My daughter has browbeat me into using a BLOG format for future updates, so
here we are. I have never blogged before so bear with us on this please.
Hopefully this will keep your email in-boxes less cluttered and you can
follow all the blogs in a row..... We'll see how it all works.
This is way
harder than an email, especially trying to position dialog and photos
(if we can get them uploaded to stay). Hopefully it will get easier
as I get accustomed to the idiosyncrasies.
Friday
Nov 4/11
Buenos
Dias,
Yes
we are alive and well and living in Cuenca, Ecuador,
South America and we know we are going to love it here.
The
Ecuadorian people are happy, clean, and more than willing to help us in everything
despite our most rudimentary Spanish and gestures.
We
left Calgary at -4C and arrived
here at +31C.
Our
two boys, Peso & Pancho, were incredibly well-behaved during the arduous
trip here, confined to their small carriers for that first day basically from 4am until 10pm
Calgary time. They were
a delight to everyone who acted as though they had never seen a cat before, and
we have yet to see another cat here. Our day was as uneventful as
we could have hoped for. They didn’t even weigh our luggage. US
customs did ask to see the vet certificates, but they were in order, so no
problems. Peso was awesome, so the drugs must have worked for him.
Pancho muttered to himself until Al put his carrier up on the table tray so he
could look out the window and he was quiet as long as Al rubbed his head.
We had 5 hours in the Houston
airport where we discovered that they were quiet as mice as long as we put them
both into the same carrier. When we arrived in Quito,
the immigration officer asked us only if this was our first time in Ecuador.
Couldn’t have cared less about the cats and didn’t even read the paperwork that
I had completed saying that our residency permits were still in the
works. So much needless worry about being turned away! We spent the
night in a Quito hotel and went to
catch our noon flight to Cuenca.
We got in the lineup with our four big suitcases at 49 pounds each, two
backpacks and the two cats. We quickly heard that our flight was delayed
2 hours (a blessing in disguise) and 45 minutes later got to the ticket
window. Even though we had pre-booked for the cats, and already
traveled from Calgary with the soft
carriers they were now insisting that the cats had to go in the cargo hold in a
hard carrier. Thank God that we had a God-sent angel named Sue from
Dallas behind us who spoke passable
Spanish and was able to translate. We felt so sorry for the people behind
us in line. So while Al booked in our four suitcases and got our boarding
passes and cargo tag for the boys, Bella hailed a taxi to go to a recommended
store nearby in search of the hard case carrier. Naturally there was none
at this store so the owner called another taxi with instructions to a pet store
in a huge mall. We think we got the last pet carrier in Quito!
Bella made it back with ¾ hour to spare and Al butted into line to get the cats
off to the cargo hold.
After
the short one hour flight to Cuenca
we more than thankful to see the boys come off the carousel first and in good
shape. Again it was comical to see the eyes of the crowd as they saw the
boys slide by.
Our
rental agent, Juan, was there to meet us and bring us to our new home. I
was thankful that he was there as promised. He had only a small car so he
arranged for a taxi to follow us with the balance of our stuff.
The
boys are enjoying the new digs, all three floors, and our lower enclosed back
yard. There is an upper terrace but Al will have to screen it in so we
don’t lose the boys to the rooftops.
We
were well aware from all our research that we would need our sense of humour
and the slower pace of things in a third-world country. Our rental agent,
Juan, had told us our home was in a middle-class neighborhood. We laugh
at this now and enjoy the many chickens, cow, horse, and constantly crowing
roosters just over our back wall. It adds to the atmosphere!
Since
our new place basically has only a long table, eight chairs, and two double
beds, we have a lot of shopping to do. There are some huge grocery stores
quite close that sell most items we need and we have a long way to go to stock
up.
Getting
here in the midst of a 3-day holiday was not in our plans as this has made
getting the utilities hooked up delayed. At least we have electricity and
water, and just got the gas hooked up so we can have hot water.
We
got Al’s cel phone unlocked and set up for here on a PayGo style plan.
The number is 081 953 658. Then we bought a plain flip phone for Bella
with a similar plan and her number is 088 340 897. Al had to switch them
back to English so we could have a vague idea how to work them. The
fact that we can’t seem to call each other is a concern that we hope to have
resolved today. In an emergency I assume you can check your phone book on
how to call Ecuador
and reach either of us.
We
are told that it may take up to 10 days to get home Internet so for now we
walked two blocks to an internet café to send this message.
We
will need to get a washer and dryer soon as we brought limited clothes and most
of those are pretty dirty from cleaning the place which was pretty dirty when
we arrived. They place their washers outside here and seem to hang-dry
all their clothes outside, a common sight in every country outside Canada
and USA.
We
have discovered they don’t like large US
denominations like $50 bills in the stores so we really need to get a local
bank account established first thing Monday. We have made ann
appointment with Juan’s assistant Marienela to help us with those chores on
Monday.
Last
night there were festivals and parades all across the city, making travel more
difficult but exciting. They were setting up a stage at a small
playground a block away so we went to join in. Gosh, we love the
Ecuadorians and their kindness. Festivities began at 8 and almost
immediately the female MC acknowledged our presence and asked where we were
from and we drew a huge cheer. Then they had a competition with three men
drafted from the crowd who had three races frog-hopping a short
distance. I think the winner got a mickey of tequila.
Then they started drafting a bunch of women and insisted Bella come up as
well. Being a good sport, Bella went up on stage with about six other
women, most of them model-quality. Then they made them do two passes of
strutting like fashion models to the great appreciation of the crowd.
Then they had a quick elimination based on applause, and the Ecuadorians
cheered madly for Bella (did we say we LOVE these people) and she won the
competition!! She was given this lovely golden angel that will no doubt
serve as our Christmas tree. Al did video Bella’s winning performance for
posterity.
Then
the first singer, an older man began to canned music and he was talented!
We were told there would be lots of dancing but after 3-4 songs we were the
first ones up to dance, again to the delight of the crowd. Bella was
tired after our long day so she retired early but Al went back to enjoy the
festivities, stopping at the local confectionery and picking up a great tasting
beer for one whole dollar. Another younger male singer performed for a bit,
making way for four young ladies, a singer and 3 MoTown style dancers.
Such fun,
Then
a band came up to perform and the crowd was really hopping now, having a great
time. At least four ladies made sure Al wasn’t bored by getting him up to
dance with the crowd. Even Al petered out about 11:30 even though the music seemed to run until 1:00am or later. Sitting there amongst
these fun-loving and exceptionally friendly people was incredible and we just
looked up to the heavens and said Thank You for allowing us to enjoy this life.
We
really have to get some rudimentary Spanish to make things easier but we know
we love this city and its beautiful people. Tonight we will connect
with other expats at the Eucalyptus café for the regular Friday
gathering. We have had many offers from others to help us out with the
initial setups so we may have to tap these resources.
Hopefully
we will have our Internet hookup sooner than later so we can Skype with many of
you. Bella’s laptop has a camera and she is under bbourassa50. Al’s
is under albellaecuador.
There
is still so much to do here and we are just starting to get our bearings but we
are retired and no longer in a rush so all is well in our universe.
Hugs
to all.
Sunday,
November 6th by Bella
I
thought that you might be interested in some of the differences here. When we arrived in Quito,
there were at least 200 people there to meet the plane. When someone comes home, it’s a huge family
deal and everyone comes including babies and balloons. We just send one person to pick you up on the
sidewalk outside of the airport. It was
a holiday when we arrived so there was a brass band playing at the airport –
not just for us!! We later went to the
mall and there was a live band playing there as well.
We
live in a Cuencano neighbourhood – no other white faces. It’s in a perfect location. Everything we could possibly need is within
easy walking distance and then a $1.50 cab ride home if you have heavy things
to carry. We just came back from the
internet café on the corner where we spent an hour on line and I made 2
international phone calls to talk to my son and my mother. The total cost was $1. About a block down the road, is a place to
get a pedicure for $4. The vet is about
2 blocks away and there are about 50 restaurants within walking distance –
including KFC and Burger King. We found
a fabulous butcher shop about 3 blocks away where I got 2 lovely pork chops for
supper at the staggering cost of $1.59 for both. I stopped at a vegetable market on my way
home where I picked up fruit and veggies for the week at a cost of $2.90. 4 huge lemons were $.59 for all of them. They are fresh off of the trees so some of
them are still green. An avocado that
weighs over a pound was included. Very
few people here speak English, but we’ve been lucky several times when other
customers that do speak English overheard our struggles and came to help. The locals think that it’s all a wonderful
game and they laugh and laugh.
On
Friday night, we walked up the staircase to the hill behind us where we caught
a bus into downtown (el centro) -
$.25 each to go anywhere in the city. We
had supper in the restaurant where expats meet on Friday nights and met some
interesting people. Yesterday we decided
to try to get to the biggest mall in Cuenca
on the bus. We really had only a very
vague idea of where it was in terms of where we live, but hopped on one that
stopped around the corner. We had asked
the driver if it went to the Mall de Rio and he said yes, but when we got to
the end of the line, it turned out that he thought we wanted the Monay Mall. He gave us back our fare and showed us where
to catch the right bus and told us it was number 13. We hopped on, only to find out that we must
have misunderstood his directions (his English was limited) and we got on the
bus on the wrong side of the street so we went the wrong way. After a very scenic ride of some length, we
arrived at the wrong end of the number 13 route and had to get off, cross the
street and get back on a different bus going the other way. We had to wait while the driver got himself a
snack. We passed many restaurants that
were roasting whole pigs out on the street.
This is very common here. We
haven’t had a chance to eat at one of them yet, but we’re looking forward to
it. They just hack off a slab of meat
and you’re done. The restaurant at the
end of our street rotisseries whole chickens over an open fire on the street
and we want to try that as well. I’m
hoping that you can buy a whole one and bring it home like you do from
Safeway. Anyway, back to the bus
ride. We were on it for about an hour
and saw a great deal of the city that we hadn’t seen before. Such an adventure! We eventually arrived at the mall where Al
was able to get a printer/scanner and we took a cab home.
We
are finding that local things are very cheap, but things that need to be
imported are costly. Peanut butter is
pretty much unheard of and Kleenex costs the earth. They do have some things here that are way
better than we have and some things they are light years behind in. One thing I love (I think we should bring
this home and get rich) is the grocery store baskets that you normally carry on
your arm? They’ve put wheels on theirs
so that you still have a small basket rather than a large cart, but you pull it
like a carry on bag. Love it!
Peso
didn’t miss a beat, but Pancho had some altitude sickness and slept for the
first 3 days. He’s fine now. I thought that the cow lived in the yard
behind us, but she seems to be the neighbourhood lawn mower. The hill is very steep so the neighbours seem
to share the cow so that it can keep the grass short in everyone’s yard. She’s next door this week and who knows where
her work will take her after that. There
are cows in many of the yards here and we are right in the heart of the
city. I bought a fan which has been a
godsend for some “white noise” since the roosters crow constantly. My body seems to have settled in at 9.5 hours
of sleep a night plus a 1-1.5 hour nap after lunch. It’s about 28 degrees right now – gotta love
it!
Marianela
is coming to get us tomorrow morning.
She works for the rental agent and will help us get our utilities set up
and explain about how the garbage and hot water work here. We’re winging it for now! We have to find the Chamber of Commerce as
well to pick up our free tickets for the expat party on Thursday night. Sunday is a huge international food fest at
the mall near here.
The
water here is amazing – my hair loves it!
It’s excellent to drink as well and makes wonderful lemonade. We will be buying a washing machine next
week, so I don’t yet know how it will be with laundry, but it’s very clean with
no smell or taste at all.
Al
bought a new computer desk and chair today and spent the afternoon assembling
it. It will hold both our laptops and
the new printer as well as the external hard drive, etc.
Monday
Nov 7/11 by Al
Today,
we met up with the realtors Juan and Mariela for help with bank accounts,
etc. This did not go well as the fellow
Omar that we had made all the arrangements with at the Pinchacha Bank was on
holidays and nobody could reach him.
Without the bank account we couldn’t order our cable or internet or set
up our utilities accounts, so we went shopping for the balance of the big items
we needed.
We
stopped at a furniture place and bought a sectional. It is important that gringos bargain with
the sellers, it is expected. They
wanted $880 for the couch. We offered
$700 if they cleaned and delivered it with a small coffee table. We sawed off at $760 and they delivered it
all with 4 throw pillows too. We are all
happy to have some place to sit downstairs other than the kitchen chairs.
Then
we hit the Monay Mall again to bargain on a microwave, washing machine, vacuum
and a TV. We got everything at the Coral
store except the TV, they were $100 higher than a store one floor down. The TV we got is a Panda brand, Chinese
made, HD, HDMI, Computer port, Blu-Ray and all capable. We could spot the Panda
TV’s a mile away as the color and clarity put everything else to shame, even
Sony and Panasonic. We brought the TV
home and will go get the balance on Wednesday.
The
owner of the house, or her sister, is to stop in to see us tonight or tomorrow
and give us keys to the office part of our house. It is a strange gated little room off by
itself to the side that has no amenities except a plug-in.
We
were having supper and heard Peso meowing loudly so I started up the stairs to
see what was wrong when I realized his meows weren’t coming from upstairs… I opened the front door and in he ran! The little devil squeezed through a 3-inch
open window and jumped down. It is
raining today so that probably helped his decision to come immediately back
inside.
We
just got a call from Marienela that Omar from the bank said we only need a
couple of documents that we already have in our possession as well as a
reference letter from a Cuenca
resident. Juan will take care of that
for us. Apparently we have an
appointment at the bank for 9:30
tomorrow.
Things
are slowly falling into place in less than a week and our new home now looks
like a home with the addition of the furniture.
Bella
is sending me to the internet café on my own so I’ll wrap this up for today.
Just
heard of a relative passing away and a friend on his deathbed. If that isn’t a reminder to live life when
you can, I don’t know what is….
Hugs
to all.
Tuesday
Nov 8 by Al
Another
interesting day in Ecuador! Marienela, our realtor’s assistant, was
supposed to pick us up for our appointment with the Pinchincha Bank at
10;00. She calls us at 9:30 to catch a cab which is no big deal as
there are hundreds of cabs and it is only $2 to reach downtown.
We
had already begun the process to open a local bank account months ago through
one of their English-speaking advisors, Omar Bermeo Bravo, and met with his
assistant Diana today. We no sooner got
started that their computer system quit so it was decided that Marienela would
go back to work and we would wander around downtown near Parc Calderon and
await Diana’s call if the computers booted up again.
Bella
got a Panama Hat at the Panama Hat Museum where they make the hats. Thank you Brenda. It was quite a sight to see the antiquated,
but effective, methods they have for making these hats.
I
took a few pictures of the area and its beautiful people. We picked up a few odds and sods for the
kitchen as well as 3 pairs of pants for $15 for Bella and a slip for $5.
We
had lunch in a very busy restaurant. It
consisted of potato-spinach soup, sprouted corn, rice, pepper steak, papaya
juice, and a round doughnut soaking in honey.
The bill for both of us was $4.
The
sky was threatening so we decided to walk down to the bank again but Diana
indicated it was no better, the computer was still down. 10 minutes later and the computer sprang to
life so we were finally able to open an account in my name. The computer rejected Bella’s passport (a
common occurrence with Canadian passports according to Diana) and that would
take two days to correct.
Then
we hopped a cab to the realtor’s office so Juan could introduce us to the
owner’s sister and sign a rental contract for 6 months. The owner lives in Spain
and we found out they would be interested in selling the property for $80,000,
negotiable. We tried not to show any
emotion on that but we are quite excited at that possibility as we sure like
the amenities and the people in this area.
Something to think about…. This
lady is to come to the house tomorrow at 11:00
to give us the keys to the Office section and measure it for drapes.
Then
Marienela took us to the place to arrange for our cable TV and Internet. Hopefully this will be done Friday as
promised so we can attend to the many things we do on the Internet and have
some entertainment other than the radio.
Then we will also be able to Skype with a few of you.
We
then went to a local pizzeria for supper.
