Living in Puerto Lopez: Blackouts

Puerto Lopez, like any developing city, has an issue with uninterrupted power.  We have occasional flickers and sometime hour-long periods when the lights go completely out.  When this happens, the entire town goes black; only a few residences and some businesses (especially the hospital) have power.  (The only electricity is available by generator, and it's easy to determine who has one and who doesn't.)  That's not too surprising when the electrical infrastructure looks like:

There are three main causes for this; one of which is when we lose a supply line from Puerto Cayo 30km to the north for any number of reasons: a bus hits a power pole, someone accidentally cuts the line, a pole tips over, etc.

Another has been an accepted practice here for years.  Street vendors (and the former beach cabanas) used to "borrow" power, without cost, by tapping into a local supply line.  They will obtain power by hooking their lines into the local grid, either by using a wooden stick to connect to the trunk line or by simply tossing their own wires over the street lines.  If the polarity of the connection is reversed (hot to negative) or if the positive connects with a different service (such as an old telephone line), the grid will short out and, like the old Pat Travers song says, "Boom Boom, Out Go the Lights".

This picture isn't great (it had to be a stealth), but check out the wiring:

Most of these businesses have either been closed or received proper connections.  The city is committed to burying the lines and stopping the theft:

The third reason for an outage is the only one we can prepare for.  Yesterday, three medium-sized navy ships arrived in our bay:

Having seen them a few times before, I knew that there would be spontaneous blackouts in the city throughout the night, and this happened between 8:00p last night and 3:00a this morning.

What am I doing up at 3:00a on a Wednesday?  The outages were anywhere from five minutes to an hour long.  When the outage happens, everything goes completely quiet: the refrigerator, the ceiling fans, the dance parties across town - everything; even the dogs stop barking!  When the power comes back on, so do the parties, the fans, the dogs and chickens, etc.

Why does this happen?  This is pure speculation on the part myself and other people I know, but we suspect it is to watch for smuggling and that the illegal boats are more easily spotted at night.

Curiously, this has nothing to do with drugs or narcotics, at least here on the central coast.  Ecuador recently imposed high tariffs on imported goods, as high as 40% on some goods brought into the country.

There was a bust south of Puerto Lopez a little while back.  The contraband consisted entirely of name-brand clothing and, I believe, small appliances.  In a case like that, it is more cost-effective to smuggle the goods into the country than it is to pay the duties that a legal shipment would incur.

I guess the only moral to the story is this: buy local and let's all keep the lights on!

Living in Puerto Lopez: Expat Profile

I belong to a number of Facebook groups that have to do with living in or moving to Ecuador.  During the past few weeks, there have been a couple of disparaging posts and comments about the town where I live: Puerto Lopez.  I'm hoping that I can explain some of the rationale behind this.

I read a comment from someone earlier that our town is a dusty, dirty little fishing village.  Today, that person is wrong.   After some rainfall this past week, Puerto Lopez is a muddy, dirty little fishing village.

(In this post, there will be many generalizations.  I know many people that do not conform to my descriptions, but these are the viewpoints that I have learned from my 2 1/2 years of living here.)

In Ecuador, there are many micro climates and cultures, but the three general categorizations are the Oriente (Amazon basin), the Highlands (living in the Andes) and the Coast.

I have only met one person who has lived and experienced life in the Oriente, so I can't speak to life there.  Many of the expats that live there are volunteers (Peace Corps, environmental advocates, etc.), but I only know this from second- or third-hand knowledge.

The people in the highlands are generally looking to live a comfortable lifestyle in a cheaper, simpler environment (this is only from what I have read - I have never visited.  Again, this does not apply to everyone living there!)  They want good, accessible health care and the opportunity to explore arts and historical culture.  From what I can tell, most of the questions that they ask are related to comforts in life: where to find specific food items, where to find the cheapest furnished apartment and what do taxis/buses cost.  I have no prejudice against them; it is a real challenge to move to a foreign country.  Many seem to try to learn the language and integrate with their local communities, but many do not.

Life on the coast is different.  There are enclaves of expats that want to retain the North American lifestyle, particularly in larger cities like Salinas and Manta (and again - this does not apply to all expats there!), but many of us are outliers.  (If you haven't read Malcolm Gladwell's book of the same name, I highly recommend it.)

