NEW ADVENTURES FOR US IN PAUTE

No we are not being put into jail... This is our new home in Paute, Azuay Ecuador. It is a single story duplex. We have both sides.

We signed our 3 yr lease today... that in itself was an adventure. Let me tell you about it.

Let me introduce Rodrigo, Contractor, Handyman, taxi driver, and our newest friend.

Rodrigo is on the left. This is NOT our house...its my friend Jani's house

Rodrigo has helped us find this house, meet with the owners, and make sure our translations were correct at the Notary when we signed our lease. All around nice guy.

We got into town at our appointed 9 am meeting time. Rodrigo was called and he said "I will be there in 20 minutes (read 40 minutes) with the REAL owner.. " Oh no... the real owner. Randy said, Well who in the hell did we give the deposit to?

We went to the park in the center of town to wait.  We were picked up and went to get our Real Landlord.  Then off we went to the Notary. 

During the ride we found out that the people who showed us the house was our LL's Aunt. Whew... at least it was in the family.
Did your Aunt tell you all that we discussed about the house? Well No... so now, outside of the Notary we were negotiating about the house. sigh...  

We agreed and went in. the notary was very detailed and took about an hour... cost 21.00. LL paid.

Poor Randy, his nerves were shot, imagining all the horror stories  that could be.. for naught. :) 

We went to the house to go over a few things and get the keys.  Rodrigo is going to get the workers together to "spiff" up our new rental. This spiff up requires, concrete, saws, piping, paint and lots of elbow grease. (See photos below).

Suicide showers.. Rodrigo says he is able to change these out

 

 

Randy's tiny kitchen, but its much better than the other side...

 

Randy and the landlord in the living room.

Afterwards we went to our friend Jani's house ( gonna be our Paute neighbor!) and had a wonderful lasagna lunch.. hooray for good friends!

OK, I know you are wondering about Frankie.. Well he seems so confused by all the travel and the new house smells. He did get excited when I showed him the back yard. He slipped out of the front gate and met one of the neighbor dogs.. hair all up and tail all stiff.. but no biting or growling.. just lots of smelling.

Saturday we go back and start getting some supplies for the crew to start on Monday...

More updates later...