We ordered a medium pizza (the size of an extra-large at home) for
$10.99, a large beer for $1.25 and a Fanta for $0.75. We ended up bringing most of the pizza
home. We can warm it up after we get
the microwave delivered tomorrow along with the vacuum cleaner and the washing
machine.
Then
we popped in to the Internet Café again to catch up a little and I called my
Mom and was pleased to hear that all is well with her and Lucien. The total bill was $1.76.
We
have just been passed the news of the passing of our friend, Jack Rankin. He is only 10 years older than us so this is
a very sobering event. Our sincere
condolences to Bea and Leah.
Again,
to the rest of us, LIVE LIFE and do those things you always wanted to do.
Hugs,
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wednesday
Nov 9 by Al
Bella
is sleeping like a log, up to 12 hours, and I seem to be losing an hour’s sleep
every day. Oh well we are averaging
out… We are very happy to be retired and
masters of our own time.
This
morning I was up early to clean house as the owner’s sister was dropping by
with the balance of the keys for the office (3), bedrooms (3), back door and
terrace door. That makes 11 separate
keys for this place! I was prepared with
my questions all translated so we got along just fine. We measured the patio doors in the office so
she could get some promised curtains made for privacy in that room. I then cleaned up the office then the
backyard patio.
Bella
was off to arrange for the delivery of the washing machine, microwave and
vacuum cleaner. We needed the keys from
the landlady for the office so we could bring in the washing machine through
there as the back door is much too narrow.
On arrival I got all three items set up and we put all of them to use
immediately. This isn’t necessarily easy
when all the instructions are in Spanish!
The
washing machine works but the water tap pressure is so pitiful that it doesn’t
seem to kick on the hot water on demand as it should. It takes forever to fill and has a much
different agitator than we are accustomed to, but it did wash the load of
clothes even if it took a while. We’ll get
it figured out eventually. The washing
is all done outside here with the washing machine hookups on an outside patio
along with rudimentary clotheslines for hanging the clothes. Almost nobody has a dryer unless they are in
a high-rise condo.
Soon
we will take a walk to the internet café, get some keys cut for Bella, and pick
up some plastic pipe to use as window stoppers so we can open the windows a
smidgen without fear of the boys escaping.
Tomorrow
will be a slow day until we go to a festival being put on by the Cuenca Chamber
Of Commerce for all expats. This will
be a great opportunity to make some connections with other expats even though
we are quite comfortable to be integrated completely with the locals. We have run across expats on the street, at
restaurants, at the realtor’s office, and at the Bank, from Alaska
to Tennessee, with several from Canada
as previously mentioned.
Friday
we are hoping to be getting the office curtains and the promised Internet and
TV hookups. Then we will probably go to
the Eucalyptus Café to meet expats, unless we hear on Thursday they have a
better meeting place.
We
will be so happy to get hooked up to the Internet as we feel disconnected from
the world without it.
Thursday
Nov 10/11 by Al
Surprise,
surprise, no water today. The neighbor, Santiago,
says they are digging up pipes in the area.
Boy, you don’t realize how many things you need water for… washing yourself, showers, shaving, flushing
toilets, washing clothes, preparing meals, cleaning, drinking, etc., etc. We hope that it corrects itself soon! We put everything that would hold water out
onto the back patio to collect any rain water today (not much gathered).
Bella
went for a haircut and a pedicure with painted toes, total cost $10 (at home
$75?). They had no water either and had
to borrow some water from a neighboring business to do the pedicure.
Our
landlady’s sister called that she was coming in 30 minutes with the drapes for
the office. She arrived with a workman
who was very efficient except he mismeasured and cut the drapery rod a foot too
short. It didn’t need cutting at
all. We managed to connect the pieces
back together and get it installed.
Those drapes will remain closed 99% of the time anyway.
We
cabbed our way for 7:00pm for the first annual “Expat Day” put on by the
Chamber Of Commerce which included a few short speeches, a seven-piece band
called Yanamanka, a dance troupe from a local Polytechnic school, a light
lunch, sugar-cane liquor shots, and fireworks.
They were really pushing everyone to become members of “Cuenca For
Expats” which costs about $100 per year and gets you a minor discount on some
excursions they coordinate. Bella
doesn’t think it is good value.
The
band had an interesting assortment of instruments including flute, pan flute,
mandolin, bass drum, etc. The young
dancers put on a great show in traditional costume. Al took a few videos of these festivities
which we will share later when we have Internet. We danced in a “best dancer” contest and won
a CD of the band.
The
fireworks began with a couple of unmanned paper air balloons being sent
aloft. They warm the air inside them
then light a wick at the base to provide its own heat as it flies up into the
heavens. We were all amazed at the heights
they attained, continuing up until they looked like two more stars in the
heavens. We met a couple of couples
whose blogs we had scoured in preparation for our trip. They were very nice people and the
information they had provided us was invaluable. We will meet them all again on Sunday at an
International Food Festival at the Mall De Rio (think of a small West Edmonton
Mall). They informed us of the two
restaurants now frequented by the expats on Friday night. Apparently most have supper at Zoe’s then get
to the California Kitchen for 7:00. I assume we will be trying this. Maybe we will find the place where we need to
pay our utility bills on the way.
About
11:00pm Bella discovered we had water
again even though the pressure was really low.
Hugs
to all.
Friday
Nov 11/11 by Al
Oh,
oh! I was up at 5:00am hoping to have a much-needed shower but not a drop
of water is coming from the taps again.
We hope this doesn’t last long as we have limited dishes. I never thought I would be praying for a good
rainstorm but we really need the water.
I think we should invest in a rain barrel.
8:00am
and we have water! I am rushing to do
dishes, have a shower, wash clothes, and poured a basin of water on the side
just in case. I haven’t got the hang of
the hot-water-on-demand yet. It seems
to work OK at the taps that have a bit more pressure, like the kitchen sink but
not well anywhere else. Even the
washing machine which sits right next to it doesn’t have enough pressure in the
lines to kick it into action.
Surprise! The cable/internet guys showed up around 9:00, couldn’t find our house at first, so they
came in to look. Then they said, because
we are the back house of a triplex, we need a signed permission from the other
two neighbors to run a line over the roof.
They weren’t home so we are still without our own internet or TV. Who knows when we can reschedule now…
Our
clothes washer seems to do a great job and really spins the clothes quite
dry. Then the trick is to dry them in
the sun before the afternoon rain.
Bella
went shopping and came home with a box of Sudafed for $2.79. That probably costs about $12,00 at home.
Signing
off for today to go to the Internet Café.
Friday,
Nov 11/11 continued by Bella
Today
was a gorgeous morning so I walked to the Superstore about 6 blocks from
here. I only buy a few things at a time
because we have to carry everything.
There are at least 6 beauty parlors within a 3 block radius of
here. As Al said, I had the $4 pedicure
yesterday which included hand painted nail art and the shampoo, hair cut, blow
dry and style was $6. A full set of hand
painted finger nails is $1 for even the fanciest art. There were 2 women there
having their hair colored and the restaurant next door delivered the usual $2
lunch. This $2 meal consists of soup,
some kind of freshly squeezed juice, a meal with meat, fish or chicken plus
rice and vegetable and a desert. Gotta
love this place! There are 5 or 6
bakeries within 3 blocks and I made the huge mistake of trying one of their
chocolate covered doughnuts. Sooooo
yummy and a whopping $.25 each. There
are also 2 vegetable markets and 4 or 5 butcher shops and 20 or so restaurants
very close. About 2 blocks down is an
Italian deli. They sell meat of all
kinds plus deli meats and sausages. At
the grocery store, the meat is packaged, but they don’t seem to have cuts of
beef. They just have a huge chunk of
beef sitting there and they hack off as big a piece as you want. On the package, steak translates literally to
“blackish pulp”. I sincerely hope that
these words mean something closer to red meat in Spanish!! A piece of frying steak that was too big for
the 2 of us to eat for supper was $2.16.
For some reason chicken is the most expensive meat here. I bought a lovely ripe mango today for $.23.
We
wimped out on going downtown to schmooze with the expats at Zoey’s or the
California Kitchen.
We
went across the street for supper tonight.
I told you about the restaurant that BBQ’s their chickens over an open
wood fire? We went in and they brought
out chairs for us to sit and visit before our supper was ready. The wife, Carmelita, went upstairs to get her
husband Segundo because he speaks a little English. He told us that they recognized us from the
party last week where we were dancing.
One thing led to another and he told us that they have 7 daughters – one
of whom would like to marry Greg and move to Canada. He is going to university to become a teacher
and one of his daughters is also going to university and would like to learn to
speak English. He asked us to come visit
everyday and I told him that I was an English teacher. He asked me if he could hire me for half an
hour every evening so I have my first job!
It may be just for food, but he knows lots of locals so it may lead to
other paying jobs. I think it will also
help to establish us as okay gringos to have in the neighbourhood. Last night we met Fernanda. She lives alone with her 10 year old daughter
and rents out a room in her home as a B&B.
She’s Ecuadorian, but lived in Florida
for 30 years so she may turn out to be a very helpful friend.
Pancho
isn’t feeling all that well and I have a bit of a cold. I’m sure it will take us a while to adjust to
the altitude. I ordered 2 gallons of
homemade ice cream today. It’s $4 per
gallon delivered to the door!! Can’t
wait to try it.
--------------------
Saturday
Nov 12/11 by Al
The
ice cream arrived at noon. We suppose the person who posted the note
about the ice cream on the GringoTree site had no idea of volume. The ice cream is super-delicious but they
came in quarts, not gallons.
Our
neighbor, Santiago, pointed out
that the internet and cable is underground right up to a hatch below our TV
window. I got him to sign the
permission slip anyway, just in case the installers won’t return without them. I need to talk to the owner of the front unit
yet and they seem to be gone for the weekend.
I
dug out my big camera finally and took some shots of our neighbors of the
livestock kind, noisy roosters and the lawn-mowing steer from my bedroom
window.
It
rained all afternoon so that negated the walk we were going to do
together. Bella went to the Italian
butcher shop after lunch and got enough meat for the week for under $10. We slept away the afternoon, it is so tough
being retired. I slipped out after
supper to the Coral Centre (their version of a Wal-Mart) with my walking stick
and picked up some tools, raincoat, safety glasses, gloves, TV cable, and
office supplies under $16. Our TV picked
up about five Spanish channels just by adding the cable cord.
On
the way home there was a competitive team soccer game going on a block away so
I went back to join the crowd and took a few shots. It is rough playing on a small concrete
surface so I think they were only playing six per side until the referee handed
out a couple of ejections. I think the
visiting team in red and black were the only ones scoring as only about 20% of
the crowd were cheering for the goals.
There was a minor melee in the crowd after the ejections, well away from
me, thank God. I hope you enjoy the few
photos I pass along. It gives me
something to do.
--------------------------
Sunday
Nov. 13/11 by Al
We
got up early and tried one of those variety packs of cereal to see if we would
like them, different name but same a Kellogg’s.
What is wonderful is their creamy milk!
Today
was International Food Fair day at the Mall De Rio with proceeds going to
cancer research. We had a US
meal of ribs that was outstanding followed by pecan pie. What a treat. Then we went into the huge Coral store and
bought an oscillating heater as it does get somewhat cool as we are mostly
protected from the daily sun. We had
walked leisurely most of the way, past downtown, so we could drink in the
beauty and see more of the interesting places at a slower pace before hailing a
cab to the Mall.
We
chanced taking a bus back, fearing we would get the same extended ride we got
the other day. As soon as it hit our
main road we got off and walked the 10 blocks or so back to the house. We met lots of gringos at the Food Fair and
more on the bus and some of them will be valuable contacts.
We
want to get to the internet café so we can make a call for Mike & Kim’s
Anniversary. We will be SO happy when
our TV and Internet gets hooked up!
Sitting
here at the Internet café a lady just came up and asked if we knew anyone who
would like to rent two rooms with her and her family and she would even cook
for you. She said she wants “people
just like us”! She only lives a block
the other direction. It is amazing how
the people have adopted us here. On our
walk here a family of four honked and they all waved as they drove by us. Gosh we love the Cuencanos.
Huge
hugs to everyone..
Monday
Nov. 14/11 by Al
2:30am
and I am wide awake. That’s what I get for going to bed before 9:00 after reading one of Bella’s short
eBooks. We tried the heater last night and it doesn’t
work at all. It looks like we got a defective repack as it was already
dented on the front and the buttons were loose. It does not appear that
the Coral stores are interlinked in their system so I fear I may have to return
this back to Mall De Rio instead of the closer Monay Mall. That
will have to wait until Tuesday for sure as today has many things on the agenda
already.
9:30am we went to pay our water and electricity
bills at an office nearby and kept walking again downtown past many churches we
hadn’t seen up close before. We ran into one of the expats we had met
yesterday near the San Blas church and she pointed out the best ice-cream shop
in Cuenca called MIXX which is in
the square there.
Then
it was off to the Pinchincha Bank to get our bank cards. Bella wanted me
to take a picture of the various lineups at the bank. They have some
normal-style teller stations but also sit-down tellers for more complicated
transactions. Nothing gets done very quickly.
Following
that we met a couple from Edmonton
at the new Cathedral and went for lunch nearby. The Bogart’s have only
been here 6 weeks and actually live near our department stores, easy walking
distance. We may get together on the weekend to play cards.
We
did some shopping in between, and after, and found a make-up mirror, socks,
sweatpants, hankies, warm blanket and discovered 2 more huge mercados.
Boy, nobody could ever go hungry here. We bought a bag of shelled
peas just to munch while walking for $1. So far we have only eaten ½ of
it. We also saw a lot of places to visit another time for stuff we will
need. We would never see all these places if we were driving. We
caught the $.25 bus home. They have bus routes but no timed
schedules per se, and yet most of the drivers are in such a hurry, almost
slamming on the brakes at the bus stops. There would be bedlam if their
brakes ever failed. The cobblestone streets downtown sure let you know
where your rattles are…
Eureka,
we also found some cat food without any chicken byproducts for Pancho.
Both cats attacked it and it seems to have eased poor Pancho’s stomach
problem. Pancho’s dry skin and eyes have almost cleared up too. The
moist air and clean soft water is a godsend for our skin and hair as well.
We
had hoped they would come and install our TV and Internet this afternoon but
they called and are coming tomorrow morning. I got both neighbors to sign
the permission slip to run the cable over the roofs, just in case, but
apparently the cable is already underground right under our living room window
so we shouldn’t need it..
Bella
did her first teaching job tonight and had a lesson plan worked out. She
kept the lesson to an hour for Segundo and one daughter Monica
only. There should be at least three of them for the lesson
tomorrow night. While waiting, I took a shot of a Sacred Heart photograph
they had on display because of the significance of the light ray to the country
of Ecuador.
I thought it was neat once I grasped the meaning.
For
tonight… We hope to be sending this ourselves tomorrow with our own
internet connection… HOORAY.
Hugs,
=======
Tuesday
November 15 by Al
I
have discovered a new way to create rain, other than washing my car, which
never fails. All I have to do is to wash a load of clothes and hang
them to dry (hardly anybody uses dryers). I guess I have to plan ahead at
least 24 hours because it takes that long to get dry clothes.
Well
we waited until past noon for the
cable/internet guys to show up. I showed them the “manhole” where
the neighbor said the cable connections were but they said that system was no
good and has problems. They said they had to go over the roof
but couldn’t do it. I showed them the permissions from the
neighbors and had a long talk with someone in their office that spoke very poor
English, but better than my Spanish. I said it was the second time
they had come and I wanted it hooked up NOW as we have a business to run.
The next thing I know the two guys are unloading cable and ladders and bringing
in the cable box and the modem. The one guy must be part mountain goat to
go up on the steep concrete tiled roof. We must have fed him 300
feet of cable then he threw a bunch over the front place and I helped the
second guy with the ladder to make the connection to a post across the street,
then tie it to a pole at the corner of our property. Then it was
back to our sidewall where they punched a hole in the wall near our picture
window with a small screwdriver to run the cable through. Then they
came in to make all the inside connections and hookups. It turns out the
second guy could speak passable English so I don’t know why he didn’t help out
in the initial negotiations. Anyway, we are thrilled to be
connected with the world again. We will be trying out our Skype
connection soon as it seems our NetTalk investment was a waste of money.
