Losing a friend...

My friend, Bob Fountaine, passed away Sunday night.

He had been in a motorcycle accident last Wednesday and died from the complications of that accident.  He was only 58 years old.


It takes a certain, off-the-beaten-track kind of person to leave behind the comforts of one's home and to establish a new lifestyle in a foreign country.  I have had the pleasure to personally get to know about fifty expatriates that have chosen the challenge of moving to Ecuador, and there are not many that have done it better than Bob did.

Leaving behind a successful career as a senior executive, Bob, his wife Michelle, and their two children took that chance.  Together, they made the move and established themselves in San Jose.  They built a house for themselves and became a presence in their community.

Bob went on to build and operate a gym in Montanita.  He employed members of the community to help him run the business to supply them with jobs and income.  The business is very successful and recently needed to add a second story for yoga and other fitness classes.

The finest attribute about Bob, however, was his character.  Despite his large size (I think he was about 6'5) and intimidating build, he was one of the kindest and most caring persons I have ever met.  He was always quick with a joke, generous to a fault, and I can't recall him ever speaking negatively about another person.  The first time I met and talked with him, I knew that I could always rely and confide in him.

Goodbye, my friend.  Our entire community misses you.

Movin' on up (the coast)

Most of my posts have revolved around specific events or incidents that have taken place during our time here in Ecuador.  There haven't been too many of those lately, so I haven't created a new blog post in a while.  My apologizes for that.

Having said that, there are three events that have occurred recently that are worth mentioning.


We've Moved to Puerto Lopez

Next week, we're hoping to begin work on our Machalilla property, and living in San Jose was just too much of a commute to make living there effective.  We loved the casita we were living in, and we'll miss spending day-to-day interactions with our hosts there, but this is a more practical location.

On the first map below, (C) is where we were previously (San Jose), (B) is where we are now (Puerto Lopez) and (A) is where our property is located (Machalilla):







The drive from San Jose to Puerto Lopez is about 45 minutes, including a really gnarly trip through the Machalilla forest with 200 foot drop-offs and no guardrails.  When we drive through that stretch, we're looking down at the tree-tops below us.

(Machalilla is both a town and a national park.  You can read more about the park here: http://www.machalillanationalpark.com/machalilla_national_park.shtml)

Living in Puerto Lopez also means a change in shopping.  There is a great Mercado in town for fruit and vegetables, but there are only two CPG stores (Consumer Packaged Goods - my work at Siebel Systems stiill sticks with me) of merit for buying household items (TIA and a tienda), and they are very over-priced.  When we lived in San Jose, we'd make a monthly drive to La Libertad/Salinas for shopping; now, we'll be going to Portoviejo, about two hours away:







(Manta is also an option, but it also has one of those gnarly ridge roads that I would prefer to avoid.  I must be getting soft.)

It's a pretty simple drive except for the part between the coast and Jipijapa.  The road climbs from sea level to about 2000 feet, and it's usually fogged in on our return trip.

Puerto Lopez is a very scenic town with a population of about 12,000.  Here's a view of the town from one of the surrounding hills:

Living here is closer to Ecuadorian living than living along the Olón beach:

• There are very few other expats here, maybe fifty.  This gives us a chance to interact with more of the locals and to get to know them.
• Puerto Lopez uses the epitome of "Coastal Spanish".  Not only do we need to improve our Spanish, we need to learn to how to hear it here.  At a tienda the other day, I bought a bottle of soda for $1.50.  On the coast, the last letter or syllable of a word is frequently truncated; instead of saying "dos cinquenta" (one fifty), the vendor simply said, "do cinquen".
• There is no garbage collection at our place (we burn our trash), but there is a very active recycling program.
• We walk into town for our errands.  (That's mostly true; I still drive when we make our water and beer runs.)  In San Jose, it used to take us over an hour to walk to Olón; here, we can get to almost any point in twenty minutes.
• Our favorite restaurant, Patacon Pisa'o, is also here.  The proprietor, Jaibel, is originally from Colombia; here, he is celebrating Colombia's win during the first knock-out match of the World Cup:

Machalilla is just ten minutes from here - much more accessible!


New Critters

We've adopted two new cats!  The entire litter was rescued when their mother was hit by a car just a couple weeks into their new lives.  Since we adopted them on the day of the lunar eclipse (April 15th), we've decided to name them Luna and Sol.  I think the picture will explain which one is which:

We also have a stray puppy that has adopted us:

I've named her "Dobby" because she looks just the like character from the Harry Potter movies.  Unfortunately, I don't know if she'll make it for long.  In addition to being completely emaciated, she was covered with hundreds of ticks and fleas, and she has many open wounds that are constantly being picked at and reopened.  We're feeding her and giving her flea baths, and we hope she recovers.  She spends most of the day curled up in that washpan; I think it's the first time she's felt "safe" in her life.

We no longer have iguanas roaming the property like we had in San Jose:

but we do have little four-inch geckos that crawl on the ceiling of our deck.  They're mostly a minor nuisance; they come out at night and croak a lot, but that's about it.



There are also the other occasional visitors.  I'm guessing this guy thinks my name is Peter Parker:

A Property Transaction that Proved Unworkable (so far)


Our current plan is to use the Machalilla properties as a project of sorts.  We'll use the two lots to understand all aspects of local construction, everything from leveling the lot and establishing boundaries to acquiring materials and paying workers.  We're still looking for our "destination" property, and we thought that we had found it.  So far, though, it hasn't worked out.

This is a simplistic explanation of the problem that we've encountered.  (It would take a month of Sundays to provide the full explanation.)  A landowner had a multiple-hectare property located on the beach between here and Manta.  He had divided it into multiple parcels prior to 1991 and started to sell them.  This is an example of how the properties were laid out:



This was the plot map that was registered with the Municipio in Jipijapa in 1991.  After some thought, however, the seller realized that he could make more money by re-parceling the property to move the Comuna Land (community property) inland and move the private parcels to the beach.  This is the new designation of the lot boundaries:



All of the escrituras (titles) reflect the new boundaries, and apparently a new plot map was registered with the Municipio in 1998.  However, no one at the municipal building can find that map.  This is the only one they have to work from:

(Yes, it is torn in many places and held together with cellophane tape.)

We could purchase the property and know its dimensions, but we wouldn't know exactly where it's located.  That would prevent us from building fences or getting permits to build any structures on the property.  Until the Municipio does a formal survey that correlates the plot map to the escrituras, we're not moving forward.


That's it for now - more updates to come as we start our new development in Machalilla!