OUR BEGINNINGS IN ECUADOR

Every day of the past few weeks was challenging and rewarding at the same time. As planned, we found a little apartment for the first month. It is close to the city center and having our own wireless Internet makes organizing so much easier. As many things here in southern Ecuador it ALMOST always works…

FIRST VISIT TO OUR HOUSE

Monica, the real estate lady that helped us find our new home took us to our house the second week we were here in Cuenca. Most of our property was the way we had left it in January except our gardens. They were in dire need for some TLC. We think we found two reliable people that help us with the cleaning and watering of our plants and trees – small progress can already be detected. This mornings orange juice – made out of oranges grown at the SANTUARIO HIBISCUS – was a highlight and made up for a lot of the difficulties we encountered during these first weeks…

OUR VISAS

What was described to us as a rather simple process in January turned out to be a rather complex matter. We spent many hours in government offices and at our lawyers; after countless copies and several payments we were finally rewarded with a visa stamp in our passports. After another wait and more copying we finally received our papers that will identify us in the future as legal residents.

BILLS

The next obstacles were waiting just around the corner but we mastered them with increased confidence. The payment of your electricity and water bill is another rather stunning matter. There is no bill that you receive in the mail. You take a trip to the “Empresa Eléctrica”, the company responsible for the power supply and pay your liabilities at their counter. My timid attempts at asking for a possibility to receive our bills via the internet were met with a rigorous shaking of the head. The water bill is paid at a neighbors house.

A NEW ACQUAINTANCE AND THE PURCHASE OF A CAR

We went to the “Terminal terrestre” to find out about the bus schedules to get to our house. This was the day we met Milton. He is Ecuadorian and works as an inspector at the Terminal – what his work really entitles is still a miracle to us. He made us aware of a lot of things that need to be considered when purchasing a car in this country and the study of listings in the used car sections of the “El Mercurio”, the local newspaper, became part of our daily routine.
We are presently negotiating for a Grand Vitara and hope that this weeks visit to our house will be with our own car.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 28th, 2010 at 2:18 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.