If that ever changes we will let you know.
Happy
days are here again….
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wednesday
Nov 16 by Al
I
decided not to give up on Nettalk and managed to set up an interactive session
to see if we could get this darn machine to work so we can make regular calls
home. This is the third time we have
spent hours trying to get this thing to work since the techies got a hold of
it. I had one working at home, no problem,
when we first got it. Now these guys are
messing with our router settings, firewalls and BS and have it so that neither
of the two Nettalk devices will work.
They declared the one Bella had for home a dud. So we were forced to bring the one that was
destined for her office. Her office
techie spent more than 10 hours on the phone with Nettalk with no success. I tried for four hours before we left and
same result. Their end says it should
work, but it doesn’t. Today was another
3 hours but this time our connection got buggered that we lost our internet
connection so I have no way to get the instructions from the email, contact
them, etc. I give up. Nettalk is CRAP and I will tell anyone who
will listen!
We
went to return our $54 heater to the Coral store at Mall De Rio. The cab ride way across town, 20 minutes was
$2.50 each way. Initially they misread
our bill and thought we bought it in July and were trying to return it, no
wonder they were giving us funny looks!
We showed them that it was only Domingo (Sunday) that we bought it and
they were much more amenable. We
decided on a simple heater and made sure it works. They were selling it for $42 but gave us a
discount to $24 because it was a floor model that had a plastic corner with a
chip out of it. We did some grocery
shopping and headed home as Bella has to teach English tonight at 7:00.
We
called Juan and Marienela for help in finding a computer expert to solve our
dilemma, and preferably one that will understand our English computer and
language. They will see if the TV/Cable
folks have someone….
After
supper I decided to give it another shot and I actually reconfigured the router
myself. I contacted Nettalk and they
suggested amending the DNS so maybe the Nettalk would work. I took the bull by the horns and did it and
rebooted the router, in spite of warnings that I could lose my Internet
again. Well, I did not lose the Internet
but the NetTalk still doesn’t work for more than 5 seconds. Since we are not into speed-dialing and
speed-talking I guess this NetTalk experiment is a complete bust. NetTalk sucks,… tell everyone.
We
are watching HBO and having popcorn tonight.
Hugs
to all.
Thursday
Nov 17/11 by Al
Bella
went out to the book exchange which is only run on Thursdays from 8-12 or
something and did some shopping and discovered yet another Mercado. We will never be hungry here. Then she got us each a bus card loaded with
$10 each. We only have to pass it over a
Reader when we get on the bus and it deducts 25c so we are good for 40 rides
each before we reload the card. It is
not a monthly pass for unlimited rides like home but it is infinitely cheaper
in the long run.
I
fought with my computer most of the day trying to get my wireless printer to
work wirelessly to no avail. Wired it
will stay. We also got to talk with
several people on Skype today, what a great tool. My computer doesn’t have a camera but Bella’s
does. Nobody wants to see my balding
head anyway, which reminds me, I need a haircut pretty badly.
I
sent a note to NetTalk as they hadn’t responded all day asking if they had
given up again and if our $170 was for 2 duds with no usable warranty and no
service… NetTalk sucks.
Bella
has had the sniffles for a couple of days and did her English teaching chores
in the evening. When she returned home
she got violently ill for a while but seemed to have recovered somewhat
although she then had the chills. For
someone who is always hot, that is not a good sign.
Enough
for tonight.
Friday
Nov 18/11 by Al
I
was awake really early again, worrying about Bella, then she was up and around
for a few moments so I just got up around 4am. I hate tossing and turning as it is not
productive time.
I
received an email from NetTalk saying they want to mail us a new “Duo”. I’ll have to talk to Bella about how we are
going to set up some form of mail service as there really is no home delivery
and most places have no addresses. We
just made up one for our place based on one from across the street. We could either get a box number at a post
office or find out more about some expat service that uses a Miami
address and then forwards stuff to Cuenca. We are told it works better that way…
I
slipped out for a haircut to the same place Bella used. This little indigenous gal spent a half hour
and did a fabulous job. I splurged and
went for my first manicure, another half hour of work for her. The total bill was $5 !
REMINDER
I uploaded videos to YouTube yesterday.
If you check this first video you should be able to click easily to see the
videos I have uploaded under the handle "alabca".
http://youtu.be/a5gXn47IgtI
Hugs to all.
Nov
19/11 by Al
Bella
has been under the weather the last couple of days so we hadn’t strayed too
far. Today we went to the Coral store
and did a little more shopping. It is
really an easy walk there but we had to cab back because some of our supplies
were a little heavy.
I’m
enclosing a couple of photos of booze right on the grocery shelves and the
pricing… and these are not mickeys! I’m
also enclosing a shot of a building under construction so you can see the
concrete and brickwork.
After
that I did a little walkabout with my camera.
I walked to the other end of Paseo De Los Caneris because Bella wanted a
takeout menu from a pizza joint down there.
Back in our neighborhood, I wandered south of Caneris on a discovery
tour and found religion. Besides the
church on the hill behind us, there is this beautiful church about four blocks
below us.
Then
I stopped at Segundo’s place for the promised chicken for payment for the
English lessons. Well, we not only got
this huge chicken, they sent me back with chicken soup, spices, corn, potatoes,
rice, and more. What an awesome
family. I managed to corral three of
his daughters for pictures, Marta is the oldest at 31, Carmen is 28, and Monica
is the youngest at 18. We are still not
sure if it is Carmen or Marta that is looking for Canadian husband. Greg??
Any other takers??
Next
door there was an electrician’s repair shop and he spoke good English. I told him that Bella had a brand new
juicer, but no juice, electrical that is.
It is brand new and nothing we can do will generate a peep out of it. He said to bring it in on Monday at 8am.
Bella doesn’t do mornings any more so I guess I will be delivering it.
There
are also a few shots of some of the local colour on the street, the indigenous
population inevitably carrying a load, a coal seller on the corner, people
roasting whole huge pigs, a local rooster, and Marta roasting the chickens. We really need to get those gals an electric
spit!
In
the photo of Marta roasting the chickens, you will see a yellow building at the
end of the street. Our place is a short
block left of there, and the same type of building.
Oh,
and I took a shot of about 1/3 of the 12 de Avril Mercado yesterday to give you
an idea of the size and colour of the place.
Only about 1/4 the tables were in operation on a Friday. I believe Tuesdays and Saturdays are their
big selling days when all the fresh fish, meat and produce comes in. This Mercado is only about 12 blocks away.
Anyway,
that is it for today. Hugs to all.
========================
Sunday
Nov 20/11 update by Al
Bella
was taking a day off to just relax in her nightie so I went walkabout with my
new LowePro SlingBag Camera backpack that McFarlane Agencies had given me at my
retirement dinner. It was my first
opportunity to try it out ad did it ever work out well.
I
knew we were very close to the airport and I needed to find the Kywi store
somewhere near there. It is their
version of a Canadian Tire and a pretty good place to shop. I had been hunting for a faucet sprayer since
we moved in and that usually got blank stares at most hardware stores. Well, they had not only one, but two
different kinds, so I bought them both.
I had walked to the southwest end of the airport and then up the other
side of it. I found the main bus
terminal for all inter-city buses and the provincial police office which is a
block from the Kywi.
I
wandered through a nearly deserted airport trying to find brochures for trips
to the Galapagos. I should have tried
that at the bus station, but it was a beehive of activity.
I
started walking back and decided to hop a $0.25 bus to give my legs a rest and
went downtown. I was unfamiliar with
the route so I just asked the driver if he went to El
Centro. I
didn’t recognize the street he was on so when I thought he had gone far enough
I got off at a park on Carlos Crespi near a church called Maria
Auxiliadora. I thought it was a different
square that was actually about 5 blocks away so I was a little lost for a
bit. In researching to name the photos,
I came across the attached site:
http://chapmanresearch.org/PDF/Crespi%20Ancient%20Artifact%20Collection%20of%20Cuenca%20%20Ecuador.pdf which is immensely interesting reading!
I
just started church hopping and heading south and east until I got my
bearings. I hadn’t eaten yet so I
stopped at a Chicago Pizza for a big slice of pizza and a coke for $1.95 for
lunch. I finally got to the main
cathedral Santa Ana at Parque
Calderon and wandered for a bit. I
could spend entire days there just enjoying the sun and the trees and the
people.
By
now my legs are feeling like lead and I am making my way east past San Blas
church and jumped the #3 bus home. It
was only a few blocks but my legs thanked me.
Bella was asleep when I returned so I crashed and burned too.
We
enjoyed a huge leftover supper of soup and chicken and rice, etc. We have at least another meal to go from
that package.
I hope you enjoy the photos from today’s
jaunt.
Monday
Nov 21/11 by Al
Bear
with us. The laptop and the internet are
acting very weird tonight.
Another
glorious morning and a temperature near 30 today for sure. I will be as dark as the native Ecuadorians
in no time at all.
I
was up early to take Bella’s juicer in for repairs. I figured she would sleep in so I jumped a
bus downtown and arrived just as most stores and the mercados were
opening. I was so tempted to buy a
leather Australian-style hat at this leather shop for a whopping $18 but I
resisted. They don’t crumple and go in
the pocket like my Tilley.
Something
on a sign about laser and papeleria caught my eye so I went in and they had
almost all of my office shopping list.
I got 5 blank DVD’s, 10 Glossy papers for 8x10 photos and 10 for 4x6
photos, a tape dispenser and tape, fridge magnets, 10 pages of business card
stock, and a pack of stickies, all for $17.60.
Then I got a cashmere pullover for the cool nights for $20 and a pair of
warm slippers for $8. After picking up
some plastic food containers I walked home.
On the way I spotted a lovely all-wood patio set with gliding loveseat,
two chairs and a table for $350. So
tempting…..
A
little further along I saw the street being dug up by hand. This is very common here, very few machines
to help out and it keeps people employed.
Bella
said she was up at 9am with the thought
of busing out to a suburb called Banos to try to find a house that was for sale
there. So we phoned the realtor who
gave us very sketchy area details and off we went again. We caught the #3 from home to the main city
Mercado and switched to the #11 to Banos.
Spotted from the bus were 6’ x 2’ slabs of granite for $41.50. What would they cost at home?? We got off the bus and started walking,
uphill, for miles, until we got near their reputed hot springs and kept on up
to the church that overlooks the town.
There was a funeral procession that followed us up the hill to the
church. We walked most of the way down
again and could not spot this house.
Banos is a picturesque spot but the lack of amenities will put it low on
our list of choices. We caught the #11
bus back. It was so nice to sit down
after walking about 10 miles today. At
the main Mercado we again switched to the #3, going the wrong direction and
ended up having a one hour ride to the Cajas mountains to the northwest. We had to pay 25c again to come back again
but it was another adventure to an area we hadn’t been, The mountains are truly
beautiful and as green as can be.
We
got back too late to pick up the juicer so we had a quick supper and I joined
in the English lesson with Segundo. He
needed help with some homework phrases he needed for his university classes so
we worked on that. We picked up a
chocolate-covered donut for Bella and a beer for me and headed back to our new
home.
We
finally figured out the daughter who wants to go to Canada
is Carmelita, named after her mother.
With any luck, a photo will accompany this blog. Any takers?? Greg??
She really is a very pretty and shy young lady.
Bella’s
Mom is now hooked up on Skype so we gave it a quick trial run tonight despite
internet warnings that they were having problems. Hopefully it will be better next time.
I’m exhausted. Hugs to all.
Tuesday
Nov 22/11 by Al
We
never did anything exciting today, sorry to say. I did walk to Coral and get some utensils and
an LED lamp for near the laptop. Bella
purchased some fruit nearby and I tried their apples which were delicious. We picked up a couple of pork chops at the
Italian deli for supper and Bella made homemade apple sauce. Totally yummy. We sure do enjoy the movie choices on HBO
and our cable network. In our movie
guide, if the title is in English, then the movie is in Spanish, and
vice-versa. Very strange.
Wednesday
Nov 23/11 by Al
I
got up early, determined to make some new business cards. Four hours of total frustration later and
much wasted paper and ink I was so fed up with it I just gave up. No matter what I tried, the printed
misaligns the printing. I did the
printer alignment sequence for both A4 paper, which is longer and narrower, and
our usual 8.5” x 11”, which is what the business card paper is. I never, ever, had this problem before. When I try to fool it by trimming the paper
it decides to give a different border size on its own. I swear it is possessed.
Bella
finally got her letter from CPP with the amount she will be receiving. We have forwarded this to our immigration
lawyer in Quito in the hopes that
will push our application through. We
are getting very frustrated with the BS and the fact the new Minister has
ignored all the older applications.
We
decided to try to take our #3 bus to the end of the line to the east just to
see what is out there. There sure are
some lovely subdivisions that direction but tighter quarters than at home
because the houses all share common walls.
Also the amenities diminished drastically once we went past our Monay
Mall with the Coral store. The end of
the line wasn’t very far away at all so we just stayed on while it turned
around and we took it to El Centro
for an ice cream at MIXX, the place everyone was raving about. I had a cinnamon bun flavor and thought it
was good, but not outstanding. Bella
enjoyed her brownie flavor. We tried
to find the place with the wood patio set but I had forgotten the street it was
on. It was threatening and spitting
rain so we caught the bus home again.
Bella
made bannock and homemade baked beans for supper. She is a good cook. More movies to watch tonight. I fell asleep within one hour watching
Avatar.
Thursday
Nov 24/11 by Al
We
first went to the Banco Pinchincha to get our internet banking card activated
and to get Bella’s name on our account.
It appears we have to return again to complete the latter.
I
guess we found another thing that makes it rain,… a trip to the bank… it seems to work every time.
So,
umbrellas up, we went to find the furniture store with that beautiful wooden
patio set, 2 person glider, 3 chairs and a center table for $350. I think Bella was impressed but the timing is
wrong right now.
This
furniture place is a block from San Blas church so I managed to get a shot of
the interior, then we went to MIXX for brownie ice cream cones. We were killing time because we were too
early to arrive at 6:00 for Joe’s Secret
Garden’s Thanksgiving feast.
We
caught a cab and arrived as the previous seating was clearing out. They had 3 seatings for Thanksgiving dinner
and what a feast! Hot buns, moist
turkey, dressing, cabbage, cranberry jelly, mashed potatoes, ambrosia, and Nassau
sweet potatoes (the best I have ever tasted, with walnuts). I even had a side dish of beef that is the
favorite of one of the chefs. Then
chocolate mousse, pumpkin pie and pecan pie for dessert. Yes, everyone got all three!
The
home where they do this has an amazingly eclectic décor and fabulous yard with
one of the most beautiful palm trees we had ever seen. They make these meals quite regularly and
have quite a following built up.
We
met people from Ecuador,
England, Tennessee,
California and Florida
and had a great time swapping stories.
Some of them were still scouting for retirement spots but a couple had
moved there just like us. Five of them
were sympathetic to a relative’s involvement with Mouvember, a charity
fundraiser where they all grow moustaches for the month of November and get pledges. Dan, from Florida,
had made moustaches out of electrical tape for his group and I took the
photos. We will likely go back there
again.
Tomorrow
will be occupied with shopping, then cleaning house, as we are having the
couple from Edmonton over for
supper and to play cards.
Friday
Nov 25/11 by Al
A
deliberately slow day today as I have picked up the cold where Bella left
off. We did wander to a pharmacy for
vitamins and then to Coral for groceries.
Bella got a Cadillac rice cooker so we had rice and sweet & sour
ribs for supper. Yummy stuff.
We
are getting more people to try Skype as it is a wonderful free alternative to
phoning. Even Bella’s Mom is hooked up
now. Bella’s laptop has a camera (Skype
name bbourassa50) but mine doesn’t (Skype name albellaecuador). Everything works well when things are hooked
up properly, especially when my microphone is plugged in the right spot.
