Casa Nueva

When we look at a place to live, very often the most important thing is location. Everything else is cosmetics, and we have made many a silk purse out of sow's ears. I remember when Nexar first showed me this apartment the biggest downside was that it was under a LOT of concrete...but Mike said if another earthquake hit...bring it on, he wasnt living in fear. 

(Nexars chicken, lives upstairs now, Maria must have said No)

Since we spend so much time outside, it made sense to get the yard space pretty first, so that is where we will start. I will do another post soon on the state of affairs inside. First job for Javier was to undo the shade structure, he took half of it to the new courtyard, we asked Vecino if he wanted a small shade for his house, and he said no, so Javier took the leftover material home to his house. Next was taking down the fence at the old house, we weren't sure we would take it, but decided it was alot of wood. The guys made a fence in the front of the  "house" to keep chihuahuas from running in the street, and with the rest Javier made me raised plant beds.

He brought us bags of dirt, a new banana plant, and a small coco palm. Mike started painting a mural, so we waited a couple days to plant. I didnt want him to have to tiptoe thru the flower bed to get his mural finished. I thought we had a lot of potted plants at the other place, but seeing them here I realized not a lot liked the other location, a trip to the "plant store" was needed!

We got some Christmas money (thanks Mom) and headed to Sosote on the bus. We had quite a list, but knew things were very cheap, and a little goes a long way. The family remembered us, and were, as always very willing to answer questions, make suggestions and make deals. We asked for delivery, for us as well, if possible, and it was done. All it took was a phonecall and her son with a truck would be there shortly, now all we had to do was shop.   We went slightly crazy, spent more then ever before, but the results are stunning! We are far enough from the salty sea, that hopefully everything does well. We need some more planters, and pots for the house. The palm trees can be seperated, and we will have nice size houseplants.

More paintings, decorations and little by little this courtyard area will a wonderful secret garden in the middle of town. The breeze is just enough, not like the unrelenting wind at the beach house, looking forward to many a hot day or cool night sitting under our shade structure. Back to working inside, need to get some more organization, then it will be ready for pictures, so...stay tuned, the adventure continues!

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!