At the Beach

We're on the Beach at Crucita! : D

On the Beach

Saturday outing

Mike had walked a couple times down to the beach, and around "town" to get the lay of the land, while I was still wheelchair bound. Yesterday being in the clear to walk, we headed down early to see the sights, and will share them with you. If you head left out our gate, in about 4 minutes ( longer if you're learning to walk again after a month ) you reach our beach, and Malecon (boardwalk).

These (above) were taken on a week day evening, but yesterday being Saturday...

These little tents were set up, and I saw a man with a big stack of plastic chairs go around putting one or two chairs in or in front of each tent. In a blog I read once that these were for rent, and usually came with lunch delivered from one of the restaurants, but I'm not sure if that is the case here. We got down there about 10am, and watched as people would get off the bus to set up little shops on the sidewalk.

This vendor had a big block of ice, that he shaved or chipped to make slushies, with his flavored syrup. We continued to walk and stop to watch for about an hour before we decided to eat.

We had been looking forward to trying ceviche, and local Ecuadorean seafood dishes for months! And were NOT disappointed! Being a Saturday it was a little higher than the weekly lunch special, al muerzo, but worth every penny! ($4.50 instead of $2.50)

We ordered ceviche, and a chicken bistec dish, (which I understood bistec to be "steak" so was interested to see what it would be) it ended up being chicken and potato in a slightly curry flavored broth. It came with a generous helping of rice and plantain fries (think seasoned potato wedges). The ceviche came with plantain chips, which I'd read you crumble on top, the ceviche was GLORIOUS! The plantain chips I can take or leave. The whole meal started with two cheese empanadas, probably from plantain and corn batter, and are not pictured because they were scarfed down too fast! Mikes beer was $1.50 and I had a fresh watermelon juice for $1. We added rice to the ceviche towards the end so we wouldn't  waste any of the wonderfully tasty broth, it was an explosion of flavor! Cilantro, fresh tomato, lime, onion....yummmm! Even at 7 am it makes my mouth water!

The plantain wedges, and rounds. 

Another of the ceviche, because it was that good! On the walk back we took pictures of the sandwich boards outside the other restaurants, so we could translate the specials and plan our next outing. We are finding they sometimes make up words, or our Google translator has never been to Ecuador, one special translated to "cardboard tray"...hmmm no thanks. About halfway down the Malecon we grabbed a " tuk tuk " back to the house, it was $1.

What an excellent day! So glad I'm able to get out and about, makes such a difference. This was more what I had envisioned, but don't get me wrong, lazy days in the hammock were good too! Stay tuned, the Ecuador adventure continues!

Crucita Day ONE - Beachfront

Paige is still broken and the roads are too rough to get her near the beach except by car so I decided to go for a walk and see what I can see. There are a few small grocery stores, a bunch of restaurants, a Pharmacy, a Veterinarian, Bakery and an amazing beachfront! I'm sure there is much more that we will discover. Wolf knows of a good Doctor that will look at Paige's leg for $20 to $40. Hopefully there is some walking in her near future. Until then we'll get to know our cute place. Stay tuned, we'll do a video tour of the house today.

What will we do?

Many have wondered what exactly we will do living in Ecuador, the short answer...whatever we want! But really, besides walks on the beach, hikes in the hills, riding our bikes, shopping the small tiendas (mom and pop store) and the mercados ( think farmers market), bus trips to the larger city 30 miles away ( for visa stuff, and bigger grocery store, sightseeing) and of course siesta in the hammock, we don't plan on doing much. 

Mike has his website building business, most of which he can do on the lap top, (and before I get up in the morning) and according to the expat forums and blogs I've read, there are expat women looking for knowledgeable American hairdressers...so I may only be semi-retired. We have two houses that will be rented and bring income, we have a property management company all set up, and they will collect rent and keep up on any repairs. They will contact us via email if there's anything we need to know or approve, and they'll direct deposit the rental income into our bank account.

We will work hard when we have to, and play hard when we want to, I'm calling it "island time", but it's more about being flexible. "Mañana" is the motto, it literally mean tomorrow, but it's more loosely translated to...not now, I'll get to it later. As Americans our work weeks are longer and our vacations shorter than other nationalities, even the work day is longer, that simply means less time with our loved ones...I don't want to live that way anymore. We want to make every moment count, we are not guaranteed 80+ years, so we have to start as soon as possible! fit as much in as we can  because we could die tomorrow.

Beach life will be different than city life, and that is where we are starting, we have the house in Crucita for 2months, and while there we will search for the next rental. Word of mouth will give us more inventory to look at, and we will have our container arriving, so we can rent a partially furnished place. There is 1400 miles of coastline, who knows where our second "home" will be, I'm sure we will live in one of the larger cities someday, but housing is more expensive, so we will watch the budget and see just how far the money goes before we decide to change. There is a lot we just won't know until we experience it, but that's part of the adventure. You only live once, go enjoy it! Hasta mañana!