It
appears we have to start our residency permits all over again on an investment
basis. We have never been given a
reason why our application hasn’t been approved on the pension basis. I sure would like an outright rejection
before starting all over again. There
may be another wrinkle we weren’t aware of regarding how long we can be out of
the country in the first two years.
Hopefully Bella will get this sorted out shortly.
Bella
has been teaching English steadily to Segundo and his family and helping him
with his university homework.
Gotta
clean house for company tomorrow. Until
now we have been on the messy side until we decide where we want to park
things.
Enough
for today. Hugs to all.
Saturday
Nov 26/11 by Al
My
cold has me moving pretty slow and my left eye looks and feels like I have been
stabbed with an ice pick. Bella
volunteered me to take pictures of food dishes for Segundo’s restaurant to make
up a Gringo menu so we went before noon
but Segundo wasn’t there so we left. I
just took a picture of his restaurant sign for use on the menu if they
want. I cleaned it up late at night and
made up a sample beverage menu.
We
cleaned house for our company coming before going to Segundo’s and I continued
on to get both cartridges for my color printer.
Boy, is there ever a variance in price on those from store to store, as
much as $9.
After
lunch Bella gave me some drugs she hoped would knock me out so I could get some
sleep. I got some rest in the afternoon
but sleep is a rare commodity the last 3 days.
Garth
and Orilla, originally from Edmonton,
came over for supper which was a Segundo chicken, asparagus, creamed corn and
mashed potatoes, topped off with some decadent brownies for dessert. Bella got rave reviews for the meal which had
very few leftovers.
Our
only hitch came when we found we had nothing to open a bottle of wine so I
managed to yank out the cork with a steak knife. I forget who showed me that trick.
Then
we played our new rummy “sticks’ game with four decks of cards and popsickle
sticks marked with each person’s requirements.
For a retired United Church
preacher, Garth was really delighting in whooping our butts. A good time was had by all.
Sunday
Nov 27/11 by Al
My
cold is lessening but the lack of sleep is taking its toll, maybe six hours
over 3 days. My eyes look like I am
bleeding to death. Bella has given me
some antibiotic drops and that has helped.
Bella
did a couple of loads of laundry early so they would have a chance to dry
before the afternoon sprinkle. We passed
the main cemetery and, being a Sunday, here were all kinds of flower vendors
plying their wares outside the gates for all those people paying their
respects. The live bouquets were
amazing.
We
went by an office building that had a bunch of model ships gracing the second
floor windows. Somebody has a heckuva
hobby or is a collector.
We
walked past the airport and bus station to go to the Kywi store and the
attached shopping centre which includes a Super-Maxi which has way more grocery
selections, similar to home. We picked
up a wine bottle opener, a rolling pin, Pyrex pie plate and salt & pepper
shakers. It is funny how we miss all the
gadgets we had at home (and Bella is the Queen of kitchen gadgets).
We
stopped for a hot dog with chips and coke for $1.70. They put their version of hickory sticks in
the bottom of the bun, why???... then added onions, mustard, ketchup and
mayo. Frankly I didn’t like it
much. Even the chips seemed unsalted and
boring. Oh well, I was more after the
drink anyway. The shopping centre also
had a KFC that also served cheap ice cream but we are light on cash until
month-end so that will have to wait for another trip..
The
clouds behind us looked pretty threatening and we felt some early drops as we
were leaving so we grabbed a cab for $2 and got home in time to empty the
clotheslines before the rain started.
The afternoon rains clean and freshen everything.
THANK
YOU to my sister, Leonie, for enabling us to hook up on her iPhone on Skype
with my Mom. We did this with Bella’s
laptop because it has the camera. Mom
noticed my bad eyes right away, but her and Lucien and Leonie all looked
great. I guess Calgary
and south is having horrendous windstorms and they even have had an ongoing
power shortage at Bonavista Village. It is great to be able to talk to, and see,
both our mothers via Skype.
Our
cable connection comes with several music stations and I can’t move it off the
Jukebox Oldies. Listening to all these
oldies from the 50’s and 60’s bring back so many memories (and I know the words
to most of them). They even played
“Sittin In The Balcony” by Johnny Cochrane a few moments ago, one of my all
time funky favorites. Then it was
followed by “The Three Bells” by the Browns, then “Blue Bayou” by Roy
Orbison… I’m in heaven listening to
these.
Time for more rest before my eyes fall out
of their sockets. Hi to everyone from
Bella.
Monday
Nov 28/11 update by Al
I
am going to take a picture of my eyes then use the computer to remove the red
eye. That might work, do you think?
We
went to the main Coopera Credit Union to meet with the manager who speaks
excellent English, Having lived his first 18 years in New
York. We
opened an account as we intend to transfer our residency requirement there as
they pay in the area of 12% on their CD’s and this is acceptable to the
minister of immigration. They will even
pay us the interest monthly if that is our desire.
We
also signed up for the public health insurance for $4.72 a month for both of
us. We have the name of an
English-speaking doctor in San Joaquim, who we can contact after the first
withdrawal on or about December 5. We
understand that doctor or dentist visits are $2, you pay any medical bills and
prescriptions and get reimbursed 80%.
After age 65, it is all free.
The
Coopera is across from the biggest Mercado in Cuenca
called the Feria Libre.. My photos do
not do justice to the size nor the content of this immense market. If you combined every flea and farmers’
markets in either Edmonton or Calgary
you might get an idea of its size.
However you would have to add a farm or two and the SPCA and several
clothing and department stores to grasp the availability here. Live cats, dogs, chickens, guinea pigs,
ducks, rabbits, and more. The meat and
vegetables and grains are abundant and colorful. You can outfit yourself from head to toe and
get almost anything you need for your home.
We only picked up some needles and thread today because Bella wanted to
go the supposed largest Coral store up the road, but it was disappointing
compared to the one at the Mall de Rio.
Bella picked up a Mixmaster.
Across the road is the SuperStock store which again has groceries,
furniture and hardware. Their prices
were expensive, about double what they should have been, but we did find some
dry measure measuring cups and a solid potato masher, so Bella is happy. The heavens opened up and we were forced to
take a cab home.
Bella
went to the local market to get some apples to bake a pie. Mmmmm, after our chicken soup it sure was
good, even with the added mangoes.
Well
we got the bad news of that terrible windstorm in southern Alberta
yesterday, and today we received confirmation that we have some bare roof
showing now. I managed to call one of
my former clients, a local roofer from Black Diamond named Jim McRuer, who
promised to be there for repairs in a couple of days. So far, that is all we know.
Tuesday
Nov 29/11 update by Al
We
had no major plans today so decided to grab some money via a bank machine at
the corner Banco Del Austro from two of our Canadian bank cards. We wanted $500 from each but for some reason
it only allowed us to take it out in $100 increments and only up to $400
each. Oh well, we can get the rest
tomorrow. We then walked up Gonzalez
Suarez to the closest branch of the Coopera Credit Union, which is also
attached to an organic food store they own.
It was small and had very little good selection so I doubt we would
frequent it that much when the other huge Mercado is just as close.
This
caused us to pass by the main cemetery and a few flower vendors again. Some of the floral bouquets are absolutely
breathtaking. We also go by this
magnificent palm tree every time we go up the hill. Oh how I would like my own palm tree in my
yard!
On
the way back Bella wanted to get some clay tile to use in the oven for heat
distribution and retention. We Caught
the man just opening up after siesta.
The 3 tiles cost us a whole 60 cents and they fit perfectly.
The
boys are adjusting well are both in good health. Pancho, who is badly allergic to chicken,
seems to be OK with fish flavored cat food that includes “bird parts”. We assume the birds do not include
chickens. We also managed to find a
beef variety that has absolutely no chicken byproducts either so all is
well. Peso wants to play more than usual
because he is bored that he doesn’t have the same hunting opportunities he had
in the sunroom in Okotoks. We are
supremely glad that our sunroom apparently did not sustain any damage during
that huge windstorm. Good job on the
construction Ken!
Bella
is always planning months in advance so we already have an appointment with
Garth & Orilla’s renovation contractor for tomorrow morning at 8:30.
She wants an idea what it will cost to renovate the kitchen and add a
bank of drawers and a pantry.
Thankfully
my eyes are healing today. I wasn’t
looking forward to having to visit doctors, etc.
THANK
YOU to Leonie & Brian & Debbie for looking after our windstorm roof
claim. Leonie has sent us some photos
of the damage. We are thankful it isn’t
worse. The insurance company wants
temporary repairs and an estimate. Our
only concern is to avoid any water leakage into the ceilings. Thanks again everyone.
We
have two tanks of propane to give us our hot water on-demand and to run the
stove. They are a whole $2.50 each to
refill. One is quite low, no doubt the
hot water one. Some expats from Calgary
that Bella is in contact with gave us the excellent suggestion of getting 3
bottles so we will always have a spare.
Wednesday
Nov 30/11 update by Al
Four
weeks ago we arrived in Cuenca,
late, and a little frightened at the many tasks we had to perform right
away. However we have muddled our way
through and already made some excellent contacts. Unless immigration turns us away this will be
our home for a few years.
Well
Enrique the renovation contactor was here right on the button this morning so
we are getting him to price out a pantry, a new lower bank of drawers, a roof
over the back yard and the upper courtyard, and the probable cost of installing
a bathtub in the upstairs bathroom. Once
we know these numbers we will have a better idea if we want to make an offer on
this property or not. Kitchens and
bathtubs are very important to Bella.
Next
I called Marcelo, the gas guy, and he showed up in 10 minutes. I didn’t even need to give him the address,
he knew who I was! He said both tanks
were almost empty, after a month – not bad.
It was a whole $5 for the gas for November. It was $65 to buy a new full tank as a backup
but we sprung for it as the peace of mind is worth it, especially if you have
company.
Bella
now has the cold again and is taking a day off to rest up. Let us hope this is not going to be a
back-and-forth thing. My eyes are not as
red today, feeling much better but they are puffy below, not pretty in my book.
It
is my turn to get some laundry done today.
It is such a beautiful sunny day that I hate to be stuck inside. The wash takes about an hour, so I should be
able to get out this afternoon while the clothes are drying. It is important to watch the sky so I can
make it back before the afternoon shower begins. Well, being a guy. I tried to do one large
load and the spin dry grumbled and groaned in this little washer so I had to
split my load in two, the more important sheets, towels etc in the first
load. They need to be dry by
tonight. The rest doesn’t matter as
much.
This
evening is a free classical music concert at 8pm
in the old cathedral but Bella isn’t feeling up to going. I doubt I will feel like going alone that late.
Surprisingly
Enrique returned with another contractor friend for measurements, etc. This other fellow is obviously the cabinet
maker. They asked more questions and
then already had a quote of only $1,400 for the pantry, extra lower 5’ cupboard
and the roof over the back yard. He
estimated about $300 to install a tub upstairs. Then we could look at roofing the upstairs
courtyard and putting actual screens on all the windows. Hmmm, things are getting much closer to a
positive decision to buy this place,.. if we can get it at the right
price. I have taken a few photos today
to show you the downstairs as is sits today.
I
took a walk to get six large potatoes for $1.40, good enough for 2-3 meals,
then took another short walk on a different road towards the cemetery while
Bella makes her tourtiere for supper.
There is a monster playground north of us and I saw these fellows
completing excavations for a new home and washing the boulders they had
extracted.
I
think we are happy that November is coming to a close. Onward and upward.
Thursday December 1, 2011 update by
Al
This
morning Enrique showed up wanting $30 for doing the estimate. We paid him without question.
We
hopped a bus downtown to do a little research and a little shopping. First stop was the Thursday 10-noon book
exchange. This is in a building on
Calle Larga where this couple intends to open a small restaurant once they get
their residency visa sorted out too.
Outside I asked this lovely indigenous lady if I could take her picture
so she gave us this straight pose then asked where we were from. These people are so sweet.
We
headed for the main post office and spotted this beautiful white church
attached to a school (La Merced – Ave Maria).
While I was taking a shot a group of boys from the school hollered down
to take their picture, so we obliged, tipped our hat, and one of them hollered
“Thank you!” Then on the next corner we
found a street legend of the local churches and museums which identified it for
us.
We
passed this little shop with the most beautiful statuettes of local
peasants. Gosh we love their art!
Next
we found the main post office which certainly wasn’t much. As far as we can tell they are in consort
with the company that provides box numbers out of Miami
so we can buy things on eBay and the like.
We are awaiting confirmation on this from some other expats.
We
then checked out their version of a Dollar Store and headed for the Mercado
behind the main Santa Ana Cathedral. We
never tire of the beauty of the Parque Calderon and the lovely cathedral. Bella needed a second nightie so she bought a
beautiful hand-embroidered black nightie for only $30. Then she needed warm slippers like mine and I
needed more socks so we found those merchants in the Mercado.
We
slipped in for the $2 lunch across the street only to find it has been bumped
to $2.25 as of today. We both had the
potato leek soup, fish, rice, fried plantain, tamarindo juice and carrot cake.
Next
we headed to get more warm blankets since the one I had bought earlier was so
great. We got 3 more for $20 so we will
be nice and toasty every night and hopefully stop the cold cycle between us.
Then
it was back home by bus. As I was
taking a shot of a typical street shop, bella remarked how few people wear
glasses here, and she is very correct in that.
Once home we took a quick walk to the Internet Café to call my step-Dad
Lucien for his 93rd birthday today.
Both he and Mom sounded good in the midst of the 4” of snow in Calgary. I do try not to gloat about our 70-plus
degree weather here every day. Lucien
said someone was giving some sort of presentation soon about Ecuador
so he was planning on attending. I do
believe we will be trying to Skype with them again on Monday with Leonie.
Speaking
of Leonie, my dear sister has been a tower of strength in our absence dealing
with Mom and Lucien on her own and also being the intermediary for our shingle
damage claim. THANK YOU so much Leonie!
Well
I am going to get this off early because I want a nap! Both of us only got about 3 hours sleep last
night so I’m snapping toothpicks trying to stay awake.
Friday
December 2/11 update by Al
The
drugs we picked up yesterday for Bella’s cold seem to be working although she
didn’t sleep much.
I
took a walk to get the Pay-as-you-go recharge on the cel phones and tried a
couple of the local Claro places but they only can do the $1, $3 or $7
recharges that don’t carry over every month like the $10 one. So I walked to Monay Mall where the gal
speaks some English. Even she seems to
have trouble each time as the charge on Bella’s phone didn’t go through the
first time, probably programmed to the wrong number, so she did it a second
time and it worked. It seems we used
the phones a lot locally this first month but Bella still had $6 on hers and I
had $7. That makes us feel a little
more comfortable to use them more freely otherwise we’ll just build up a load
of minutes.
The
Skype is sure nice to keep in touch and Bella uses it a lot with her
family. Leonie called this afternoon 3
times and it seems we have a nice coat of plastic on our roof until spring when
they will complete the final repairs.
Thanks again Leonie for all your work.
Tonight
we were off for the usual Friday night gathering of expats at the California
Kitchen. I can’t believe it has taken us
a month to get around to doing this. We
understand a lot of them go to Zoe’s for supper first, but we don’t feel like
going to two places. We walked all the
way, it is just north of the downtown square.
There weren’t many people there, in this beautiful old building where
the upper floors have been converted to a trendy hotel. We even had a solo guitar player for
entertainment.
In
the photos you will notice a beautiful glass wall behind the guitarist and
another shot of the chandelier. Both
have a beautiful rendition of the Santa Ana Cathedral. The chandelier also shows the broken bridge.
I
had a beer while Bella had 2 diet cokes.
We each had a tasty salad and the main dish of bacon-wrapped filet
mignon, asparagus and wonderful mashed potatoes. For dessert Bella had the chocolate walnut
pie while I had an ice cream sundae.
The total bill was $30.50 before tip.
We will definitely go back there again.
We didn’t talk to any other expats as they were just starting to filter
in as we were leaving, although we recognized a couple from other
functions.
We
waited for the #50 bus for about 15 minutes before deciding we had better walk
off that supper, so we trotted home, picking up some bananas and a large soda
on the way.
We will watch a late movie and wish you all
a good night.