In response to the comments that I read earlier, I'll speak about the expats I know that live in Puerto Lopez, Machalilla and Puerto Cayo.  These are some of the distinctions that I've seen:

• Most of us are in our 40's and 50's.  (I'm not going to call out guys in their 60's - they all look and act younger than me!)  We still have the ambition to work and want to continue progressing and learning.
• Many of us own property and have either built houses or are in the planning stages.  Building methods, cost overruns and lack of reliable services are all challenges that we are overcoming.
• Modern, North-American style conveniences for us are located far away, generally a 1 1/2 to 2 hour drive from here.  The closest movie theater to me is in Portoviejo, and the closest fast food restaurants are also just as far away.
• We don't have "Gringo Events".  (These are scheduled events like Monday Night Football or a regular Saturday get-together).  Most of our social events happen by running into one another on the street.  We do have the occasional birthday party, and my wife and I host "Sunday Football" when the Vikings are playing (with homemade pizza!), but that's about it.
• I am fortunate to have two friends here that are former nurses, and, for the most part, we provide our own health care.  We do have a new doctor in town and he is very capable, but catastrophic health events, such as a stroke or heart attack, may not be recoverable.  There is an air-evac service available to Manta, but it would not provide immediate response if necessary.
• Every six months or so, I meet expats who have lived here for 20+ years but are barely known by other expats.  They chose to live here for a variety of reasons: escape from a previous life, separation from modern Western culture or just the opportunity to explore life in a new country.
• Integration into the local community is key.  I'm still learning the language, but I'm picking up on the local culture and getting to know the people here.  I chat with my local neighbors (as best I can!), high-five the kids I see on the street and visit the local restaurants.  I love it when the kids yell, "Hola!", when I walk by their house and I respond in kind.  Even some of the local dogs recognize me as their friend.
• Most importantly: my fellow expats and I see the potential for our little village.  The national government is investing over $70 million dollars in our new Malecon, and there is a lot of new development happening.  Some of the roads east of Ruta del Sol have been paved.  Our local TIA recently doubled in size, we have a new commercial center selling higher-end clothing and electronics, and several new restaurants have opened recently.  (We now even have a very good Chinese restaurant!)

These are the choices that I made when I moved to Puerto Lopez.  There are two roads that lead into town, cut into cliff sides, that are generally passable: one to the north and one to the south.  If either or both of these roads failed, my friends and I would be completely dependent on ourselves and our community to ride it out.  We might be eating fish and rice three meals a day, but we'd make it.

In response to the comments that Puerto Lopez is a dirty, dusty, muddy, middle-of-nowhere fishing village, that is mostly true.  It probably isn't suitable for people that want to relax in retirement and enjoy the finer things in life, and again, I can't disagree with that viewpoint; it takes an effort to live here.

For me, though, there is no place I'd rather be.

Driver's License Recipe

Ingredients:

500 one-dollar bills (approximately)
2 quarts of frustration
1 1/2 facilitators
4 quarts of patience
1 cup of "not my job" (you can buy this at SuperMaxi)
1 very dependable taxi driver
900 kilometers of questionable roads
4 teaspoons of indifference
2 bus rides from hell
2 measures of "what just happened here"
Some grease (your results may vary)

Mix all of the ingredients (minus the grease, driver and 6 cups of frustration - see below) until some of the frustration surfaces.  Use some of the grease to line a long, narrow cooking pan.  Let simmer for eight months.

Approximately every six weeks, add very tiny dashes of hope, encouragement and optimism.  Watch until completely dissolved.  (This doesn't add any flavor to the mix but is highly recommended.)  Bring to a boil for about two hours before returning to simmer.

Continue adding frustration at the rate of about once a week.

After seven months, mix the taxi driver with the remaining two cups of frustration.  At this time, continue to add grease to the simmering mix.

Allow the taxi driver to rise and dominate the flavor.  It is the catalyst that will produce the final result.

After the eight months, throw original mix in the trash and replace with a smile.  Be sure to thank your taxi driver.

You will now have an Ecuadorian driver's license.

Serves 2.

Chikungunya

You might be thinking, "What is chikungunya?".  Is it the name of the last great Mayan emperor?  A river in the Yukon?  What I had for dinner last night?  No, none of the above.

