This will have to cover several days for the simple reason that I am not always where I can get to the Internet on a regular basis. My room at the school is not yet ready so I am shuffling between houses in the interim. When they joke about “time vs. Ecuador time” it’s all too true. In Mexico we used to joke about “manana”-here they take it to a new level.

View of the city of Loja and the valley where it lies

 Internet
Most of the Internet in Loja is slower, running about 512kbps. Up and down almost every street in Loja you can find a place to get on the Internet. Unfortunately, these are little tiny holes in the wall with anywhere from 3 to 10 small desks, chairs and monitors that cost about $0.50 per hour to use and the ones I have tried run slower as more of the desks are used. I think most everything here is DSL from what I gather. Fortunately the school has a good link that seems to work well as long as not too many people are online. What I really miss are the Internet cafes in Chile where you can get good coffee and good speed.

This was my alarm clock at 4:30AM--view from one of the houses I am temporarily staying

Weather
Loja itself is about 6,600 feet above sea level. Even though we’re almost on the equator, the altitude helps keep it reasonably cool-about 65-75 during the day depending on cloud cover, and about 50-55 at night. All in all it’s very comfortable-it also has the added advantage of being cool and high enough that there aren’t a lot of mosquitoes around. We’ve had a bit of rain every day but it has been spotty and light enough I could still go out and wander around the city.

The Town
Loja apparently has about 120,000 people but I swear most of them are on the road most of the time! The city is old and has very narrow streets. This results in having many one way streets with taxis hurtling down the way blasting their horns at anything or anyone appearing to be in danger of getting in their way. Adding to the general mayhem, the garbage trucks, propane delivery trucks and the schoolbuses all play a specific loud tune as they go around to alert their customers! On a warm sunny day, it’s not fun to walk around downtown due to the constant barrage of car, truck and bus exhaust. I don’t think anyone here has ever heard of a catalytic converter. But when the wind blows away the smoke or there’s a light rain falling, it’s fun to walk the narrow sidewalks, vying for space with thousands of other pedestrians.

One of many narrow old streets in Loja.

Prices
So far I have noted many prices that are ridiculously low. A taxi across town costs about $1.50-$2.00, a bus anywhere in the entire city is $0.25, a ride to the airport by bus (45 minutes) is about $1.00 and so on. Breakfast is about $1.50, lunch can go to $2.50 as it’s the main meal, dinner is usually a snack or not bothered with. I went to the corner store and bought a small bag of nuts, a bottle of water and a bottle of lemonade and the total came to $0.80. I bought lunch for my friends in Vilcabamba (3 sandwiches with fries, 3 large beers, three chocolate cake slices and two coffees) and the total came to $17.35 (this was real splurging). I’ll check on clothing, laundry and the like a bit later on. Oh yeah, the gas is subsidized and currently costs $1.48 a gallon-sorry to mention that to my California friends…

General Impressions
My first impression of Loja was seeing it as another Tijuana or Santiago, Chile for those familiar with the places. Now as I have spent more time wandering around, it’s a nice, fun and safe place for gingos-but just not as a tourist destination. It’s smoky, smelly and dusty with lots of noise but that’s part of the package and makes it constantly interesting and unique. Most of all, the people here are absolutely wonderful-they just can’t do enough for you. My fractured Spanish has resulted in a few gaffes but for the most part, they patiently try to help me get the right words out for them to understand what the hell I’m talking about. As I practice more of my Spanish I am getting better at understanding some things except the Ecuadorians talk very fast and slur the words, very much as in Chile. That makes my favorite phrase, “Despacio, por favor!”.

This is one of about 5 squares dominated by an old church. There are several and all are gorgeous old things.

I’ll be moving into my room at the school on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday…uh, make that sometime soon and, once enshrined there, I should be able to punch out more observations more regularly since the Internet at the school is faster and more reliable than anywhere else I have found. That is, of course, if I can keep the secretaries off Facebook and YouTube–then it grinds to a halt. Also, I have had a few experiences that will be fun to relate (my trip to Vilcabamba, for instance) so stay tuned-just give me a few more days to write and post it. One last thing–I’m looking for an easy way to post more pictures than here along with at least some narration about each one. If you have any favorite online album systems, please let me know.