Saturday
Dec 3/11 Update by Al
Today
was a major grocery shopping day so we decided to use the SuperMaxi on the
other side of the airport, pick up our 10% discount card and load up for the
month. We decided to take a different
route, up Paseo De Los Caneris and go around the North East end
of the airport. Boy! That is a lot longer than going around the South
West end, and the far end dives into a valley so we had to walk
back up again. We were exhausted by the
time we hit the store. We definitely
got our share of supplies for our $115. The road on the other side of the airport is
called Avenue Espana and it is definitely the automotive street for Cuenca. There are dealerships for everything you
might want, except our Buick Park Avenue.
Everything is kept pretty small outside of North America.
We
actually picked up some yellow mild corn on the cob for supper, just to see how
it will compared, and it was an excellent compliment to the pork
tenderloin. I also picked up a monster
cabbage for 29c/kilo. I really have
missed my daily salads.
Bella
is much better today with no sniffle complaints. All is well except for my rampant insomnia.
Hugs to all
Sunday Dec 4/11 update by Al
Bella sent me to Gran Aki to get some Michu
beef cat food that Pancho can eat but they didn’t have any. I passed a Sunday soccer game in progress and
took a couple of photos. In the
background is one of two Mormon churches we have seen here.
Bella was taking the day off today so I
walked downtown to Santa Ana
cathedral at Parque Calderon and enjoyed the sights and street vendors. There was some music, carriage rides and the
markets were open. I picked up a couple
of local-style cotton short-sleeve shirts for $23.
Wandering the different markets is such a
pleasure with the people, the colour, the flowers, and the art. This area is my favorite place to be. I found a pet shop that did have some of the
Michu cat food and I grabbed the #3 back home as the skies were threatening. However we did not get any rain.
I made myself a coleslaw of sorts out of
that huge cabbage we had bought yesterday.
Us old folks need the roughage, n’est-ce-pas? Bella is making a stew for supper and my
favorite lemon meringue pie. No, you
can’t have any, it is all mine, I hope
you enjoy the photos.
Have a great week everyone.
Monday
Dec 5/11 update by Al
Today
was a day of mixed surprises. We got a
hint that our lawyer may have convinced the Minister to accept our residency
application after almost 10 months of waiting.
We have our fingers crossed.
We
also wired some money from Canada
to the Banco Pichincha here and it looks like it made it through after
everybody and their dog took a bite out of it.
We will take care of the banking tomorrow.
I
wandered up the hill to get some clothes hangers and to see if there was a
Papeleria that would copy or passport, shrink it and laminate it in a card
size. That appears to be what most
expats do since it is not recommended to wander around with the originals. I found a place close to home but his printer
was low on ink so it all came out green.
I figured I could do much better myself so I scanned both passports, and
copied them into PrintShop where I reduced them to credit card size and printed
them, in living colour, on all four corners of a sheet. Then I put our address and phone numbers on
the back.
Bella
was wanting to go on another exploratory bus ride on the #4 which goes way up
into the Northwest corner. There are
many new homes and townhomes for sale in the area which is basically on a
mountain top so the views are incredibly beautiful. The downside is that it would be a minimum $5
cab ride anywhere and there were very few amenities in the area. Heck, we only saw one church. The driver made us get off at the end of the
line and catch a different bus back. We
waited for a good 20 minutes while this new driver sewed a steering wheel cover
on. They must have their own allotted
buses because he had his own cel phone holder, custom rattan seat, etc. When he finally got going and made it to a
transit checkpoint, a transit cop came on and wrote him up for being late. We all wanted to cheer. Anyway, we made it home without getting wet
as it has been threatening all afternoon.
On the way there were two fellows working on the roof of a place and
they signaled me to take their picture so, of course, I complied. I love the Cuencanos!
Once
I got home I clipped out one set of passports and went back to the same
Papeleria and the fellow wasn’t there but his wife was. She had the proper business card sized
laminating pouches so it only took a few minutes. The cost was 70 cents and I gave her a ratty
$1 bill I had been given earlier and she didn’t want it. I had to dig out a fresher $5 bill and she made
change. Oh well, the finished product is
great and handy for the wallets now.
Another thing marked off our list.
The
more we look around at other areas the more we realize how fortunate we are to
live in such a great spot in this city.
We have not seen one other area, short of downtown itself that has so
many amenities. We are glad to live
about 2 long blocks from any major road so the only noise we have to worry
about is from the neighbors, the occasional car alarms, and of course, the
roosters over our back wall.
Leonie
was able to Skype with us again today with Mom so that was a treat. Bella is having problems connecting with her
Mom so we are not sure what the problem is on their end. Hopefully that will get resolved soon.
I
am enclosing a shot of our house, and we are the back 1/3 of this triplex, and
you can see the little office building on the left too.
Now
we just received a call from our banker in Quito
and she is throwing cold water on the earlier news from our immigration lawyer. Apparently there are at least 18 couples in
the same situation as us and the new Minister is trying to force all of us to
enter on investment income (which ties up our money indefinitely) instead of
the previously allowed pension income, for which we qualified in February. Stay tuned.
I guess we will find out on Wednesday.
Tuesday
Dec 6/11 update by Al
Well
today has been a most interesting day.
We started out by busing to downtown and walking down to the Pichincha
Bank. On the way we saw the doors were
open for the La Merced church and the carvings were breathtaking.
Our
money had arrived from Canada
so we picked up a cashier’s cheque to myself for part of it. Then we caught another bus over to the
Coopera Credit Union where we deposited the cashier’s cheque then opened two
different term Certificates of Deposit at 10.5%. We have more money to move around but need to
wait for the decision on our residency permit expected tomorrow. Cross your fingers and toes please.
Today
must have been laundry day because we saw people washing their clothes in two
different areas of the river. Coming
out of Coopera we saw a group of mimes holding signs in front of stopped
traffic and didn’t know if it was a protest or what. When the light changed, they sat on the
median, but when they saw my camera, they jumped up to pose. Gotta love the Cuencanos! From the photos, I would say they were an
advertising gimmick for something or other.
Then
Bella wanted to go back to the Northwest where we were yesterday as there was a
brand new end unit townhome (called “villa” here) for sale that “spoke to
her”. I checked the front gate and it
opened. As I was peering in the windows
one of the neighbors came to help and called over the owner. It turns out the front door was even open so
we had the grand tour. The place is in
the final throes of construction.
Frankly we were surprised to see stairs heading to a basement which is
very uncommon, but because this is on a mountainside, it basically has a walkout
basement made into a 2 bedroom suite with bathroom, kitchen, LR, patio, and
laundry area.
The
main floor was spacious enough and there were lots of kitchen cupboards, but
there was an oddity in the kitchen where there is no room for a decent-sized
fridge. There is a door to the laundry
area which swings in and the fridge is supposed to fit between it and a small
party wall but someone put the intercom phone inside that wall, not too bright… The fridge would now have to sit in a corner
of the dining room… Maybe they could make that door swing outwards
instead?? So the main floor had the LR,
DR, Kitchen, ½ bath, and laundry area.
The
second floor had four bedrooms! The
master has an ensuite while the other 3 share a common bath. And there were great views of the city from
the back two bedrooms which we would love to see at night.
Then
there were stairs up to an empty loft which had an even better view. How I would like to park my computer desk in
front of that window and enjoy that view all day and night. The nice thing there is that nobody is going
to wreck that view. Even though the
neighbor to the back is very close, he is below the sightlines from the second
floor and the loft.
We
found the place very interesting, especially when he said he was asking
$105,000 for this 4 bedroom, plus loft, plus separate 2 bedroom suite. He promised to finish up the construction
soon too. The area is middle-class too,
like ours, with chickens, roosters, cows and sheep in evidence everywhere.
While
this home is extremely tempting, it is a little out of our price range and then
we would need to buy so much furniture to finish it off. Many of the floors were cheap floating floor
laminate which we do not care for. And
we would be extremely isolated up there as it is a really long climb and this
area has few amenities. It was nice to
get back to our area and choose a place for a late lunch from the many
available choices. We are spoiled here.
I
will send photos of this place in a separate email if you want to check it out,
or just delete it if you aren’t interested.
Then
Leonie Skyped with more good news. Our
Canadian Direct adjuster is putting in his recommendation that our Okotoks
place gets a complete new roof due to the extent of damage and the lack of matching
shingles. They also said that the
temporary repairs completed by my old client, Jim McRuer, were done in
excellent fashion. Apparently his bill
is under our deductible so we will probably pay it for now.
We
wish you all a good day.
======
Wednesday
Dec 7/11 update by Al
Bella
wanted to stay home and bake today, which she did She sent me to the Coral store to see if our
new discount card was ready. The card
was there but they had misspelled my name so they had to order another one,
promised to be ready next Tuesday now.
On the way back I wound through some of the residential areas below us
to see if any homes were for sale but didn’t really see anything except a lot
of buildings being totally renovated.
Today was a day of rest.
Thursday
Dec 8/11 update by Al
The email read “The American
Consulate & Canadian Embassy invite you to a Town Hall Meeting, which will
be held jointly to inform North American citizens of consular services, Social
Security issues, and emergency preparedness. A representative from the
Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry will speak about Ecuadorian visas.”
We
were up bright and early for this and found it very informative although we
didn’t learn too much new. We decided
to register with the Canadian Embassy so they know we are here. They were sure to assure everyone they don’t
share that info with good old Revenue Canada. There was an audible sigh of relief in the
room.
The
meeting lasted past noon so Bella
missed her opportunity for this week’s book exchange.
Then
we went to the Kookabura Café, owned by some Aussies and frequented by
Canadians and had lunch with Barry and Maxine from Calgary,
both former realtors who lived on an island off Venezuela
for 3 years. It is interesting that they
soon got tired of being cut off from the world on the island. They are a very nice couple, very
informative, who seemed to know everyone who came in the door, including a JW
missionary couple.
They
had also seen a garage sale-type ad on GringoTree so we all went to check it out. Bella had dibs on a $9 blender and they
wanted to look at the beds for sale, etc.
We got the blender, a set of dishes for 4, 2 glasses and 2 fiber-filled
pillows for $25. That negated trying to
get to the Mall De Rio today too.
It
was sprinkling but we decided to walk to the bus instead of grabbing a
cab. Once we got to our end of town and
got off the bus then the heavens opened and we stopped at the church hoping it
would blow over quickly. No such
luck. We got soaked on the short walk
home. Oh well, we were going to change
clothes right away anyway.
Happy
21st Anniversary Mom & Lucien.
Enough for today. Hugs to all.
Friday
Dec 9/11 update by Al
We
got up early today with lots on the agenda.
First we walked to Gran Aki for some milk, eggs, and some beautiful soft
torpedo buns (12c ea.) and quickly returned home to have lunch. It turned out the buns had a light layer of
sugar on top so they were a tad strange with our ham and cheese sandwiches, but
they were sooooo soft!.
Then
we caught the #13 bus a few blocks away to head to the Mall De Rio. I think the bus drivers are trained to drive
in Jamaica, and
the passengers with Cirque de Soleil because we have no idea how they all keep
their balance. The drivers just make
sure passengers have both feet in the bus before they slam the gears (they are
all standard shift) and race only to slam on the brakes at the next light or
bus stop. Pedestrians do NOT have right
of way in Ecuador
so we see a lot of near misses every day.
We are amazed that we have only seen one accident in 5.5 weeks. Vehicles cruise by each other with a little
honk of the horn of warning with mere inches to spare, including the
buses.
I
had spotted an armoire that could easily have doubled as a pantry for about $93
a couple of weeks back and was foolishly hoping that it might still be
available. No such luck, so we just
bought some pillowcases for $1.15 each for those pillows that we bought
yesterday. I also took a shot of the
3-storey Christmas tree there.
Then
we caught the #7 bus and got off at the west end of Paseo De Los Canaris (our
area’s main road) as we had a flyer that there was supposed to be some “1er
Bazar Navideno” and “4to Festival De Coros”, a Bazaar and Festival of Choirs at
some art shop. Bella forgot the flyer at
home so we maybe walked right past it without seeing any signs or hoopla,
although the flyer says the main festivities won’t start until 5pm tonight.
Oh well we will get there tomorrow as it runs until Sunday.
Bella
made spareribs, rice, asparagus and banana cream pie for supper… Yummmy.
We are so spoiled.
Saturday
Dec 10/11 update by Al
Last
night Bella had gone to do her usual teaching at 7:30
and I heard beautiful voices from the park below so I went to see if there was
a new festival happening. The music was
coming from a loudspeaker and there were several people gathered in the
community hall. I stuck my head in the
door and they waved me to come in. It
didn’t take long to realize I had stumbled into the first night of a
Novena. More people came in and before
long they were saying the rosary then singing songs. When there was a break just before 9:00 I slipped out to see if Bella was coming by
after her teaching, and sure enough, there she was. We went back in and made a donation for gifts
for local children and they served coffee and cookies. Then they picked up the rather large baby
Jesus doll and we joined a short procession down the street to one of the
homes. You would never know from the
outside how beautiful these homes are on the inside. This couple had a huge crèche set up with a
hundred small dolls and animals surrounding it, even a chicken. These Ecuadorian people are so clean, warm,
hard-working and generous that a person can’t help but love them.
Today
was a great day! We slept in, had lunch,
then walked to find that Bazaar and Concert at the address given. We still couldn’t find it where the map said
it was so we hailed a cab. It turns out
the Bazaar and Concert were about 12 blocks west so we enjoyed viewing some of
the handicrafts and artworks on display.
This particular building was very impressive with beautiful wood beams
and also huge bamboo beams on the top floor.
It also had this chain coming from a downspout to a receptacle which was
near a drain. I figured this was a
clever way to stop the rainwater from splashing about and to collect a
sufficient amount to water the nearby covered plants??
At
3pm this group of children ascended
the stage and stairs and gave a short Christmas concert. We sat early right in the front row so I
decided to take a few short videos (5), not only of the choir, but also of the
young boy next to us who wanted to strut his stuff. I have uploaded the videos to YouTube. Please give them a peek and enjoy them with lots
of Christmas spirit.:
We
peeked into a neighborhood Cooperative store then we caught a cab to the Rotary
Artisans Mercado near San Blas church where they have a lot of woodworks,
ceramics, metal works, kitchen gadgets, etc on display. In a nearby store we found almost that same
beautiful wood gliding patio set with loveseat, 3 chairs and table but they
only wanted $250 here, $100 less than the place about 6 blocks away. It pays to shop around.
I
took quite a few photos as well today as the weather was so nice, trying to
show you more of the flavour of Cuenca and its wonderful people. Walking in the sunshine with my camera, and
having so many photographic subjects just puts me in a great mood. Note in the last "Washing In
River" photo you can see a lady draped backwards over a huge rock and
washing her hair in the river. You won't see that in Calgary
in December!
I
took a few shots of our area too. Paseo
de Los Caneris is the main road to our area and has tons of amenities. Turning at the “Renautos” yellow sign puts
you onto Antonio Pons which dead-ends at our home on Alberto Guerrero
Martinez. We happened to pass a
spirited volleyball game at the local community and noted the advanced caliber
of their play, going 3 on 3. What a
wonderful day!
Sunday
Dec. 11/11 update by Al
It
was such a sunny day again today (27C) that I had to go walkabout again. I was headed for the Kywi Hardware store and
I had to pass by the big main cemetery so I wandered inside for a
look-see. You know I am a sucker for
beautiful statuary and art so there were a few subjects begging to be
photographed. Enjoy.
I
finally made it to the Kywi store with the main purpose of seeing if they had
cat doors. I would like to install 3 in
this place if we do decide to buy it. No
luck, I could not find any. I also
checked out the different screens available as I would also like to screen
about 5 windows as well as around the proposed roofs over the backyard and roof
terrace. I noted they had a good
selection of lag screws, etc. It is hard
to make changes here because everything is tile or concrete.
Last
night we had a good rainstorm and it exploded our outside lightbulb because
some bozo just installed a bare fixture out there vertically. So I was also checking out outdoor fixtures,
motion detection lighting etc. I must
have wandered in that area for over half an hour and not one salesperson came
to see if I wanted help.