(Note: the information that I have here is what I have derived from multiple sources.  It should be close to factually correct, but I'll admit that there may be errors, especially in the statistics.)

Chikungunya is a mosquito-transmitted disease recently introduced to Ecuador.  It has similar symptoms to dengue, but it is a completely separate ailment.  It has an incubation period of 2-7 days, after which the following symptoms occur (these can occur from five days to a couple of months):

• Body fever ranging from 102-104 degrees
• General fatigue, especially dystrophic muscular weakness
• Sore and aching joints, causing limited mobility

These are similar to dengue, but there are two important distinctions between the two:

• From what I've heard, dengue involves extreme joint pain to the point where standing in one place is the only position where a victim feels any comfort.  (There's a reason why it's nicknamed "bone-break disease".)
• Unlike dengue, once the fever and aches start to fade from chikungunya (and it seems as though recovery is on it's way), a very itchy body rash breaks out.  Benadryl, Sangre de Drago (Dragon's Blood) and calamine lotion can help to relieve the itching, but it does need to run it's course.

Note: if you think you have been exposed to either dengue or chikungunya, see a doctor.  The symptoms are similar, but the treatments/medicines are very different.

Until recently, chikungunya had been contained in Africa.  In the last couple of months, though, one of the four strains of the disease was introduced to the western hemisphere.  Here are the latest statistics regarding infection that I have heard:

• 12,000 cases in Ecuador, with two fatalies
• 140,000 cases in Peru
• 270,000 cases in Colombia

Until recently, all cases in the United States had come from visitors to South American/Caribbean countries where the incubation period completed once the victim had returned home.  However, the CDC has reported at least one case of the disease originating in the US (in Mississippi).

If there is a plus side from suffering through chikungunya, it's this: it's rarely fatal, and, once cured, a lifetime immunity is developed.

If you're reading this blog from outside of Ecuador (especially outside the Manabi province), you might be thinking, (like the van scene in "Die Hard with a Vengeance"), "That is an excellent presentation, fellas.  What does it have to do with me?".

Here in Puerto Lopez, many expats that I know have been afflicted.  Most cases, including the rash,  run their course in two-three weeks.

What can be done?

First is personal protection.  Emily and I (who have been spared up until this point) always prepare ourselves before going outside.  Every afternoon (and before going into town), we "bug up": long pants, burning mosquito coils and lots of Detan (DEET) lotion to any exposed skin.

Second is mosquito eradication.  In town here, entire families have been infected (many houses here don't have windows, let alone screens), and there has been an outcry for the city to do something.

Last week, the first response was for the city to send out a message to the city to remove any standing water.  Like most public announcements, this was carried out by using a Blues Brothers-type loudspeaker on top of a truck, repeating the announcement as it drove from barrio (neighborhood) to barrio.

Last Friday, after increased public protesting, spraying finally took place.  A tanqueria (tank truck) drove through the neighborhoods spraying what we think was malathion.

The problem should fade as the wet season typically ends at the end of May and the dry season begins in June.  Until then, Bug Up!

Living in Puerto Lopez: DogZilla

(We interrupt this current blog series for a very special announcement...)

This is a short note about my previous blog entry on dining in Puerto Lopez.  I still have at least two more posts to go on that theme, but this requires special notice for those of us who live on the coast.

I had mentioned in a previous post that DogZilla was one of our favorite restaurants in Puerto Lopez.  Unfortunately for us, they will be closing for good tomorrow (Feb 21st).  Jerry and Carla are, for the time being, moving out of the restaurant business, and DogZilla will be closing.  They are moving to a different location on the coast (as yet to be determined) and will not be bringing their restaurant business with them.

They are both fantastic people to know, and I wish them well in their new endeavors (which is a metaphor for just being able to relax!).  Jerry, a native Ecuadorian, tells great stories about his time in New York City and about knowing all of the workings here in town.  Carla is a great chef and revealed some of her special recipes to Shareen, Ray, Emily and I during our penultimate meal there.

To Jerry and Carla, thanks for the great food!  We'll be seeing you around.

Living in Puerto Lopez: Getting Around

Puerto Lopez is very compactly laid out.  Most of the businesses are located "downtown" in a three or four block grid.  For the most part, only the gas station, bus station and a couple of government offices are on the fringes of town.

