A few months ago ,Yahoo and I had a major issue, and I was locked out of my accounts... all of my accounts. Even Google.. Today I finally was able to get through their security questions and access my google accounts... this blog being one of them... yeah me!
OK, so update. We are still in Cuenca, but are moving to Paute on March 31. We put down a rental deposit just today! We sent out the word to everyone we knew, and a few that we didn't and we got our place. Its going to be quite the process to get it ready (its been empty and not well kept for quite a few years), but we are looking at it as an ongoing adventure of living in a smaller town.
We were managing a condo here in Cuenca, but the owners have decided to no longer rent it out. Now that we no longer are "working" we can look into living in a smaller town. Our idea with this is twofold. We would like to have a lifestyle that is not so surrounded by English speaking people, and we would like a town a bit more "tranquilo", less cars, busses and even people. We will be going from 500K to 40K in population.
We just celebrated a 1 year "birthday/anniversary" for Frankie, our rescue dog. He is doing quite well and has quite a following. Those who do not know our name seem to know his. Its quite nice that he likes people and is very approachable.
We are working on getting our Ecuadorian Citizenship. The process is not that difficult. The necessary papers are from right here in town. The only US document we needed was our Birth certificates notarized and apostilled. Which we had from when we first moved here in 2010.
We flew to Quito in November and presented the documents. Our Spanish teacher went with us to be sure we did not get confused with legal-eze. We now have enlisted a local business called Gringo Visas to assist with the rest of the process so we do not have to fly up to Quito until the "swearing in" process.
So far this year, Ecuador has had some big things occur. One is the Volcano Tungaruhua exploding so high into the atmosphere that we got ash here in Cuenca... almost 200 miles away. The volcano is one that is off and on spouting off, but the locals say its been 60 years since they got ash in Cuenca.
We have another election coming up. For our local officials. We got to vote in the Presidential election, and now we are looking forward to this one as well. A new electronic voting system will be tested here in the Azuay province, so that should be fun to see how that all works out. There have been many street demonstrations on the use of the computerized system, as well as YouTube and leaflets with photos showing each step.
Another issue here is what they call the Black Moons. I guess there has been 3; and during those times the tides have been very high along the coast. Due to Sand Mining operations, the way the water hits the coast has changed and a now there is extensive loss of beaches, homes and whole towns... other places are gaining sand...
It seems that the stream of people coming to Ecuador is slowing down. I am guessing that the word is getting out that no place is Nirvana and you need to do your due diligence before you make any move This last year has seen quite a few people return to the US. About 5 different couples and a few single folks. All with varied reasons.
We still continue to love our life here in Ecuador. I will continue to update you on our progress with the moving, Citizenship and Frankie escapades!
Oh and thanks for hanging in with me during the lulls!
For some reason I cannot get photos to load.. I will work on that as well.
