And of course I have my traveling vases – they are absolutely the best the large one will double as an ice bucket

Patrice here – filling in for Dave he is working on the 2nd batch of bread as I type this.

We ran errands around town and picked up some items for lunch at the grocery store. We bought ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, 2 bags of chips (I know bad) for $3.02 (honestly)!! As we already had chicken and bread at the apartment – lunch was great even though the cook did not get a tip.

Ok on to our major event of the day – Super Maxi in Ibarra – grocery store – lots of great things for sure. We have enough for it to feel like home now in the apartment. Just some ideas of costs for groceries – 4 peeled white onions = $.75, 4 red onions = $.77, 15 roses plus a mix of other flowers to make them look nice = $2.50, artichokes = $.75, eggplant = $1 a kilo (2 small for $.50). We were introduced to some Ecuador specific fruits (Julio our van driver and guide extraordinaire) recommended them – we will update you when we try them.

Now for the dentist, thought we would have a quick visit with appts to be made for cleaning and the rest of what is needed WRONG full exam (both), deep cleaning (both), upper and lower impressions (P), xrays (D) office visit (now sit down for the total price) …. $140.00 (both of us)! He also required that we get panoramic xrays which we did for (are you still sitting down?) $9 each. We both really like him – he was trained in NY City and has a degree in cosmetic dentistry. At this point we are considering re working my smile completely – could never have though of doing that state side. Will keep you posted. As an FYI a full porcelain crown here is about $400.

For those of you driving diesel – its $1.03 a gallon.

It was a long day today but we feel like we got lots accomplished. Even with the power out yesterday (from 8am – 1pm) I was able to work a couple before the outage and then after close to 10 hours all together- high speed is really quite good here, our Vonage phone is working great!

Imbabura Mountain
A picture of the view outside our apartment. This town has two extinct Volcanoes, one on each side. This is one of them.