Another look

Since we have had power and Internet restored I've been able to see pictures from other parts of Ecuador. The first photos I saw were from the newspaper, so I knew it was really severe in places, here are some doozies. Looks like we're going to need some road work!

One expat wrote a heart breaking post of her experience going into PortoViejo for the first time. I'm sure we will feel the same when we venture over there, luckily there is no pressing need.

Yeah, we will stay put for a good long while. Certainly no need for us to go see this devastation first hand. 

The rubble is being cleaned up here, and some rebuilding has begun. Businesses are open and the Officials have lifted the ban of alcohol sales on Sunday, and extended Bar hours until 4am. (you won't see us at any bar until 4am! Lol)  The reason is to help the Bar and restaurant owners, and maybe they know, after all we've been thru, we need a drink!

Edison's property, they ended up taking down the 3 walled house that was left standing over top the cistern. Still the threat of debris falling from neighboring hotel...This photo was two days ago, so I'm anxious to get back to see what else is new. Stay tuned, the adventure continues!

Statues are big business

Every little town has statues, whether it's in the town square, or in a large round about at the entrance to the city. Usually the statue has to do with the main crop, or industry of the place it's located. I posted the fish one in Manta not too long ago, and have collected a couple more. This one is in PortoViejo, showcasing the main industry of corn, Tamarind and sugar cane.

It may be papaya, or avocado? They grow everything, so it's hard to tell. Beautiful tile work, and nice landscaping.

We have three in San Jacinto, I had to use another bloggers photo, I keep forgetting to take one. This is as you walk down the Malecon from San Alejo or San Clemente, just as you enter San Jacinto

Then this is the town square/circle, the centro...

On the north side of town there's another fish statue, similar to this one. I'm always on the bus when we go by that one, so it's been tricky to get a good photo, one of these days.

Then there's the lighthouse, at the edge of the point in San Jacinto, we can see it from Ali's when we eat there. But this was taken from below, one day when the tide was low and we were walking on the beach.

After we get settled, when we get our residency squared away, I'm sure we will start to venture out to other parts of the country, am looking forward to seeing the other statues that have been lovingly built to celebrate the lively hood of Ecuador. It's an amazing country, so small yet so big. Same square miles as Colorado,  but it feels every bit as big as the U.S. They manufacture almost everything they use, not much is imported, and we like that. It's been a fun, bumpy, but fun ride, and it's not over, so much more to come, so stay tuned, the adventure continues!

Ketchup

Seems like it's been awhile, and looking back at the last post, it has!

After we got the cabinets on Monday,  we were scheduled to go to Manta with Ken and Lyndell, it was a slightly crazy day, but productive. They got their dogs groomed for a third of the price in the States, all three for $45, they even had a $20 X-ray taken, for the dog in a people X-ray office, step right up, no waiting, unheard of! Glad to report all dogs are doing great.

We'd never been to the "new" part of Manta, so it was exciting, but all in all, we've decided PortoViejo is closer and just as good for shopping. We spent too much time looking at everything, we didn't have time to stop at the nursery, darn it. Here's some pictures of our outing.

Beautiful new Supermaxi, the one in PortoViejo has other shops around it, but this one was isolated, so you really do need a car to get much accomplished. Another stop was a furniture store, pretty gorgeous modern stuff, and a pretty penny too, too stiff for our budget, but nice to look at.

They had table lamps, sign said $9.99, so I was inquiring, but the sales lady said they were only $9.99 if you bought a piece of furniture, and regular price was $19.99, no thanks. Table lamps are lacking here in Ecuador, and replacement lamp shades, forget about it! Now Mike has an appreciation for my lamp "collection" in the container....sigh...

We bought a small TV, and it's been lovely, now we can watch tv while Mike works on the laptop. We are heading in to PortoViejo today to buy wall mount brackets, since we don't have much in the way of flat surfaces. I finished curtain panels, and with a little more decorations, it'll be a room we are used to.

No matter our budget, I've always been a decorator, and Mike enjoys it too, so we've always had "magazine worthy" interiors, this living really sparsly was a challenge.

We went to eat Friday night at Pablo's new restaurant, he moved a couple weeks ago, and had the grand reopening, food was terrific, atmosphere was very nice, outside and candles and of course reasonable. Ran into a blog fan, (yep, still famous, hehee) and had a wonderful evening, life is Good!

Finished painting our other upstairs room, and Dave says the window bars will be ready tomorrow, so we can start pulling things together. We've decided to make a sitting room, and have guest beds, in case we have someone stay the night. Our friends who live at the end of San Jacinto are exactly two miles away, and some night that may be too far to walk after a night out. Best to be prepared.

Container news is lacking, I've sent all the documents to a lawyer, who sent them on to her partners in Guayaquil, but every week when I inquire, she says it's being worked on, but never any info...someone else said they have an idea how we can get it at auction, but at this point I don't need any "speculation", I need hard facts, we are putting it behind us. Miracles happen, but...it's not in the forefront of our mind everyday, and that makes life better. It was a heavy weight. Keep up those positive thoughts and prayers. Thanks for following our adventure, it's not over, 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.

Getting back to normal

The streets Sunday as we went into San Clemente for lunch were still a mess, and there were still plenty of people on the scene. But as the day wore on, more city dwellers woke up and took off for home.

This was Saturday, and below was Sunday. Same corner (not exactly the same vantage point)

Saturday in the Main Street, and Sunday as they started tearing down the carnival area.

