Another Season...

At the start of this month we finally bought a car and filled the papers to transfer our driver license onto an Ecuadorian one.
We are so appreciative to be able to go wherever we want, whenever we want without having to call a taxi and wait for 20 min!
As all the cars are imported, there is not much choices and they usually have to order them; They might have up to 5 cars available in each garages!
Also the basic standard cars here are way different than the basic standard cars in north America!
Most of the cars are manual, no electric windows, engine are 4 cylinders only ...etc...
We were happy to be able to find an automatic one with a bit of comfort!
The manual transmission makes driving aggressive and stressful.

This is the beginning of the rainy season; The rain is also different here, very thin to heavy showers;
It brings a special atmosphere to the scenery; with some mist and calm.
But the tempratures are also over 20C (68F).

The vegetation is thriving and the garden is growing; we were able to harvest few mulberries, strawberries and some Japanese mustard spinach (komastuna) that look like collard green.
Cherry tomatoes are coming soon!
We also planted more decorative flowers and plants.

This is also the mango season, they are so good.
We went to a wholesale market where we were able to buy them in bulk : 35 large mangoes for $10 (few week later they were 100 mangoes for $15) as well as 120 bananas for $5 and 50 oranges for $5.50 (then 100 for the same price!).

We also met other expats (there is about 200 expats in this small village!) and made new friends...

Not much this month! We are still waiting for our visa and container...

Mother nature offer us such beautiful scenery each day to be grateful for!

Month 3: A month of paperwork!

We started this month with another trip to Machala (near the coast); 5.30hours drive, and this time we decided to stay for the night.
It was a wise decision as when we arrived to the minister around noon, they told us that we wouldn't be able to finish the application because they needed to cut the electric system off for the afternoon!
So we needed to come back the day after at 8:30am; We were the first here and it took us about 2 hours to make the applications (for the investor visa) for the 4 of us; Unfortunately we were missing some papers again but they gently accepted to take our application and we had to send them the missing papers.
To obtain those papers was another story! and they added 2 more by email the week after!

The Hotel in Machala was descent but very noisy like the city itself!
Driver have they hands on the honk!

Back home, it took us few weeks to get all the papers; We needed to go back few time in Loja (1 hour drive) in different buildings to get them; Some required a week to make; for 2 of them we were lucky to meet a worker who help us go through all the buildings, desks, official papers, line up and more otherwise I wonder if we were able to get them!... I am grateful to have met this person!.

So, now we have to wait few weeks (maybe a month) to get an answer from the Minister in Machala to have our application accepted.

This is a long and difficult process that we didn't imagine like that! It required a lot of patience, road trips and time...

On another side, we were working on the papers to get our container from Vancouver.
And they asked for the immigrant visa that we are waiting for!
Another option was to hold a certain amount of money at the bank to clear the custom tax if necessary and we will have 180 days to show the visa to get the money back!
We try to do this option to accelerate the process, but it didn't work as we expected!
The bank wasn't familiar with this procedure and we needed to go back at least 6 time to get it; to finally give up on it because they wanted us to make a false declaration about our marital status!

But we are getting there!.

In the garden, we had some friends who gave us some cherry tomatoes, kale and Chinese cabbage as a welcome gift (how sweet!) and we bought other flowers and ornamental plants and palm trees.

The green house is finished (some opening need to be fixed); and we need to work inside and get some tomatoes and cucumber plants.

We also harvested the very first fruits in our garden (so exciting!), they were berries; actually called 'Morera". = Mulberries and are very delicate.

And our very first delicious strawberry.
We already have some citrus on some trees and everything is growing pretty fast!

The weather is really like Spring all the time! Some days are pretty windy and it's cooler in the morning and evening. We had few showers and they are welcome!.

Already 90 days that we arrived! Time goes fast! and we are glad to have made the 180 days visa on the consulate of Ecuador recommendation!

It was also the month of my Birthday; I got a pretty flower bouquet;
Flowers are one of the export products from Ecuador; they are pretty cheap compare to US and Canada.
This bouquet did cost only $3.50!

