweet, like jam, inside. Some families make their own bread babies, but most bakeries have them for sale for weeks prior to the celebration and they are on offer at cafés and restaurants during this period. The original meaning behind GuaGuas de Pan and Colada Morada is not quite clear, nevertheless they form an integral part of all Dia de los Difuntos celebrations throughout the country.

Throughout Ecuador the celebration of Dia de los Difuntos is seen as a time for families to reconnect with their ancestors as well as an opportunity to remember their roots. (This was taken from Ecuador.com, as we have not encountered this holiday first hand yet. I liked the info this article gave, and will look forward to experiencing it and give commentary at a later date)

Stay tuned, the adventure continues, one holiday at a time...in Ecuador

Where did the month go?

When they say "time flies, when you're having fun", they aren't lying! We must be having fun, because I swear, I don't know what happened to the month of October! Going thru my Camera Roll, I see that stuff has been going on, I have photos to prove it, but wow! Days turn into weeks, then weeks turn into months, and if you're not careful, your life has gone by and you didn't even realize. One of the reasons we chose to do this adventure now, while we are still young enough to enjoy it, and we certainly are enjoying it, so let me stop babbling and share.

According to the Camera Roll, on October 16 there was the strangest sound outside our house, it was about nap time, as I remember and we had to get up to see what the racket was. Still not totally sure what they were doing, but as far as I can tell they were unearthing large rocks.

They could have been adding the large rocks to the sea wall, but some of them just got unearthed and then left where they sat, hmmmm, I'm sure someone somewhere knows the story, I'm just glad I got some pictures. 

We have had a couple over for dinner a few times during the month of October, one of the dinners I made was BBQ chicken and  Macaroni and Cheese. I thought I'd picked up a block of cheese, but when I unpackaged it, it was slices! No problem, I just cut it into strips, but then Mike said it looked like cheese noodles, no matter what it looked like, it all melted into cheesy goodness and was a success.

I had some leftover Ricotta from a lasagne, so this was at least tres queso! It was a little taste of the States here in Ecuador, I've been enjoying cooking more, now that I have more than one skillet. We bought a rice cooker, (had to look up the directions online, since they were in spanish, and I looked up other recipes that can be made in one, but haven't tried anything other than rice yet)  also bought a griddle, which has made pancakes, eggs and grilled cheese a breeze.

We went to Manta one day to meet with Fernando, and talk to Immigration about our Residency. We got on a bus that took us the long way, but we got to drive thru the town of Montecristi, where they make furniture and Panama hats, and snapped a picture of their statue.

Her skirt was beautiful tile mosaic, that just shimmered in the sun, sorry it didn't read on film. After we finally got into Manta, we had about an hour to wait for Fernando, so I took some pictures of the Immigration office. Now for those of you who have been following awhile, remember the first time we came to this office I was in a boot and crutches for my broken ankle, check out all the stairs!

Check out the elevator...how many flights of stairs does one have to take to get to the elevator? Yikes! That would never fly in the States...but I survived, and now it's a piece of cake all those stairs! We didn't get extensions on our Visas, but did find out that our rental income from the States will help us get residency, they just want original lease and original letter from Housing Authority apostilled and sent to Consulate for approval. Of course we are $50 shy a month to both qualify on the rental income alone, so we still have some hoops to jump thru. Hopefully our empty rental will sell quickly and we can qualify that way, it went on the market this week.

Another outing we did in October was to Bahia, we had seen an advertisement for an art show, but when we got there, there was no art, and certainly no show, so we just shopped, wandered, and had an awesome lunch. Last time I posted pictures of the bay of Bahia, these are ocean side.

Huevos anyone?  And here is a picture I borrowed from Facebook, the one at dusk, the daytime photo is mine. We live on the other side of the point.

And our fabulous lunch $6, which turned into enough leftovers for fish tacos, yum! And then some...

We added some more finishing touches to our guest room. Bought some sheets and a bedside lamp that day in Bahia at the Tia store and I made curtains from $1 remnants I bought in Charapoto. Really wanted that art show to be something, because decent priced artwork is hard to find here, but maybe we'll make something.

With all this busy-ness you'd think we missed the sunsets, but we still try to take time out and watch.

This one taken from our friends balcony at The Boca

This one while walking down the Malecon to dinner...

And this one, I stole from our neighbors Keith and Becky...wow! Isn't that gorgeous?!

At times our adventure just seems like everyday life, cooking, cleaning, shopping, but then I take time out, sit and write this, or just think back on the weeks, and months and I realize this is AMAZING! What a special time and place this is in our lives, what blessings and gifts these days are, I hope we never loose sight of that. Thanks for joining us on the coast of Ecuador, stay tuned...the adventure continues!