Quick trip to Ibarra

Bus seat

Bus Seat


We decided to take the Bus, for .45 cents into Ibarra. It is about a 25 minute ride and we took the closest thing to an express of course. You can see the drivers chair in the picture. It looks like a lawn chair doesn’t it. The drive was nice and then a $1 taxi ride to the Dentist office and we were there.
Patrice was in the chair for 4 hours so we decided to just take a Taxi back, that was the usual price of $10.
We did stop at the Super Maxi (grocery store)and pick up a few things on the way back.
In the evening we did have a surprise. I made us a Chorizo skillet dinner. You know with Chorizo sauteed with onion, garlic, potatoes and some mixed veggies. So as I set the plates down…the power went out. After we got the candles out, it turned out to be just fine. Power came back at 10pm.

A little cutie dropped in

This morning this little girl dropped in with her mother for a few minutes. Isn’t she a little doll? This is the native dress for women and a large percentage young and old are dressed like this. This one is 5 years old.

Revisiting a Development

Today we met with some people to explain a bit more about a new development that we had a brief visit to a few days ago.This is a picture of the outside looking into the main room. Yes that is an outside fireplace being built. Inside you can see the fireplace in the front room. Great woodwork on the outside isn’t it. What you are seeing through into the front room is a window. Yup it isn’t in place as yet.

Ok, you can tell we walked inside. This is looking from the front room toward the kitchen. Back behind the bar is the kitchen they are working on. You can see a bit of the ceiling woodwork showing too. It is a little hard to see but there is can lights in the ceiling and in the archway into the kitchen. Now if you are really good you can see the overhead lighting in the top of the window to the right of the picture behind the fireplace. Those tall rectangular boxes are for shelving and there is lighting in the top too.
This entire development was designed by an Architect, and of course that includes the houses too.
Today we got a good overview of the complete development and details of the house (casa) plans for the development. It was a great couple of hours.

Market day today…

These on the spot reporters had an action packed day that would make any super hero envious.
We went to Otavalo and visited the market,(the largest in South America we are told). The Taxi fare was $5, I think it is like 30 cents by bus. The driver waited for us, for no charge, and then drove us back. Oh, this was the small day for the market, Saturday is the big day. As a side note, if you use Google Earth they have some 360 views of the Market you can see.

We uploaded a picture of what we bought. Ok here is the list; 2 Panama hats (they are really Ecuadorian, Panama doesn’t make them, another story); a Pashmina shawl and a cotton enhanced shawl too; napkin rings with little people on them, (look at the picture I can’t explain); a knit hat for a small one, (just that was a crushing $3). Total price was about $42.

A rough guess as to what we would pay in the states for the same things… about $175 – just an estimate.
Back to Cotacachi and lunch, 2 sandwiches, mocha latte, and a coke for $5 and change. By chance we met with the wife of one of the owners of a real estate project we like,(turns out she owns the place we ate in).
Off to the store to pick up more flour and Cinnamon, or should I say, “canela molida”, to finish the bread with.
Back to the Condo and bake 4 loaves of bread; 1 cinnamon, 1 roasted garlic and 2 plain white; whew.

We are preparing for a meeting tomorrow with the Real Estate Agent and the lady we met while having lunch today to see some more house plans and get some more information about their project.
I suspect we might bring them a taste of Alaska Sourdough when we meet too. I bought some loaf pans and the loafs are looking like real loafs instead of the odd shaped ones coming out of my makeshift loaf pans. Ok, even the odd shaped ones tasted great.

Lunch and candle light dinner

After doing our exhausting real estate tours we stopped to eat with a couple of friends and had a 4 course lunch. We had an appetizer that was chicken breast wrapped in bacon with sauce, beef potato soup. The entree of a shredded beef and peppers in a great sauce, with rice potatoes and veggies. This was followed up with a peach for dessert. It was way more food than we expected. We also had 2 bottles of water and 2 lemonades. The cost was $12 and change.
We didn’t want much for dinner after that huge lunch so while prepping dinner and working on the real estate post for yesterday I was ready to post and ready to cook when POOF, just like that, no power. So… in the darkness, your trusty roving reporter cooked a little Pasta Carbonara for dinner. It turned out pretty good and under the light of candles we had dinner.
Today we are off to the Dentist again. We will stop at the Super Maxi on the way back and pick up something for Thanksgiving. We won’t have time to fix lots we will save that for later.
Tata for now….

Ecuador Real Estate Tour

Dave here…Your roving reporting team was VERY busy today looking at real estate in this general area. It is hard to show just a few examples but we have them in the Ecuador Album, just a few highlights. Let me see if I can summarize what we saw. AMAZING, ok there you go done!… ok, ok, I will expand a little.
We saw lots to build on in a development for of .6 acres to 1+ acres for 40k – 80k with absolutely stunning views just outside of town.
In our little tour we visited I think 4 other houses (casas) that ranged from $80K to $135K all with great views and very workable layouts. At the higher end there were fireplaces and bathrooms in each bedroom and fabulous woodwork.
We also saw a development of 4 unit Condominium buildings with just stunning views. These run about $89k to $130k