Before talking about the ways to get around town, I want to mention different dining options (assuming that the lure of the market doesn't compel you to stay in and cook).  Let me say that I am no expert on eating out in Puerto Lopez.  Emily and I have pretty much found our favorite places and usually only eat out as a diversion from shopping or running errands.

That said, there are three options for eating around town, ranked from cheapest to nicest.

Street Vendors

There are both stationary and mobile vendors.  These are good places for grabbing a quick snack: an empanada or chicken breast for 50 cents:

Almuerzo (lunch)

These restaurants, "comedors", are usually open just for lunch (noon to three or so).  For $3.00, lunch includes soup, meat (fish or chicken, usually), salad, rice and a cup of juice.  It's not very exciting as far as the food goes, but it's cheap and it's a complete meal.  Our two favorites are Las Tejas on RDS at the south end of town (next to the plastic store), and this one, ("Patio de Lupita"), located next to Villao:

Serving an inexpensive meal does require cutting costs in other areas, however:

Higher-End Dining

There are three places that Emily and I like to eat when we're in the mood for something nicer.  (We haven't been to Bellitalia or some of the other restaurants in that class, so I have no opinion on them, either good or bad.)

Dogzilla (on the beach just north of the current Malecon) has a very simple menu.  Most days, Jerry and Carla have great bacon cheeseburgers and fish and chips; occasionally, they will also have pulled-pork sandwiches.  The food is great and costs about $6.00.  They are open either Wednesday or Thursday through Sunday, depending on anticipated weekly business.  Food service starts between noon and 1:00p and continues until they run out of food.  (Jerry does all of the shopping in the morning; everything is very fresh!)

The Victor Hugo also has a variety of great food and the best Mexican menu in town that I've seen.  The prices are a little higher (about $9-10 for an entree), but the breakfast is especially good.  We watched the NFL playoff games here, and they had no problem hosting 40 or so people for the events.

Our favorite, however, is Patacon Pisa'o.  Located west of the stop light (yes, that's a singular noun) and just off the Malecon, Jaibel and Karol's place serves authentic Columbian food in huge portions.  Prices range from $6.50 for a chicken sandwich (which we usually split) to $12.00 for a grilled shrimp kabob (my favorite, and I do not share!).  They open at around 1:00p for lunch and dinner.

Full disclosure: part of our bias comes from getting to know Jaibel.  He's been in Ecuador for nearly 20 years, is bilingual and has his ear to the ground regarding most of the people and goings-on around town.  During our first trip to Ecuador in 2011, the Wifi at the Hotel Pacifico was pretty weak, so we started using his.  When we returned on our second exploratory trip, the very first thing he said was the updated password for the Wifi; he hadn't seen us in six months but still recognized us!  (I don't know; maybe I'm just "special" looking or something.)  Emily and I stop in 2-3 times a week, even if it's just for a beer and a chat.

Patacon Pisa'o is also the only place that we can receive mail.  Check out the address on this package we had delivered from the States.  It's the name of the restaurant, the intersection where it's located and diagonal from the fire department:

Sorry for the diversion - back to our topic...

There are multiple ways of getting around Ecuador and getting to the neighboring countries; I want to focus on getting around inside of Puerto Lopez.

Taxis and Trucks

There are standard yellow taxicabs that operate in Lopez, but they are not very common.  Usually, they are used for traveling to other towns along the coast (Ayampe, Solango, etc.).  They are not that common because the buses are much cheaper; a taxi ride to Ayampe can cost $8.00; a bus ride only costs 50 cents.

More common are the white "taxi-trucks":

These are helpful for moving appliances and other large items around town (not all of them have the camper shell in the back).  They are also used for large grocery/errand runs to other cities in Manabi province.  To use one around town is $2-3, depending on how far you need to go.  For a day trip to Manta or Portoviejo, expect to pay $10/hour.  (Manta is roughly two hours from Lopez, so a day trip is about seven hours, or $70.)  I've ridden with Tito and his son Bryan on two separate occasions (Bryan also owns the ceviche restaurant across from the school), and they are both timely and cautious drivers (cautious by Ecuadorian standards, anyway).

More commonly used around town are the "mototaxis" or "motocicletas".  (Don't call them "tuk-tuks" like I first did; we're not in Thailand.)  These are the old ones that are being phased out...