We haven't been to town since Sunday, but our normal trash pickup didn't happen yesterday, and I wonder if they were too busy in San Clemente. We are planning a walk down to the point this morning and will see what the town looks like on our way back.

We bought a sectional sofa and coffee table from an expat neighbor on Sunday. They listed it on the Facebook page, and since we needed one whether we get the container or not, we decided to buy it. They helped us bring it home a piece at a time in their SUV, and it's been so nice. Since it's white, it needed covered, but that just means we can make it any color we want. We've concentrated our inside living into one room, so it's kinda like a studio apartment. It seems a little more like home.

We've become friends with the old owners, Ken and Lyndell, they invited us to go to PortoViejo on Monday with them and run some errands, and it was a nice way to visit. They have a wonderful garden space, and we've already traded some plants, she sent over some aloe with the last piece of sectional sofa, and then I took over some plumaria starts when I went over there yesterday morning and paid them for their kindness with haircuts. Then she sent me home with mother in laws tongue and some other plants.  They go to PortoViejo about every other week and said they'll always let us know, in case we need something, that'll be nice. They've been here two years, and live about two and a half blocks down towards San Jacinto. 

So it's beginning to feel a little more like a home, and we are trying to get settled. I've come up with an idea to trade haircuts for household items or plants. Ken and Lyndell were going to get cuts in PortoViejo the other day, they usually pay $3 each so I'm not going to get rich charging the going rate, but I could get some useful stuff...it's an idea. 

Well, tide is going out, and we need to get some air. Mike will make smoothies, and I'll pack the backpack. Towel, check. Sunscreen, check. Hats and glasses, check. Water, check. Beautiful day on the coast of Ecuador, check! Stay tuned, the adventure continues! 

Speed demons and spoiled brats

We had to go into PortoViejo on Thursday to pay PacifIcLink, the company whose been holding our container. We successfully got cash withdrawn and deposited into the correct bank account. We did some groceries and took the bus home, we'd been home about 10 minutes when I got an email from Flor. She needed another deposit to be made, this time to the company who owns the container, as insurance that once we get the container emptied we would send it back, this "insurance" costs $1000, and means we are getting back on the bus Friday. We decided to not let this get to us, what else did we have planned for Friday? Nothing, we can take another trip on the bus, adventure!

Banks don't open til 10am, so we didn't have to rush, had a leisurely breakfast and coffee on the porch. Made a smoothie for the road, and made sure we had our hats. While we were on the bus, I noticed something that I'd been wondering about. Every so often (couple of miles or so) the "ticket taker" hops out and punches a "time clock" machine thing. I thought it had something to do with amount of passengers, but on this ride I realized it was to track how fast the bus was driving.

The way I figured it out, was when the guy punched it, he read what it punched, frowned and shook his head at the driver. Normally the driver would roar off, but he sat and tried to wait. He's obviously antsy, because he couldnt sit still for long, but I could tell he was trying to drive slower on the next leg. When we were on the bus from Cuenca to Guayaquil Mike saw a sign that told passengers to report excess speed or letting too many people on the bus, so that helped in my determining what the time clock was for. Another mystery solved.

Even after I had decided taking the bus into the city again wasn't a big deal, the spoiled brat in me still thought it was a lot of effort to do some banking. Which got me thinking as we roared past houses, no shacks! These people are so content with their lot in life! I need to learn from them, ALL spoiled Americans should learn something from them. They don't live above their means, they don't complain about what they don't  have, they love life and have great outlooks. Kids play in the dirt because they want to, not because they have to. Teenagers are happy to have bikes, and getting a car at 16 is unheard of! Heck most families don't have cars. If it takes half a day to do some banking, so be it, and we made the best of it.

We had already done our groceries, so we decided that after our banking, we would wander around and see PortoViejo from the ground. We got off the bus and walked to the Supermaxi shopping center where the bank was, but when we got there the ATM would only give $100 at a time, that wasn't going to work, so we got a taxi for $1.50 to take us to the other bank ATM that would give $600 at a swipe. And wouldn't you know, we found a new one, right on the corner where we got off the bus! Good to know! It wasn't that far, so we walked back, deposited the money and decided we would try to hit downtown and see what we could find. Jumped into another taxi, for another $1.50 and asked for the "el centro mercado" he looked at us like we had four heads, but then said "el centro"? We said "si" and hoped that "el centro" really meant downtown like we thought, and it turned out it did.

There's a couple of streets that are closed to traffic, and the vendors are set up, I was shy to take pictures, but it looked like a flea market. Lots of fruits, vegs, meats, spices, plastics and clothing. We decided we didn't want to pack anything around, so we just wandered. Found this church, check out that tile work on the roof?!  We got our cell phones charged with minutes, and found some great stores to go back to if/when we get settled. 

Found the little place Wolf took us to for breakfast our very first day here, and had a great big glass of juice and a bolon. (Plantain dough with cheese mixed in) Yum!

Anyway, we had a great day wandering around PortoViejo, trying to not be brats anymore, slow down and simplify. If we didn't have to make this deposit it would mean we weren't making progress. I hope to have more news and some kind of time frame this week. We move into the new beach house on Wednesday, wow end of the month already! The adventure continues, slowly at times, and that's ok. 

One last thing, we saw this little guy in the road, I think he's "sleeping", and then the next day we saw this guy outside our bedroom window!

Stay tuned! You never know what we might run across!