The flight on Delta from San Diego to Atlanta was your typical no service, bare bones, domestic flight. The only saving grace for the flight was meeting my seat-mates, Cindy and Richard from San Marcos. Very nice people headed to Baltimore. He supplies tropical plants to Home Depot so make sure you stock up on tropicals from Home Depot… They too were quite interested to hear more about Ecuador so hopefully they’ll read this blog. If so-hi there Richard and Cindy!

Sunset at 37,000 feet

Getting onto the flight in Atlanta for Guayaquil was a world of difference-I was in Business Class where I had what I would consider the good, old fashioned style of travel service, except, of course, for the free champagne… Nice crew. As we approached Quito the crew announced that if we were assigned a gate we would all disembark but if not, we would stay on the plane. We got a gate so everyone had to get off, go into the terminal and those of us going on to Guayaquil were issued a boarding pass. We were then directed around a corner where we threw our carry-on bags through an x-ray machine then proceeded into a waiting area filled with new passengers, some going to Guayaquil and others going to Atlanta on the return flight. One passenger called it the Quito Chinese Fire Drill.

When I finally arrived in Guayaquil some 52 minutes later I disembarked into a huge, gleaming steel and glass and very modern airport-very impressive. Once I got my bags I went to customs where a very courteous lady took my papers, checked I had nothing to declare and had me put my bags on yet another x-ray machine. As soon as someone peered into my bags, they came out the other side, I hooked them together and then wheeled them out the gate. The hotel shuttle met me and packed the bags into their minibus along with those of 3 other travelers. We hurtled through the streets of Guayaquil at 11:30 at night among a surprising number of other cars, buses, motorcycles and wandering pedestrians. This manner of driving has been the only stereotypically Latin observation I have made.

Front of the Hotel Oro Verde in Guayaquil

 

Marble, wood, glass, iron–the hotel lobby is gorgeous

 

I checked into the Hotel Oro Verde on 9 de Octubre and walked into an incredibly beautiful lobby. All wood paneling, marble and shining brass, this hotel is very impressive, especially if you’re expecting the usual Latin American or 3rd world country hotel. Very modern yet with many traditional accents, it was the model of efficiency as they checked all of us in and moved the bags off to our various rooms. The room was a double with 2 comfy beds, TV, desk, double bath-all what you would expect in any first class hotel. Thankfully they also have a high-speed Internet connection. This place beat out almost every hotel I have stayed in over the past few years just about anywhere-including the Meridian in San Francisco-especially at $100 per night including breakfast. One thing that really makes the hotel are the truly friendly and helpful staff they have–not a snob or harried type among them.

When you do come to Ecuador and stop in Guayaquil (it’s a very interesting coastal city of 2 million) just go ahead and make plans to stay at the Hotel Oro Verde. It’s a member of the Leading Hotels of the World group and well worth it. The people are wonderful, very attentive and just plain nice about everything. When you do, call for Edgar Clavijo at the hotel to pick you up and show you around on his own. He was my driver but is available to show you anything you might want-really a great guy. You can even email him ahead of time at valedy69@yahoo.com  — thanks for the fun time Edgar.

Now I can’t really explain this next photo–it reminds me of my days in Hong Kong watching them build skyscrapers using bamboo for scafolding. Amazingly, this appears to be used for painting the building although I wasn’t able to see them actually doing that–only an assumption.

Bamboo scafolding for the building painters? No thanks!

Since I’m sitting at the airport awaiting my flight to Loja, I decided to use the free wifi here to post this to the blog. Hopefully those of you reading will see I really am keeping it up and will come back soon. Next time, I promise there will be more pictures.

This may be the last entry before I actually leave–as long as the crick don’t rise and Delta lets me on the plane. I actually planned to start this blog once in-country but can’t help myself as I think of things to say before leaving. This is a lot easier than calling everyone I know and repeating things several hundred times.

Before leaving for an extended period, you can almost be guaranteed something (or many things) can go wrong. Maybe this is a brain’s method for easing into a new situation-making you happy to leave your present surroundings. Besides having papers missing, computers and Internet fail and things around the house break down just before leaving, we had our car crunched.

Our great little Toyota Avalon was unhappily crunched in the parking lot as I sat waiting for a car in front of me to back out. The young woman just didn’t see me as she looked out at 40 feet in the air from her SUV. Fortunately, the damage was mostly to the bumper plastic-unfortunately, that crunched piece of plastic extends around to the other side of the car. The corner was handily pushed in by her bumper but fortunately just mostly hurt the plastic.