On
the way back I stopped to watch volleyball and soccer games going on in the
huge park north of us. I wanted to go
join in but had trouble picking myself up off the grass, lol.
Tonight
we were invited for supper over at Garth and Orilla’s (from Edmonton)
so we walked over and had a lovely spare rib dinner before settling down to
play Rummy Sticks. To speed up a boring
hand I coerced the minister’s wife into
cheating so I know I am headed for Hades now.
A good time was had by all.
Monday
Dec 12/11 update by Al
Today
we just took a walk up towards Garth & Orilla’s neighborhood again to check
out a house with a monster view that may or may not be for sale. I am attaching a panorama photo of the view
from the hilltop. The home in question
is on the far left. It has 3 floors and
we could never afford it. We walked
through the immediate neighborhood and saw a few others for sale but nothing
spectacular. We did see one old house
with a new website on their For Sale sign.
Bella is checking the houses now.
You
will note the mid-afternoon sky to the left in the photo as well. Yes, we got caught in a refreshing shower and
luckily we even brought our umbrellas.
After picking up some minor supplies at GranAki we just walked home
again.
We
got another note from our lawyer that the Minister Of Immigration has been
ordered to look at every outstanding file before Dec 31 when he is being
replaced. Apparently this will make it
the fourth new Minister in about a year, so cross your fingers and toes for us.
Tuesday
Dec 13/11 update by Al
This
morning I visited the ADINEA school for special needs children with a group of
expats through the Chamber Of Commerce.
The photos will give you an idea of just how special these children
are. We had 4 other Canadians (from Penticton),
1 American and 2 Colombians. We had all
contributed enough candy to make up large bags for each of the 136
children. We took turns handing out
candies in the different classrooms and then we enjoyed a recess period with
some of the children.
The
two Canadian ladies just jumped in and helped at each class. It was easy to surmise that Maureen from Penticton
was a teacher by profession. They even
have a special room for physical therapy for the children. It was all very touching. One little girl was wary of the bald fellow
from England,
“Ozzie”, but then she went over and showered him with kisses and wouldn’t leave
him. It was so darn cute! This school is only 4 blocks south of where
we live so it was very handy. I even
recognized one of the kids from our immediate neighborhood. The children attend from early morning until
early afternoon but we are told they come from poor families.
Once
I got home Bella and I decided to have another try at locating a house for sale
southeast of us. This house is a huge 3
storey place, 6 bedrooms and 6 bathrooms, with lovely interior for $92,000.
(Photo off computer enclosed). True to
form, we walked and criss-crossed the area for hours and may have found it very
close to the Ring Road but we were blocked off. We did locate many others that have “Se
Vende” signs in the windows that seemed worth investigating further. I took a shot of two that may be quite
promising. We did also find a third
Mormon church!
One
thing that we find disturbing is that there are many local propane distributors
who are allowed to store their stock of tanks at their residences. There is no way I would want to be living
anywhere near to such a danger.
We
staggered home and I collapsed from exhaustion.
Wednesday
Dec 14/11 update
Well
we got a call from the realtor on that $92,000 huge 3 storey house with the 6
bedrooms and 6 bathrooms so we met him down the road and he drove us to see it
at 11:00. It is definitely the house we spotted, but
weren’t sure because the houses on both sides were adding another storey or two
so it looked different than the realty pictures. We are sorry to say the place was an absolute
dump and needed way too much work, like gutting the whole place. It is too bad because the house commanded a
great view of town from a super narrow balcony on the second floor.
He
then took us way over to the west end to see another home that had previously
been rented which we had also seen on their site for $96,000. It also requires a ton of work. We fail to understand why they try to sell
damaged goods rather than clean up a house for sale the way we do.... Then he drove us home, which was really nice
of him.
We
had lunch and called the big house that was for sale near us (sent photo
yesterday as 131211ForSale2) but they were asking $190,000, double what we
could manage.
Then
we phoned the Spanish-speaking owner of 131211ForSale1 which was close to that
huge house on the east side. He said his
asking price was $76,000. We said we
wanted to have a look and I thought the guy said to meet him at 2:30 so we walked and waited and looked around
the neighborhood. We called him when he
was overdue 15 minutes and I must have misunderstood him previously, he
couldn’t show up until 5pm. So we went and had an ice cream and watched
some rugby and soccer at the Monay Mall Coral store to kill 2 hours. It is only about 4 blocks away, across the Tomebamba
River.
The
location is on Calle Popayan, Between Calle Puerto Principe and Calle San
Juan. The house is two blocks from a
hospital, one block from the main river Tomebamba, 2 small parks, and bus stops
on Avenida May 24. It has lovely views
of the hills/mountains to the south, trees in front with hummingbirds, and
lovely homes across, which are well separated by a double walking path and a
small street that has virtually no traffic.
Jorge
showed up about 5:10 and showed us
through the house which was only built 2 months ago. It turns out he is an architect so the house
is beautifully laid out, although we would make some changes to suit ourselves. Everything is solid, the floors are beautiful,
and the electrical work is top notch. I
was so excited I forgot to take interior pictures. It is 3 storey, 3 bedroom, 2.5 baths. The third floor I have staked out for myself
with a small bedroom, bath with shower and an upper terrace with the best views
that we would cover and screen in for the boys.
Bella has dibs on the big bedroom where she has room to change the
shower to a tub. The laundry area is
covered with a translucent roof and he has glass blocks in the floor as a
skylight to the kitchen below. Can you
tell that we fell in love with it? It
certainly blows the doors off our existing place, which is not bad but
certainly not in the same caliber of care of finish. And oh yes, no chickens, roosters or cows
over the fence.
Now
we are really crossing our fingers that the residency issue is solved quickly
so we can retain a recommended realty service to negotiate the sale on our
terms. I am hoping we can get this
architect to also incorporate the changes we want as he obviously takes pride
in his work.
Everybody
please pray hard so everything falls into place, OK?
Some
photos enclosed.
Thursday
Dec 15/11 update by Al
Bella
did not sleep well last night with her mind racing about designing additions to
the kitchen in the possible new house.
She also is trying to figure out how we could buy it sooner and spoke to
a recommended intermediary who will help us with the negotiations, lawyers,
etc. and he guarantees everything.
Today
was the day to pay the utilities, electricity & water and that cost us
under $19 (remember a month of propane costs another $5).
Thursday
is book exchange day for Bella and we also went to the Caroline Bookstore to
get another Learn Beginner Spanish book for her student Segundo who wants a copy. Since there are no copyright laws in Ecuador
they just make photocopies of everything, textbooks for school, whatever. You apparently can get bootleg movies for
about $2. This is the reason for the
proliferation of copy places everywhere.
Then
we went to the Banco Pichincha to see if they had Bella’s bank card ready
yet. Naturally it is not ready yet, try
again next week.
Then
it was grocery shopping time at the SuperMaxi nearby and we bought different
things to try for comparison. I bought
more veggies and we decided to try a couple of fish varieties too. I found a sale combination of 750 ml of
Caribbean Gold Rum, a rum glass, and a 2L of Coke for $8.28. I couldn’t resist, even if I am not a
drinker. It is good to have something for
company.
We
had been told by several people that we are better to actually telephone our
immigration lawyer in Quito rather
than communicate via email. Bella got
through to Gabriella and the results were quite surprising. The present Minister of Immigration has
apparently done very little since being in office and is being canned at the
end of the month. He has been told to
make decisions on all applications on his desk.
Gabriella says the best thing to do is to go to the immigration office,
in person, with her assistant as interpreter, to plead our case. That way we can hopefully convince an
underling to bend the Minister’s ear.
Since we have to go to Quito
anyway to complete some banking papers and transactions we decided to follow
this advice. We are booked to fly on
Monday and meet with everyone on Tuesday.
Tonight
we met Garth and Orilla for supper at DiBacco’s Italian Restaurant downtown in
the pouring rain. This was supposed to
be an expat newbie night but there were very few people there due to the
weather. We all had the veal parmigiana
for $7 which was excellent, followed by dessert. One of the owners came by and chatted with us
for a half hour. He was very nice, from Cape
Cod.
Then
our plan was to go to a free children’s Christmas concert at 8pm but it was farther away, in the wrong
direction, it was still raining, and the other three begged off, so we didn’t
go. We did make an appointment to get
together Boxing Day and we will probably go to the Symphony doing a Christmas
Tango Mass tomorrow night. That should
be interesting.
We
received an estimate/appraisal for our Okotoks roof damage at $9,570.23 from
Canadian Direct and offering a co-payable cheque once we had decided on a
roofer who would accept their price. Our
neighbors are investigating roofers to re-shingle the entire roof for
integrity’s sake so hopefully everything will fall into place.
Enough
for tonight.
Good night and God bless.
Friday
Dec 16/11 update by Al
I
took a bus downtown early as Bella sent me to the Banco Pichincha to get a
cashier’s cheque to take to Quito
on Monday in case we need to change our immigration application to “investor”
status to speed things up. We are busy
getting our ducks in a row to present our best argument to the Immigration
people.
That
went smoothly at the bank and I decided to walk back as I needed to stop at a
certain veterinarian’s office to get special cat food for the boys and it was
roughly ½ way. It is also
kitty-corner to the Inca ruins here so I managed to get some good shots in the
noonday sun. Gosh this place is
beautiful when the sun is shining.
The
boys are not getting enough nutrition out of the local cat food and are always
hungry, and pooping three times the normal.
Well this vet, who spoke perfect English having trained in Columbus,
Ohio no longer sells things, he just wants
to concentrate on the medicine aspect.
He did however give us the address of the wholesaler and said we could
save a lot by dealing directly. It is
quite close to Joe’s Secret Garden
where Bella will soon be playing bridge so she will no doubt pick some up soon.
Speaking
of bridge, that is where Bella is this afternoon, having found three other
players and a central place to play. I
was going to walk back to the new house and take a few photos and measurements
but I left it too late and the afternoon rain clouds socked in. I will probably go early in the morning
instead.
I
decided to check out the Symphony concert tonight as it was to include a “Tango
Mass” which sounded intriguing. After
giving up on catching a bus I hailed a cab and made it with 5 minutes to
spare. I sat on the side for an
uninterrupted line of sight and took a few shots and videos but have not
downloaded them yet. The musicians were
impeccable, as good as any other Symphony I have seen, but the music was
disappointing. There was a hilarious
bright spot to the evening when the musicians kept getting up in groups of twos
and threes and abandoning the conductor Maestro Medardo Caisabanda. He was left with two violinists at the end
and the audience just ate it up. I gave
up on waiting for a bus for the return trip as well.
Our
sympathy to brother Fern and wife Eileen and family for the loss today of
Eileen’s mother Nell.
Goodnight all and sleep tight.
Saturday
Dec 17/11 update by Al
Well
we had an interesting day, considering we hadn’t planned anything exciting (and
I have the photos to prove it). We
decided to take the #16 bus all the way to the NW corner of Cuenca
then take the return trip which would bring us right to the new house, just to
get accustomed to its odd route through downtown. Upon walking over the Tomebamba we noted two
“green” Holstein lawnmowers in action. This is a very common sight here (including
the two over our back wall occasionally).
A few feet further on was this young lady deeply engrossed in a book in
the shade of some huge gum trees.
Once
on the bus we were serenaded by a young couple, rather loudly. They never seem to pay to rise 4-5 stops
while they sing and collect $5-$10 in a span of 10 minutes. That is huge money by Ecuadorian standards.
The
bus ridership is always interesting too.
Many families jump on, often mothers with small children in their
arms. I gave up my seat for this one Mom
and her two children, one a sleeping baby.
Then another Mom boarded with her cute son carrying a supply of huge
beans and some oranges. After I took his
pictures they offered us to share some tart mandarin oranges. Part way up the hill I could hear what
sounded like birds right above my head and I was wondering how that
happened. I couldn’t get a good picture
but this indigenous woman had come on with a large basket and a large bag. Well the bag contained several large chicks
who entertained us with their singing for 20 minutes. At least they weren’t as loud as the
troubadour with the guitar.
At
the end of the line they booted us off the bus into a small rain shower and
there were no buses yet available for the return trip so we decided to stop for
lunch at a nearby popular restaurant. I
took a shot of Bella’s $2.50 excellent lunch, a 1/8 chicken dinner, and a Fanta
was another 50 cents. Then Bella nudged
me to catch two ladies in gumboots moving some more Ecuadorian Holstein
lawnmowers.
When
we arrived in the neighborhood of the new house some folks were selling huge
beer glasses of fresh fruit cocktail for $1.
Heck I had bought a can of fruit cocktail in the store and it cost over
$3 and it won’t hold a patch on this glass of heaven. Was it ever good!
We
roamed around the neighborhood again. In
the nearest 2 block radius there must have been six restaurants, 2 bakeries, 4
convenience stores and a laundry, and it is only about 5 blocks from the Monay
Mall. We took a couple of interior
photos from outside and took measurements so we could plan the changes we want
to the home. Since we don’t have a car
we would put up a temporary outside wall and use the garage area as a dining
room. Bella is having loads of fun
designing it all in her head. We had
earlier called Jorge, the architect owner to confirm our interest in the home
and to expect an offer, hopefully next week once we have sorted out the
immigration mess. Tomorrow we will be
putting together our game plan for the boys in Quito. Tonight Bella is going to ask her student Segundo
for a signature on a reference letter.
As
we rounded the corner of the Monay Mall to head home we noted a huge police
presence and wondered what was up. Then
two fellows dressed as Santa Clause came running up the entrance and stopped. By coincidence, we had stumbled onto some
sort of Santa Clause run and had just seen the two leaders arrive at the finish
line. As we continued home there were
dozens more of all ages, including canines.
Again, some hammed it up for the cameras as they sure like to get their
pictures taken.
The
sight of a family riding in the open box of a truck is commonplace here, as are
motorcycle riders without helmets. There
are laws apparently but they are not enforced.
The use of police for other things is more important. The police presence here is very understated,
we see lots of them on motorcycles, but not on every corner toting machine guns
like some cities. We love Cuenca.
Then,
as we were walking up the last block towards home we saw a neighbor showing
some dance moves to her kids. You can
see the short video I have uploaded to YouTube at
http://youtu.be/FP3B-DiQceo
Sunday
December 18/11 update by Al
Hey,
one more week until Christmas. Is anyone
excited yet? Honestly, without the snow
it is impossible to get into the spirit here.
We are looking forward to spending Christmas Eve downtown and enjoying
the many festivities. Maybe that will
help. I sent you all an email this
morning about “Christmas Past”, We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.
Strangely
our electricity seemed to be cut in half this morning so our lights were dim,
making shaving a challenge, and causing the Internet to crash while I was
Skyping with Leonie. It seems to be back
to normal now.
I
started to do a walkabout to downtown but didn’t get past our local community
where they were holding a Festival to end the novena of the Procession of the
Baby Jesus. This had already been going
on since 9:00 am so I only caught a small
part of this. I did get a nice video of
some of the dancing and put it on YouTube:
I
really felt bad because, again, one of the lovely ladies from the community
immediately came to grab me to dance but I was only 15 seconds into the video
so I begged off. Luckily the fellow in
the green shirt next to me was available so you can see them in the video.
I
also got many lovely shots of these beautiful people and their children, many in
costumes for Christmas or in ethnic garb.
When they see my camera they almost always get ready to pose. Everyone got a bag of candies and a bag of
cookies which I quickly brought home and tried to get Bella to join us, but she
insisted this was her day of rest so I returned alone. There was more dancing and songs or recitals
from some of the children. Then they
started to feed everyone a plate of what looked like rice and vegetables which
I was offered several times but insisted I had just eaten at home. Even our neighbor, Santiago
was there with his lovely wife and daughter.
When
it started to sprinkle most folks headed home and the executive of the
community and I retired into the hall.
Again I was offered more food and drink.
Like most communities there is a hard core of people who do most of the
work, and this one is no exception. And
they really go out of their way to include us in the festivities so we are
accepted as part of their family and community. We are forever grateful to them for this.
As
these people were packing up one of the ladies was going down the row kissing
all her neighbors on the cheek. When she
got to me she put out her hand, but I just took off my hat and tapped my cheek. Everyone just roared at this and she leaned
over and gave me a peck on the cheek as well.
