Monday, February 17, 2014

I AM BACK!

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.



6 comments:

  1. hi!
    my husband and I are currently in Cuenca,looking for a quieter place as well,what is paute like and how's the weather compared to Cuenca?

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    1. Sorry I hit the wrong button to reply.. hope you see my comment below.

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  2. There are some You Tube videos, that show alittle bit of Paute. We like it because its a lot smaller and a bit warmer. The Wikpedia says the weather ranges from 50-82 degrees. Its about 22 miles from Cuenca. The elevation I think is about 7500 ft. It is mostly a agricultural community. The town has no supermaxi, a little private grocery store, and a huge Sunday market for all types of things. Kind of like the Feria Libre, but smaller. You can go to the Terminal Terrestre and get a but to Paute for about 75 cents.

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  3. Hey Karen!
    I'm having real problems getting my photos to upload to Blogger too!
    Took me two days on my last post (and I only had three to upload). I thought maybe it was my computer.
    I ended up putting them on a thumb drive, went to a cyber café and used one of their computers. After a few stubborn non-responses from Blogger, they finally did upload.
    Let me know if you get it figured out.
    I thought it was just me.
    Miss you guys! We were in Cuenca earlier this week (briefly), but got there late in the afternoon, and left early the next morning.
    Hope next time we have more time to get together with you all!

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  4. Did you check out other smaller cities beside Paute?
    I won't be moving to Cuenca until May and will stay there for a while until I get the feel of Ecuador...but am already thinking about Loja. Did you even consider Loja while you were looking?

    Thanks
    Denise

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    1. HI Denise,
      Thank you for reading my blog!
      We have been here for almost 4 years. We have been to Loja, but for us it is too remote, also we did not get a "aha" feel any of the times we visited or passed through.
      For such a small country it is easy to find a town or climate that suits within a few miles of each other.
      Hope to meet you when you come to Ecuador.

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