Between our friends we’ve been paying for 35 years at USAA, the woman’s State Farm, Enterprise Rent-a-Car and the wide range of idiotic automated telephone systems at each (push 1 for… push 2 for…  etc, ad nauseum) it only took about 2 weeks to get this underway and repaired. Let’s all get together to ban these automated answering things-yuck!

Anyway, USAA sent me to a shop in Vista where they do one stop repair-drive in and drive out (weeks and money later, of course). Still, if any of you in San Diego County ever need a really superb autobody repair place, take it to Ari Soltani at EuroPacific Autobody on Melrose in Vista. Yes-this is a plain, unadulterated pitch for him. The guy has a crew that does excellent work, they provide a lifetime warranty on their work and he’s a helluva nice guy to boot. OK-enough of the advertising.

As I was saying, many negatives creep into your life before making a major move that make you almost ecstatic to leave. Between the car, the house, the elections, the inflation, the TV, the door to door salesmen and the traffic around here, everything on the other side of the fence looks very green indeed. So now I’m getting excited.

Make sure you stay tuned-not knowing what to expect in Ecuador may lead to some interesting revelations that very well may temper my excitement. We’ll see…

Although I had not planned on putting much into this blog until I arrived and began documenting my experiences in Ecuador, I thought some preparation information may be useful to anyone reading this who may be contemplating a similar move.

As I continue to prepare for a year in Ecuador, many things come up that become more complicated as I go along. What to wear, what sort of supplies do I need, how much money should I take…these are some of the normal questions.

 One problem I face will be getting residency for the duration of my teaching position. There are lots of bureaucratic mountains to climb along the way and today I finished one of the first. Besides the documents the school requires, I need to bring along several others for the residency process. In all, here is a list of what I am taking:

Passport, birth certificate, police report, current health declaration, marriage license, CELTA and proof of my college BS (the degree–not the other stuff). Here’s the fun part–every one of these (except the passport) must be notarized and apostilled. Basically, you need to have an original document and show it to a notary, The notary then certifies he/she saw it and it was real. Then you go to the county to have them certify that the notary who certified your documents was real. Then you go to the state to have them certify that the county is real, showing the notary is real, showing the copy is real and that the notary saw the real thing in your possession.

Nothing like a little trust along the way…

Here’s how this got done:

I gathered up all the documents either as originals or as certified copies. Then I took them all the a notary and executed a notarized certificate of custody for each one – cost: $10 each. Next I took these to the San Diego Recorder’s office in San Diego for  notary verification – cost: $5 each. Finally I took this burgeoning pile of papers to the state building for apostille – cost: $20 each.  Result? Just the papers alone for the job and the residency cost over $210. Once I get there I face additional charges for the lawyers and government fees.

Since I am going to what many would call a 3rd world country, I know there will be lots of bureaucracy to face so this is good practice for me. One interesting thought someone had for me was that I will not be able to stand the poor conditions, the lack of infrastructure and the bureaucracy. My reply is that, after my experience in Chile, all you have to do is remember that you’re “not in Kansas anymore.” and to expect problems and changes.

This has taken me about 6 weeks to complete and now I am finishing up the cleaning out of my office, office computer and garage for the duration. If anything else crops up that would be useful I’ll throw it in here as well.

Hi–and thanks for visiting this blog. This is the first entry as I prepare to make the move to Ecuador. I’m in the process now and will be there on 28 August 2008.

Why Ecuador? I’d love to say something profound about the exotic draw of the Andes or another deep thought but, the truth is, it’s where I got my job.

After years as a copywriter, marketer and all around entrepreneur, it was time for a major change. No, not a midlife crisis–I’m a bit beyond that. In reality this is part of a bigger plan for the near future. Leaving my wife behind is the hardest part but it’s only for a year so I can survive. We’ll make it.

At this point I have completed my training to teach English as a foreign language. I attended International House in San Diego and went through an incredibly intense program to obtain my Certificate in English Teaching to Adults, or CELTA. Believe me, it’s much more fun to look back on it than it was during the actual course.

Over the next 6 weeks I will be preparing to move south to Loja, Ecuador, sorting out clothes, cleaning my computers, asking a million questions and preparing all manner of things for my wife to handle. So stay tuned…