I got the thumbs up from everyone and we all had a good laugh. Gotta love the Cuencanos.
Well
we must get prepared for our trip to Quito
tomorrow and our meetings with our lawyers and immigration officials on Tuesday. We are not sure if I will have to spend any
extra days to accomplish our residency, one of our contacts indicated it had
worked for them. I guess we will take
the advice of our lawyers.
Update
Monday Dec 19/11 by Al
We
got up and got ready to fly to Quito. It is amazing that it is a winding 9 hour
drive through the mountains and only a 35 minute flight. For only $53 why would you drive? Bella had booked a combination flight and
hotel so we had a lovely room in a dressy hotel, the Plaza Sucre. As soon as the taxi stopped there I
recognized it as the hotel that we had briefly sauntered through 2 years ago,
after our guided walking tour and Bella’s haircut 2 doors up the street.
It
was raining so we just walked about 7 blocks to a KFC and had supper then came
back to the room and read our books. It
was then that I realized that I had left my mouse with the two cats, so I did
not even bother to try to download my photos.
We crashed about 11:00 because
we had to be up at 6:00 for breakfast
at 7:00 then to the lawyer’s office
before 8:00.
Update
Tuesday Dec 20/11 by Al
Insomnia
is not fun when you are sharing a room and have nowhere to go. About 5:00
I had enough tossing and turning and got up and shaved and showered and dressed. I silently went down to the lobby lounge and
was soon joined by fellow insomniac, Paul from Virginia. They were leaving today for a week in Cuenca
and are actually going to spend Xmas Day at Joe’s Secret
Garden. Coincidences abound.
Bella
was up on her own by 6:15 so we went
up to the fourth floor for a lovely breakfast and a great view of the morning
fog on the mountains. Hopefully some
good photos will follow later.
We
met Gabriela’s assistant Juan, and his wife, Evenise at Gabriella’s
office. We didn’t waste any time getting
to the immigration office and getting in line to see if we could get a decision
on our case. Another of Gabby’s clients,
Miriam, also from Cuenca was part
of our group.
Basically
the whole day was spent pestering the one lovely lady who handled our special
cases to see if the Minister or Director had reviewed our file yet and made a
decision. To make a long story short,
we were there from 8:10 am until 5:00pm and missed our flight home.
The
only time we both slipped out was when we knew the Director was aw ay for a
couple of hours so we rushed off to meet our contact Maria Enriquez at Banco
Territorial and complete the papers for our bank account there. She had managed to open us bank accounts
without signatures months ago, while we were still in Canada. As a hedge, we also arranged for a
Certificate Of Deposit (CD) at 8%in a sufficient amount to satisfy our
residency requirements in case they do not accept us on the pension income
basis. I also got some beautiful shots
of Quito from their 15th
floor offices.
The
good news is that the Director asked this lady at the immigration desk to
review our case and to give him her recommendation in the morning when he
arrives at 9:30. This lady had intimidated Juan and Evenise
on prior occasions but I soon figured her to be Type-A, hard-working and
knowledgeable. I also recognized that
she seemed to be in a particularly good mood this day. The Director is reported to be young, lazy,
and is being fired, so I had gone out of my way to be very complimentary and
effusive to this experienced lady all day, being the good cop to Juan’s bad cop
routine. Before leaving (we were the
last ones, out of the hundreds that passed through there today) I was thankful
to be able to finally pass on to her a letter to the Minister that we had
carefully drawn up outlining our situation and then had carefully translated it
into Spanish. This makes us feel much
better about our chances tomorrow. We
will show up there around 10:00am to
hopefully find out the results.
If
it is positive, and we are accepted on the pension basis, then we are told that
another bank will buy our CD at face value and they will hang onto it for the
18 months to get the interest. We can
get 10.5% on our money at the Coopera Credit Union instead, and it is local in Cuenca.
Then
we will head to the airport and try to catch a flight home. We are sure the boys are missing us by now
and are probably a little miffed.
For
all their hard work today we took Juan and Evenise out for supper. They chose a Colombian restaurant that gave
huge portions for a reasonable price.
They weren’t kidding! We got
huge platters of food for about $7 each and a huge jug of delicious juice for
all of us for $4.
Then
they arranged for us to get a room with private bath at a small German Inn
called Casa Helbling for $25. It is
nothing fancy, just a double bed, two chairs, 2 end tables and a dressing
table. They have other rooms for as
little as $12 but you share bathrooms.
We hit the sack a 8:00 we were
so pooped.
More
tomorrow….
Update
Wednesday Dec 21/11
The
trouble with going to bed early is that you wake up early, like 2:00am and after six hours sleep the body
doesn’t want to lie around. I finally
got up at 5:00 and went to the lobby
so I could get wi-fi and catch up on things.
It is not easy without a mouse so the photos will have to wait until I
get home.
So
we had breakfast at a local bakery and went again to the Immigration, arriving
about 9:30. We took a number so we could legally check
with the nice lady. Juan showed up to
help us about 10:00 so we gave him
our passports and the CD to take to the office for safekeeping. Our number came up shortly after 10:00 am and she said The Director wasn’t
in. About 11:00
the word was that he was in, but in a meeting.
At noon, he is still in the
same meeting so we headed to the airport to arrange a flight home. The earliest flights weren’t until 5:40 so we went back (the return trip was 53
minutes by cab in heavy traffic, so it was a good thing we had settled on a $5
price for the ride)!
We
made sure the nice lady saw us so she would inform us of any results. She went for lunch around 1:30 and we figured the Director would do the
same so went and had lunch ourselves.
She was not gone a full hour and I impressed upon her that we did not
want to miss our flight tonight again and she indicated she didn’t want that to
happen either. At 2:30 she called us up to let us know that our application
had been approved but was not signed yet and we were good to go. We are now OFFICIAL ECUADOR RESIDENTS, and on
the pension basis like we wanted!
We
called our lawyer who came down and returned to us the CD and then had us sign
another permission paper the nice lady wanted. I ran across the street and got a lovely
little bouquet of flowers for the nice lady and put them on her desk while she
was upstairs. The look on her face when
she came down and saw the bouquet was priceless! I think a few people in the room got the hint
that you have to be super-nice to these people who hold your fate in their
hands.
So
we did manage to catch our flight and I had a window seat (we got lucky to have
the emergency exit row for both flights) where I hope I managed to get some
shots of the Andes poking through the clouds. I will send photos later because I have too
many to tackle tonight alone.
Bella
is already arranging to get Michael Berger to help make an offer on the new
home, etc. He offers a guaranteed
package of services and comes highly recommended..
We
are happy, but tired campers tonight and glad to be HOME with the boys.
Update
Thursday Dec 22/11 by Al
Today
is catch-up day at home, laundry, etc.
The first thing we did was discuss our strategy for putting an offer on
the new home and setting out the additional work we want to be done. We had our agent Michael Berger contact the
owner, Jorge Beltran, and set up an appointment tomorrow at 10:30 to go through
the house again and put in our offer. We
meet Michael at 9:00 to explain what
we want done.
Bella
slipped out for the Thursday a.m. book exchange and went to pick up some
nutritious cat food from the wholesaler that was recommended last week by the
vet.
I
spent all morning going over all my photos from the past 3 days so I am
enclosing just a few.
Where
is the time going??? Christmas is only 3
days away!!
Update
Friday Dec 23/11 by Al
Had
a great chat with our friends, Frank and Helen from Melbourne
on Skype last night. We couldn't believe how crisp and clear the picture
and reception was! And it is Free! What a great communication
tool. We can keep in contact with most family members very easily this
way. I am under albellaecuador and Bella is under bbourassa50.
I
was up at 5:00am to finalize our
proposal for discussion with our rental agent, Michael Berger at 9:00. As
we left home we encountered parents with children all dresses in Nativity
costumes, so cute!
We
outlined the asking price, our suggested offer, with or without the many
upgrades we would like made by the architect/owner Jorge Beltran. We think our investment of the 2% of the
purchase price, without upgrades, is a great investment for someone
knowledgeable about pricing, offers, lawyers, fees, government, more fees,
etc., and who acts as interpreter. I got
a few nice city shots from his fifth floor office.
We
decided that Michael had to see the home, measure it quickly, and determine the
construction cost of the home so we would have a base from which to work. We met at the house at 10:30 with Jorge and his brother, I believe. The brother spoke a smattering of English,
but Jorge very little. We quickly took
pictures (attached) and then began to outline the various changes/upgrades we
wanted to the home so Jorge could decide if he could do them or not. Jorge agreed to many of our changes and made
some great suggestions that save everyone time and effort. This way he can give us an idea of the
pricing for the upgrades separately. We
are hoping to stay within our meager budget and have enough left over to
furnish the place.
Some
of the upgrades we want are a pantry and breakfast island combination in the
kitchen, a bathtub in the second floor washroom, a roof over the terrace, and
to put a removable wall in the garage to make it into a dining room.
Once
I got home, I made the revisions to the list per our discussions, amended
inches to centimeters, then translated it all into Spanish as well for emailing
to Michael. He will get it to Jorge who
will have us an estimate by Monday for the upgrades, then Michael can confirm
that we are in the ballpark for our offer.
We have a promise that they won’t sell the house from under us so we may
be able to get everything signed up this coming week with possession possibly
the second week of January. We wouldn’t
move in until Jan 30-31 anyway. We
only need to give 30 days notice to get out of our lease here.
Tomorrow
is the big Christmas Eve celebrations downtown.
I certainly hope we have a wonderful day like today to celebrate and
enjoy all the parades and costumes, etc.
I think I’ll bring both cameras tomorrow. One forecast I read said it
would be temperatures of 28C-29C for at least a week with likely afternoon
showers. We had no rain until 8:00
tonight.
Well, enough for now. Merry Christmas everyone!!!!!!
Update
Saturday Dec 24/11
Well
the beauty and pageantry of Christmas Eve in Cuenca has not been exaggerated
one bit. We took a bus downtown around
10:00 and staked out a spot on the sidewalk like the other people. The parade started rolling around 11:00. Bella made it until 2:00 and went home. I stayed and started walking west up the
parade route to speed things up and found the end of the parade around 5:00
just as it started sprinkling. I walked
all the way back to San Blas and my legs couldn’t take any more standing up, so
I grabbed the #3 home.
The
parade of people is mind boggling, with children and babies all dressed in
costume, most representing the Nativity in one form or another. I took a few movies, mostly of the dance
companies, so I only have 44 movies.
There was a photo op with the children every 20 seconds or so, so I only
took 890 photographs and most of them are of the priceless variety. Whenever I could I would show the subject
their photograph. The smiles on their
faces made this a Christmas to remember.
They
parade with live animals, roasted pigs, roasted chickens, roasted guinea pigs,
and every kind of food item you can imagine.
Many horses are decorated with food items. This must be seen to be believed.
It
will take me forever to go though these photos and I will send you some of the
best ones. For now, I will upload the
videos to YouTube starting with this one, http://youtu.be/GAHITn7JWpU
Then
you can link to the others as they get uploaded. I expect this to use up my evening easily.
Hugs to all and Merry Christmas.
Update
Christmas Day in Cuenca Dec 25/11
I
was up until past midnight last night and was up at 5:30 again trying to get
some photos ready. I have gone through
roughly 1/2 of the 890 and quickly made a DVD to show off featured shots of
children at the parade yesterday, only 192 shots, most of the priceless
variety. I am very proud of those shots
and may try to find a way to make use of them once I get through the rest.
Then
we caught a bus west to Joe’s Secret Garden supposedly for lunch then a games
afternoon. We arrived at noon, before
everyone else and chatted with folks as they arrived. The event wasn’t explained very well as some
folks broke off to play Scrabble and UNO.
At 2:00 we finally had to ask where the food was as our next appointment
was at 3:00. They brought out pulled
pork salad sandwiches, cold, on brown buns.
I hated them but hadn’t eaten all day so forced it down. Bella loved them. They gave us tomato basil soup and mushroom
soup in small glasses to drink down and they were really superb. I had Bella’s laptop playing the DVD of the
photos and received many great comments on the photos of the wonderful
children.
Then
we went to meet with Garth and Orilla (from Edmonton) at the apartment of Brian
& Shelley from Vancouver, who we had never met, for a traditional Christmas
turkey dinner. On the way there we
encountered another very small parade coming towards us. The turkey dinner was
a marvelous treat as was the company.
Brian and Shelley lived on a boat in Vancouver for several years before
coming here 3.5 years ago. It is good to
meet with people like this that can give us the benefit of their experience in
many areas. The food was wonderful and I
even had to pass on the rum cake dessert I was so full. We will have to contact them again.
We
stood on a corner for 45 minutes waiting for a bus or a taxi then we moved over
to another street and managed to grab a taxi.
For all that time waiting we could have easily walked home. We were only 2 blocks from where I found the
end of the parade yesterday.
Anyway,
tonight we will be early to bed as I am exhausted. I will tackle the balance of the pictures in
the morning. I will send you a few
samples tonight.
Don’t
forget the YouTube videos I uploaded of the dancing troupes in the parade
starting with
http://youtu.be/GAHITn7JWpU
All the best to all of you.
Update
Monday Dec 26/11
Well,
5:30am is getting to be a habit, it must be the roosters that do it to
me?? I worked on photos for 7 hours and
still have another 7-9 hours to go, just to pick out the best children’s photos
and make very minor changes for now.
Then who knows how many hours I’ll spend getting them ready for other
things. I am enclosing a few of my
favorites from today, Gotta love these
well-behaved beautiful children.
We
walked to Coral to just get a few groceries and check out appliance prices,
etc. We ran into Garth and Orilla there
and had a chat and made a commitment to get together for my birthday on New
Year’s Day.
I
saw a nice brand-new bicycle there for $63.25 with front and rear shocks. That will be coming home with me sometime
soon…
While
walking home we got a call from our rental agent Michael to come to his office
for 5:00 and meet again with the house owner, Jorge. We went over some vague estimates for the
renovations/upgrades we want to do and then tentatively threw him a low-ball
offer for the base house, before renovations.
The offer was refused for now but he asked for another day to firm up
his reno prices within 10% and we would meet again Wednesday at 10:00. We are pretty certain we know he isn’t going
to budge much but we’ll come in between anyway and work from there. We may have to delay a few items or do them
myself (which I was trying to get professionally done). Oh well.
It is pretty much what we expected.
We
also decided that we should use an English-speaking lawyer recommended by Garth
& Orilla and Brian & Shelley. I
couldn’t see us trying to make head or tail of legalese with our poor Spanish.
We
walked home and stopped at a burger place I had seen previously called Big
Kabudas. It is run by a fellow from
Venezuela who worked in the US for a Canadian commercial roofing company. The burgers were absolutely huge and awesome,
for $2 or $3, and that included a Coke.
We can’t cook at home for those prices so we will definitely be back there
again soon. Yummmmy!
Bella
is off tutoring so I will get this off and get caught up on everything else
before tackling photos again.
Update
Tuesday Dec 27/11
We are taking a day of rest and are going to ride the #50 bus to see where it
goes as it is not in the bus guide book, but we do know it goes by the new
house. We hope it will be a simple
route to downtown.
We also arranged for an English-speaking lawyer so hopefully the rest of the
buying process will go smoothly.
Enclosed
are a few more photos of the lovely children.
I finally completed my first run-through of the 890 photos and have
processed 511 terrific shot of the children.
These photos are much too good to just sit on my computer so I am open
to ideas for marketing such a volume of work without spending much money…. I sent 22 small versions to a lady at the
Chamber Of Commerce to see what they might say.
Well
the #50 bus seems to travel from the SE, past our new house, within 6 blocks of
our old house, 4 blocks from El Centro, past the huge Feria Libre market and
way up to the NW, up dirt roads in the new district called San Jose De Balzay
(that’s Saint Joe from Balzac for you English folks).
Have
a super day.
=========
Update Wednesday Dec 28/11
This is just a quick note to advise that we have come to an agreement to
purchase our new home in Cuenca and are very excited. This is an early
birthday present for me.