We also hunted down for a car and this was interesting too; As all the cars are imported, they only have few in stock and they don't have all the models available; So we ordered one and it must be here soon... 

Check next month for this update!.

So, here is a little diorama with some pictures of our garden (chickpeas, baby tomatoes, fruit trees...) and some stunning views we have all around.

Also the Yucca tree with their beautiful white flowers...

I hope you'll enjoy this update...

Thank you for stopping by.

  

All in a month!

Already one month that we arrived in Ecuador!
Time is going fast too here! :)

So here is what we've done in a month and some differences we've experienced:

- Houses are made of concrete, steel, stucco, plaster and the wood is used as decorative pillars, the roof are made out of tiles and wood, very durable and well built!
There is no heating or cooling system as the temperatures are like spring all year long.
Propane is used to heat the water and drying machine.

- To start over we needed a minimum of kitchenware and furniture/appliances to live in our new house.
So we went to the nearest big city (Loja, 45 min drive) and bought some mattresses, kitchenware, plates... and a washing machine (what is unbelievable is that this is the best I have even had! it's extra large, it weights your clothes and choose the right program! plus it makes a cool ice cream truck music when it's done! but no, it doesn't deliver any ice cream!).

Shops here are pretty small and over stock for their size (except for the large retail store like furniture, appliance, grocery store ...); They are usually specialized in one thing or few and they don't look very inviting! but you need to go over that judgment if you need certain things!.

- We've hired several contractors that are helping us with the garden, furniture making and the development of our third bedroom that is almost done.
Actually all our furniture will be custom made in quality wood by a local artisan here in Ecuador.
Ecuadorian are really good manual workers.
Furniture are made of real quality wood like red cedar.
Here is the bed that we custom ordered (the same bed in Canada would have cost 7 times more!).

We also asked for a double jetted tub in our bathroom! It takes time to fill it up but it's pretty nice!
Now I am waiting for our container to decorate en embellish all around...

- We've got  a hammock installed; It's a good relaxing place when there is no wind with a beautiful view.

- We went to Machala to registered our 180 days visa; It's a 5 hours drive (one way) and it took 30 min to process the paperwork for the 4 of us. So we had a 10 hours drive in a day in the mountains where the roads are practically turns after turns after turns! It's worse than a roller coaster ride! It took us a day to recover from it!
Machala is the Banana capital of Ecuador, they export directly from their harbor. We saw fields after fields of Banana trees. The climate is warmer and humid over there since it's closer to the coast.
The sad thing is that we saw some planes that spray the fields! :(

-For the past month the temperatures were a bit chilly in the morning and night but nice during the day.
I would say a bit colder than spring.
The vegetation is beautiful and abundant.

Down the hill near the house, there is a river and some wild orange trees; Once in the river we saw 2 giant otter screaming at us!

As the house is also near a natural reserve, we also saw a little fox and a antelope/deer and many nice birds (but I couldn't manage to take any pictures yet!), they are really noisy sometimes, they make a sound comparable to a light saber!
Just few days ago a hummingbird knocked himself out by bumping onto the window, I picked him up, gave him some Reiki and a little bit of water and in few minutes he was flying again, stayed few seconds in front of me and flew away.

- We visited some farmers markets on Sunday morning where the fruits are really cheap (15 bananas for $1; Pineapple for $1, 20 lemons for $1, 25 oranges for $1, same as carrots and so on).
But if you are looking for process food here, it can be expensive!.

and fresh coconuts ($1.25 each)

We do not own a car; there is a large Taxi service that cost about $1 per km, most of the Taxi are pick up truck and they used the back to transport workers! (they know car pooling!).

The road are not all paved, only the main one; they are a mixed of gravel and sand (can be pretty dusty!).

If you are a pedestrian you better watch for your life! 

So this is all in a month!... Next month I will show you more furniture and more about our little life story!...

Feel free to leave your comments, questions and more...