... and being replaced with newer ones:

If you need to pass a kidney stone, a ride in either one of these will do the trick.  They are rough rides, but the price is hard to beat.  A ride either into or (relatively closely) out of town is 25 cents per person per trip (minimum 50 cents).  For example, a ride from Xavico's to our place is 50 cents, whether it's just one or both of us.  A trip from the bus terminal (north of town) to our place is $1.00: 50 cents into town and 50 cents from town to our place.  If we go into town to buy propane, water or beer, we'll usually pay $1.50: the trip into town, the return trip, and a little colitas (tip) for having them wait while we shop.

Our favorite method of getting around town, however, is walking.  We can walk across town, from our place to the pier, in about 25 minutes.  We bring either backpacks or a cooler bag for anything that we're shopping for.  Not only is the walking great exercise, but we've also had the opportunity to meet and talk with many of the locals.  We've also become familiar with many of the dogs in town and have given them our own names ("Girl", "Pancake", "Soccer Dog", etc.).  There's a story behind each of the names, but I won't bore you with them here.

Since we're walking, we can take shortcuts that the motorized vehicles can't A typical walk for us (something that we do nearly every day) goes something like this:

We leave our house and head towards the church at the bottom of the hill...

...diagonal across a soon-to-be soccer field...

...through the (currently) dry riverbed...

...past the market, towards the Municipal building...

...behind and around the school...

...before arriving on Ruta del Sol next to TIA:

A couple of notes about walking around town:

• Wear good shoes!  Our personal preference is for Teva sandals; we each brought three pair when we came down here.
• Watch out for hazards.  Many of the utility access lids are missing, and this would be a nasty step:

• Most of the streets west of RDS are paved asphalt while roads on the east side are packed dirt; these are easy to walk.  The Malecon is not as easy.  It's surface is a combination of rocks and packed dirt (you'll feel it in your feet at the end of the day)...

•  ...although the sidewalks aren't always a much better option:

•  Learn where the shade is!  On sunny, 30+ degree days (about 87F), even the slightest relief is welcome:

(When we walked around town in Guayaquil, where the temperature can be 8-9 degrees higher than Lopez, we would follow the shadows of power poles just to keep our heads in the shade!)


I hope this gives a little insight into getting around town.  If nothing else, just remember that there is an ice-cold, well-earned, 22-ounce trophy awaiting your return home!

Living in Puerto Lopez: Shopping

One of our keys to successful living in Puerto Lopez is learning where to shop and what the limitations are on products here.  Most of what we shop for on a daily basis, as expected, is food.  Let's start by looking at non-food items first.

As I mentioned in the previous post, there are specialty shops for non-consumables.  A couple of these are:

• The ferriterias: These are the hardware stores that generally concentrate on a single category of items.  I mentioned a few in the previous post, but there are other ferriterias that cater to specific vertical markets.  This one, Chino Godoy, specializes primarily in tires and PVC products:

• Street vendors:  I'm not counting the beach vendors here that sell blankets and jewelry; they pretty much walk the Malecon and beach, targeting tourists.  The vendors that I'm thinking of are the ones that walk all over town trying to sell a specific item, almost like a door-to-door vacuum salesperson from the 1960's.  I saw a young guy on Sunday (~20 years old?) walking the back streets trying to sell bicycle kickstands.  I can't imagine that he sells many of them or that his margins are that high, but I wish him all the best!
• Household items:  TIA is the "big" department store in town, selling groceries, clothes and household goods.  Additionally, there are two stores that sell plastic items - everything from storage totes to salt-and-pepper shakers.  The larger of these is located on the west side of RDS at the very southern end of town.
• Utilities:  Probably the two most necessary items in any household are water and propane.  Most tiendas sell 20-liter bottles of purified water for $1.00 each:

(Oops!  I had to slide in a picture of Luna waiting for the new water bottle to be installed.  Gratuitous, I know!)  This picture shows a rack of bottled water outside of Villao (note the brooms on the left side of the store)

:

AgipGas, located just south of the bridge on the east side of RDS, sells the ubiquitous yellow bottles of propane for $1.60 each.  (That's for a refill with deposit; a new tank costs between $50 and $60).

I wasn't sure how to describe the grocery vendors, so I decided to start with the small ones and work my way up.

Almost every street corner has a local tienda.  Usually no bigger than a single-car garage, it's a place where you can make an emergency trip for milk, diapers and (maybe) ice cream.  The prices are usually a little high, but you can't beat the convenience.