We meet again at the lawyers tomorrow at 5:00EST to sign the agreement and get
it notarized.
Depending on how quickly we can get our RRSP money transferred from Canada we
could potentially be in the home within 2 weeks.
We have to get the renovations arranged ourselves but we are looking forward to
the challenge.
Hugs to all.
Update
Thursday Dec 29/11
Another
short note just to confirm that we have signed the papers and they are
notarized so we are now the proud new
owners of our lovely house on Popayan.
It may be a short while before the deed to the split property is
finalized so we only have to put up ½ the purchase price for now.
I
pick up the key in the morning from Jorge so we can have access to take
measurements, etc for our renovations, drapes, etc. Jorge has promised to show me his home
along the Tomebamba as well. I told him
that I wish I was more fluent in Spanish as I was certain we would be fast
friends. He said we are already friends
in spite of our language shortcomings. I
really like him!
We
spent the whole afternoon criss-crossing El Centro looking for furniture,
drapes and rugs. We are quite happy
because we are sure we can come in under budget on those. We found a reasonable but fancy Imbabura
stove and a fancy Bosch fridge in a store that Bella wasn’t going to bother
with because their listed prices were quite high. Cash is King there because the Salesman
knocked off 40% without much prodding.
We
found a nice sized vanity and a lovely table and 6 chairs in the Rotary market
in a varnished knotty pine style that we both like. We might have to get a matching headboard.
We
found a really reasonable drapery shop with a ton of selection and they will
come out and measure, supply and install with all the hardware, etc.
Bella
said we are going to buy me a bike for my birthday to run back & forth to
the new place. I saw 20” bikes with
front & rear shocks brand-new at Coral for under $70 so we will have to try
to find a 26” if possible…
Update
Friday Dec 30/11
I
was up at 4:30 again, too much rolling around in this old head about the new
place. Even Bella is having trouble
sleeping so you know how excited she is.
I
walked to meet Jorge this morning at 8:00am and received the keys for the gate
and the front door. We briefly discussed
that we would prefer that his contractor installs the new pantry and island so
that it exactly matches the other cupboards.
We also want the same wood to cover for the removal of the front door,
and cover the removal of the two windows and cover extending the water and gas
line for the water heater at the front of the garage. The front door will be incorporated in a new
wall about 3’ inside the gate along with glass blocks.
Then
Jorge took me to see his own home. I
somehow guessed that I would know the house as soon as I saw it. When Bella and I walked for miles in this area
looking for another house, and finally spotting the house we did buy, there was
a gorgeous 3 storey brick house on the west edge that we just drooled
over. Sure enough this was Jorge’s
house. He has brick and stone
incorporated everywhere and he was very proudly showing me his family photos of
his children and grandchildren. He has
a gorgeous back yard and several fruit trees, including a monster avocado
tree. Bella would be in heaven
there. He even had a gazebo, barbeque
and a playhouse for the grandkids.
Since
I was done with him at 9:00 I called Bella and agreed to walk home in time to
run to catch a #13 bus to meet Garth and Orilla at 10:00 at the Vega pottery
factory. This was the day that they sell
their seconds and thirds at huge discounts.
It is a huge place, (the pics only show small portions of it) and we did
buy a couple of dishes to feed the cats, a spoon rest and a small bud
vase. Then we had to drag that around
with us for rest of the day.
Then
we walked over to SuperStock, a huge store of sundry household items. I picked up my discount card (they misspelled
my name, missing the O) and Bella wanted to get a fur removal mitt for
Pancho. The mitt was $1.41. Bella said they were $10 at home 15 years ago
so this was a bargain and did it ever work!
From
there we caught a bus to a carpet store we had been referred to past the Feria
Libre. They had all kinds of shag
carpets (yes, the 70’s stuff) everywhere.
When we indicated that we wanted an area rug around 9’ x 12’ he rolled
out an lovely Persian type rug and it was $540.
It was a little too white for our purposes so we were off and running
again.
We
walked until we found a place to eat, adjoining a hotel, the food looked good,
and it was. I was forever grateful to
get off my feet after 5 hours of running everywhere, but we weren’t done yet.
Bella
is getting to know the buses backwards here so we hopped a bus that took us
within a block of Kywi and SuperMaxi.
We researched some light fixtures, vanities, hardware, power tools, etc
at Kywi before doing our big grocery shopping at the SuperMaxi. Carrying those groceries up our long
driveway was the last straw for my aching body, I had to crash on the couch for
an hour or more.
Bella
went to tutor tonight but came home right away as Segundo was apparently
working late. Someone was already
lighting up their dummy on the street and Bella said it was positively toxic
with all that tape and nylon burning away.
I
will include a few photos I had left on my camera from the last week: Street cooking on Dec 23, Horse riders and
parade and meal on Christmas Day, shave and haircut Boxing Day. Also we see the beginnings of a paper mache
Homer Simpson which will be dressed and burned on New Year’s Eve as part of
their traditions. Then there’s a few
shots in the park in front of San Blas yesterday, and the Vega pottery factory
today.
Update
Saturday Dec 31/11
Well
this is the last blog for 2011 which has been interesting to say the
least. I won’t recap the year because I
am sure to forget many important events but instead we can focus on making 2012
a year to remember.
I
was up at 5:30 again, this is getting to be more than a habit. It does give me quiet time to get caught up
with emails and pictures.
I
had to wait until past 9:30 before venturing out as most businesses don’t open
until at least then. I was starting out
to look for my birthday bike and tried to locate a few local bicycle repir
shops but that was all they do, they don’t sell bikes. So I ended up waiting for Coral to open at
10:00 and hoped young Jorge would be there to interpret but he didn’t start
until 11:00. Another fellow spoke some
English and tried to help. They had
three adult bikes for $118, all slightly different and all banged up from
transit and from being jammed together in the store. They seemed to think this was normal. I chose one black bike to negotiate on, the
lesser of three evils. Everything was
loose on it, the brakes weren’t tight enough to stop, the derailleur was bent,
etc, etc. They suggested that it was
expected you then take the bike to a bicycle mechanic up the street and spend
another $15-$20 to get it operable. I
asked for a good discount and the manager wouldn’t budge. He suggested I come back Tuesday when they
got a new shipment in. I gave up and
went to the hardware section.
I
indicated to one fellow that I was prepared to buy a certain electric drill and
jigsaw behind the glass and I thought he was going to get them in the
boxes. I never saw him again. They have oodles of sales staff but they
mostly shrug their shoulders and don’t know much about anything except maybe
one aisle they look after or something.
Very frustrating at times. It was
past 11:00 so I was just turning the corner to go find Jorge when he came
around looking for me.
With
Jorge’s capable help I was able to get a better Driver Drill, extension cords,
power bars, drill bits, eye hooks, large screws, anchors, and an 8’
ladder. These I lugged to the new house
a few blocks away and put them up on the second floor, out of sight. I took a few rudimentary measurements for a
roof over the terrace, and it was very strange how it would be roughly 117”
wide, long, and high.
Then
I decided to hop a bus to El Centro and see if I can find a bicycle shop. I lost concentration and wasn’t sure where I
was in downtown so I just got off the bus to get my bearings. I walked up a half block and saw a
HyperMercado of some sort. Inside the
door I looked to my left at a long row of bicycles, with one adult sized bike
at the other end. It too was a little
marked up but at least everything seemed to work well enough that I could ride
it away. Nobody spoke English so I asked
for the “Jefe” (pronounced “heffay”) for a discount. At least he was willing to deal a little so I
got this bike, with fenders and those upper hand grips, front and rear shocks
for $140 and rode away.
The
back tire was a tad low so I stopped to add some free air. It was also making some other strange noises
and the seat needed to be raised a lot so I rode to my neighborhood bike
mechanic. He doesn’t speak English
either, but I told him it was brand new and needed adjustments. He tightened everything from stem to stern,
adjusted the brakes, then the spokes so the wheels ran true, raised the seat,
adjusted the fenders, lubed the shocks, and wiped it down. Then he charged me a whopping $5. Gotta love the Cuencanos.
I
got it home and put it in the office area and ripped off the gaudy decals. Attached will be a couple of photos of my new
birthday present which will enable me to commute between the two houses for
January and provide me with some recreational riding along the Tomebamba.
The
music is loud from the community centre a block away so I will wander down
there to join the festivities and take a few shots. Until later….
The
evening was super interesting as their New Year’s Eve traditions are so much
different than ours. First they have
made those effigies of presumably bad things that they want to burn to start
anew, like Bart Simpson, President Correa, etc. They are in front of almost every
house. You can buy ready-made ones on
the street.
As
I wandered about I spotted Segundo, who Bella tutors, walking in front of his
store so I stopped to say hello. He said
to go 2 blocks west and 2 blocks south to see some action so off I went as
there was nothing happening at our community hall, strangely enough.
They
have another odd tradition where the men dress in drag as widows. In this one area they were stopping all the
traffic and asking for donations for something.
Here was one big fellow with a smiley face who was having entirely too
much fun doing this. This small area was
dominated with a large papier-mache helicopter and dummies. Several families asked me to take their
photos.
As
I wandered back I was stopped 2 blocks from home by this group of four young
guys in their early 20’s who were having a good time and wanted to chat in
English. I wish I could remember names
but these fellas were all best buddies and had awful nicknames for each other,
and they sprayed each other with beer and just laughed about it. The chubby guy is an accomplished musician
with several instruments but plays drums in 3 bands. He had all kinds of great music on his iPod
and we discussed music, musicians, and bands for a long time and sang a few
songs too. The tall guy owned a store
nearby and he promised to bring beer to the party near the community hall.
As
I was wandering home for a badly needed bathroom break I stopped to see two
parties competing across the street from each other. One fellow in drag (see photo with his wife)
stopped me like I was a long lost friend and made me promise to come back,
which I did. I stopped at home and asked
Bella to join us but she was already in her nightie and was happy to stay home
and read a book. She said she had been
down to the community area earlier but I wasn’t there and nothing was happening
then so she just came back home. In
hindsight I should have been a little more insistent because she missed a great
time with these fabulous people.
I
apologize that I caught very few names, really just the daughter Jessica’s, but
I will remedy that later when I bring them a copy of the photos and videos I
took. Then we will exchange information
as they were very insistent that we were now fast friends and they wanted to
keep in touch.
The
dancing in the street was non-stop and at midnight the effigies and posters
were stomped on then lit on fire amidst all the fireworks going on
everywhere. Bella said she watched
fireworks across the whole city from the third floor window and the fellow
behind us was sending up quite a show.
The
host, his wife, his mother, her mother, daughter Jessica, and his sister and
brother-in-law, and other family members were salt-of-the-earth and we partied
as they passed around drink shots one after the other. The young fella from the prior foursome did
show up with a 24 of large Pilsners as promised. That is probably why I am still hung over at
this time. Between the Happy New Year
chants and the Happy Birthday chants we were one happy bunch. Then everyone went inside about 1:00 and they
had huge plates of food for each of us.
As we were eating I was grilled on just about every subject and had to
admit I was now 62 years old. The one
brother-in-law said he owned a silkscreening business for uniforms for school,
municipalities etc and that the host worked for him. He spoke really good English and was adamant
that I should call him any time I needed anything, rides to places,
anything. I was a little overwhelmed
with it all. I told him how much I
loved the Cuencanos and their joie-de-vivre, their hospitality, their
acceptance of us in the neighborhood with no reservations, and of course the
wonderful children. He said it is their
culture to never leave behind any child or ancestor.
After
this meal everyone went to the living room for more music and dancing. The host’s mother-in-law had a bad knee so
couldn’t dance but she was with everyone the whole time and enjoying everything. The host’s mother on the other hand danced
every dance. I danced with her one song
that was a 15 minute polka and she never broke a sweat. I was dying by the end of that one. I believe they said she was 64.
I
tried to beg off to go home around 3:00 but the host was pleading with me to
last just one more hour… About 3:15 I
just had to leave so one of the other fellows accompanied me the one block
home. He too offered that I should call
if I ever needed anything, rides, translations, anything. I was flabbergasted at such offers from folks
that had been basically strangers to me just four hours before. The host had said that because I was genuine
and he had liked me immediately and I was now part of the family.
As
we start this new year 2012 in this strange country we do so with absolutely no
trepidation. We love this country, and
its warm and loving people who have embraced us without conditions. We feel at home here and that will be even
better once we are set up in our new house.
HAPPY
NEW YEAR EVERYONE. We hope you had good
celebrations and we wish you all a super happy and prosperous 2012.
==============
Sunday January 1, 2012 Update
Oh well I woke up hungover. That was to be expected after that awesome
party last night.
I put together the photos and videos for the Andrade family who were so kind
to me and delivered it about 2:00pm but only one person was up. They
apparently partied until 7:30am so I didn’t blame them. I wouldn’t want
their hangovers, that’s for sure.
Bella was cooking and we cleaned house for the arrival of Garth and Orilla
for supper. Bella made a sumptuous meal of skewered pork chops,
homemade apple sauce, mashed potatoes, broccoli, asparagus and cream puffs for
dessert. What a great feast!!
We played Rummy Sticks and had a great time.
Then it was early to bed but I couldn’t sleep so here I am uploading YouTube
videos from last night and doing this blog. If anyone is interested
I uploaded 25 New Year’s Eve videos to YouTube starting with
http://youtu.be/lbDYRCt4R_c
HAPPY NEW YEAR. Let’s have a wonderful 2012!
Monday Jan 2/12 update
I got up early and packed up my tools to take to the new house.
I threw everything in my backpack and rode my bike. Since this is a
holiday here there was very little traffic.
I wanted to try my hand at drilling into the concrete walls and using the
plastic anchors. I managed to put in 8 medium size cup hooks to hook up
our clotheslines. That went really well so I decided to tackle
something more difficult. I walked to Coral to get a small light
fixture for the terrace, and to pick up mops, booms, a tool box,
etc. Coral has nicer light fixtures than Kywi and they are only a
few blocks away, The fixture was a whole $3.29 so it would be no
big loss if I buggered it up. I had previously purchased some long
screws and different size anchors, plus I had a couple of concrete bits.
I had no trouble splicing the electrical nor drilling into the concrete
ceiling. The problem is keeping those darn anchors in place while you try
to drive this long screw into them. I improvised and managed to get it up
good and solid. I may have to watch what the Ecuadorians do before I
tackle and of the good ceilings. I’ve seen them jerry-rig some wire to
hold up fixtures but I think we can do better in our new house.
Tuesday Jan 3/12 update
Today we went to the Banco Pichincha to get the balance of our deposit to
bring to Jorge’s sister Yolanda because our new house’s title is in her
name. . Michael Berger accompanied us because Yolanda was taking us
to some 3 furniture stores owned by her extended family and we found something at all 3.
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| Yolanda in pink, Bella & Michael in Yolanda's Tienda (store) |
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| My headboard with storage |
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| Twin Headboards |
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| Our Ecuador Art |
We found a better
6-burner stove, and all 4 beds, 2 doubles and 2 singles. including the headboard with storage that I wanted, and
two beautiful pieces of art. Bella is getting a vanity and bed frame at another place in the Rotary market.
Then we caught a bus up to the airport area to check out a store called
MegaHierro which is affiliated with a TrueValue hardware store, with
groceries. This is where Jorge said we should find a replacement double
kitchen sink. It was big but also very expensive. Then we
walked over to a strange store called Juan Elijer which sells everything from
motorcycles to washing machines. Bella located a fantastic
breadmaker/toaster oven/broiler for $110 and was overjoyed. We also
found her a beautiful lamp to sit on her vanity table to act as her reading
light. We caught a cab to deliver these items direct to the new
house so we don’t have to move them twice.
We got an email on GringoTree offering unlimited satellite TV for a flat
$250 fee up front. Hopefully we can catch a few more English channels
than we do now. I called the fellow and asked him to call me in two
weeks so we can install this in the new place. That was today’s
excitement. Hugs to all.
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| Stairway to El Centro |
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| Cuenca U |
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| Entrance to 10 de Augusto Mercado |
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| Roadway climbing to El Centro |