There are a few (what I call) super-tiendas in town.  Xavico's and Villao fall into this category.  They both sell groceries as well as personal products (soap, deodorant, etc.).  Villao is easy to identify because of the large display of brooms out front whenever they are open.

The big gorilla of stores in town is TIA (Tiendes Industriales Asociados).  Like a traditional department store, they have sections for groceries, clothing, cleaning supplies, some hardware/automotive, place settings and cookware.

One of the things that I find interesting about TIA are the promotions that they run - buy something, get something else free!  Some of these make sense -  buy a six-pack of beer; get a free mug:

or buy a package of sliced ham...

...and get a free hot dog!  (Maybe it's a sausage or salchicha.  I don't know - not interested.)

Some, though, I just don't understand.  Buy a four-pack of toilet paper and get a free dinner plate?  Cause and effect, I guess.

My favorite place to shop, however, is the mercado.  The food is fresh, much of it is grown or raised locally, and it's GMO free.  Here's an overview of the layout.  (Please forgive the crudity of this model; it's not to scale and I didn't have time to paint it.)

Food Court:  On any given day, there are up to six booths open selling almuerzo (lunch) for around $3.00.  It includes fish (sometimes chicken), salad, rice and a glass of juice.

Fruit:  Most of the fruit is familiar to what I had in the States.  Some new ones, like maracuya and guanabana, are fun to discover and experiment with.  Here are a few looks at the fruit vendors down the central corridor of the market:

A look down the meat (carne) aisle:

Our favorite meat vendor, Oscar, is located at the far end of this aisle on the right.  He grinds hamburger fresh for $2.50 - $3.00/lb.  His price depends on his mood, I think; we've been going to him long enough that we don't get "Gringo'd" anymore.  (If he tries, he knows that we'll usually leave and come back a different day.)

Both vegetables aisles look pretty much the same.  We have two different guys that we go to; it depends on whether we're looking for "stock" vegetables (carrots, peppers, etc.) or flavorings (cilantro, parsley, and the like).

I can't leave out the fish and shellfish guys!

Here are our shopping results from a couple of different days.  A bag of "peanut butter" (it actually just contains pureed peanuts - no butter or salt added) for $1.00/lb:

Vegetables for beef stew (about $1.00, I think):

Thirteen pounds of Porter House steaks from Oscar ($39.00 at $3.00/lb):

Fruit! (A few peppers thrown in as well.)  I don't recall the price, but it should have been about $3.00 minus the Jack Fruit (the big thing at the top); I don't remember what the price was on it.

A couple of suggestions when buying food from the market:

• Once it's home, scrub off any loose dirt and wash them after that.  There are "professional" fruit cleaning products (like Vitalin), but a quarter-cup of vinegar in a sink full of water also does the trick (like in the fruit picture above).  Soak for twenty minutes, dry off and put them in the fridge.
• The fish guys will clean and cut your fish however you like (filets or steaks) at no additional charge.  Most fish sold at the market was caught either that morning or during the previous night.
• Buy meat early in the day!  The beef and fish booths close at noon; chickens are sold until late afternoon.  The other motivation for this is that it sits (or hangs) in the open air during the day until it is sold and replaced with new product from the refrigerator.
• I've stopped buying cuts of beef (other than hamburger).  The beef is cut with the grain, not across it, and this creates a pretty tough steak.
• When buying fruits or vegetables, don't ask for "four potatoes" or "a dozen limes".  Instead, ask for "fifty cents of potatoes" or "ten cents of parsley".  The quantities will generally be larger and it's easier for the vendor to make a running tab of what he's selling.
• Unlike whole chickens at a store, chickens at the market don't come with all of the "parts" (innards, the head and the feet); they're sold separately.  Keep this in mind if you're making chicken stock after the chicken has been roasted.  (Whole chickens at the market are $1.00/lb and average about six pounds.)

Bon appetit!

Living in Puerto Lopez: Overview

Six months in!  After three months in Guayaquil and nine months in San Jose, Emily and I have spent the last six months living in Puerto Lopez.  One of our goals was to see if we could live exclusively in a small coastal town in Ecuador, and so far we've been successful.  Major purchases, such as vehicles and appliances are better purchased in the larger cities, but daily life has been fairly simple once we started exploring and embracing the town and the people here.

(Note: This was going to be a single post about living here, but it started getting clumsy and unwieldy.  I'm splitting it up into multiple parts - the follow-up posts will be coming during the next week or so.)


Puerto Lopez Overview

Puerto Lopez is a (relatively) small town on the Ecuador coast with a population of about 13,000.  It is located about three hours north of Salinas/La Libertad and two hours south of Manta and Portoviejo.  Here is a layout of the town and the places that we frequent most:

(The map is about 1 1/2 miles on a side.)  Although Lopez sits in valley where the runoff from seven different rivers run to the ocean, the town itself is fairly flat.  (FYI - the locals refer to the port cities by their identifying name; hence "Puerto Lopez" becomes "Lopez", "Puerto Cayo" becomes "Cayo", etc.)

Here are a couple of views of the main road through town, looking north from the south end of town (where the big curve is).  This is officially called, "Ruta del Spondylus", or "Route of the Bivalve Mollusk".  (It kind-of has a ring to it, right?  Sort of?  Maybe not.)  It was formerly known as, "Ruta del Sol" ("The Sun Route"); when it changed, I don't know.  Locally, it is referred to as "RDS", "The Ruta" or just "The Main Drag".

(The town square is located just beyond the church steeple you see in the center of the picture.)


Businesses and Institutions

These are the primary locations in town that are of interest to us:

Banco Pichincha: Other than a couple of credit unions, it's the only bank in town.  (I think it is also both the largest and oldest banking institution in Ecuador.)  We have our investment and savings accounts here (although we opened them at the main bank in Guayaquil - this is a branch bank), and it also has the only foreign-friendly ATM's in town.


Municipio Building: It's where we go to pay property taxes and register titles.  I don't have a picture of the outside, but here's a look at the operations inside.  (I haven't seen a dot-matrix printer in a while!)

Primary School: (As far as I know...) There are two major schools in town, although there are several smaller schools outside of downtown.  This one appears to have a couple of hundred students.

(This was actually a picture of two policemen guarding a freshly painted crosswalk, but the school is in the background.)


Machililla Park Office: This building houses the headquarters for the entire Machalilla National Park (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machalilla_National_Park).  There is one primary veterinarian, Ruben, who oversees animal care for the entire park.  During his "free" time, he also provides spay and neuter clinics for animals in town.

Hardware Stores (Ferreterias): There are, sadly, no Home Depots or Lowe's stores in Ecuador.  In Puerto Lopez, there are specialized stores for each type of construction/maintenance material that a person needs,

The Oil and Lube Shop

The Paint Shop

Lino's - Tools and Construction Supplies

Town Square:  It's an open court for most major town gatherings when the local boys aren't playing soccer.

"Butterman":  (You can channel your inner-Pearl Jam here - "I've found a Butterman".)  This is where we used to buy fresh, non-separating butter.  I say "used to" because he hasn't had any for the past couple of weeks and we think he might be scaling back to selling only Queso Fresco cheese.

Xavico's:  They have the best prices in town but not always the best variety.  They tend to cater to the small Mom-and-Pop tiendas (shops) located around town, so much of what they sell are bulk packages of chips, etc., single-size servings of condiments or pre-packaged meats (think hot dogs).

Villao: (Pronounced "Bvee-Jao")  It's a small tienda run by a sweet older lady.  Her prices are okay, but the main attraction is her variety of products.  This is the place to go for nuts, balsamic vinegar, decent cheese varieties, etc.  She's closed from 12:30p (or so) until 2:00p (or so) so that she and her son can spend lunch together.  (She also has the best beer prices in town!)

The Market:  This is a view from the back side of the market; it a later post, I'll go inside and show how it operates.  This might not be a great picture, but this is the entrance Emily and I usually use instead of walking all of the way around to the front.  (We also "rescued" our youngest cat, Tierra, from the back entrance.  She was only four weeks old and about the size of a five-year-old's shoe, screaming her little lungs out and trying to climb up the little ramp to get inside where the food was.)

(The little paper signs encourage the vendors not to dump trash in the back but to use the trash bins inside.)


One Final Look:  Here's a final look at the town, first from the north:

Then from the south:

The next few blog entries will get into more of the detail of day-to-day operations.  Stay tuned!