We have been staying up late and sleeping in until around 9:00 am or later. I like to ask my Amazon Dot first thing in the morning "Alexa, Flash briefing" and she responds with all of the news casts that I have subscribed to. Then one morning we find out that the internet is no longer working. It was out for an entire day. I decided to watch some of the dvd's that were available. It was a bit of a pain for us as the first day of the women's rugby 7's wasn't available to stream. The next day the internet was back up and running but the wifi router has failed to transmit anything, even after resetting.
Ahhh, so now I get to experiment and make use of the router that I brought along with me. Everything worked good once I set it up. I also used my TrendNet plugs which I brought with me that send the internet through the electrical wiring. That helped out as now I could plug my TurboBeacon into an area in the living room where we really could use the wifi connection.
A sunny morning and we had to head over to La Libertad so that Claudette could courier some documents to her bank in Canada. We jumped in a cab and spent $4 to get there and after forking over $67 to courier documents we decided to stroll along the malecon as we had not been here before.
It was a nice malecon with several restaurants along it's length. I am sure we will return as the area is closer to the Santa Elena bus terminal which is what we are considering to use more often than not to get our groceries that we have to come into town for. Most of our staples should be available in Manglaralto as they do have some small stores and surely a mercado for fruits and vegetables but I am sure that there will be a few items that we won't be able to get there and will have to come into town for.
https://vimeo.com/215918402
We discovered the mercado in Salinas one day which was just a few blocks away. They had quite a selection of fruits and vegetables along with chicken, fish and seafood. Our first day there the fruits and veggies cost around $6.
During the 2nd week of the month I noticed another thread on the Expats page of another company that was handling relocation services to Ecuador so I sent the owner an email to obtain a quote. We actually met with him the following weekend as he was in Salinas for the weekend.
We decided to head out and check out one of the karaoke bars to see what they had to eat. Ended up just having a drink and finding someplace else to eat as the gringo that owns the place has absolutely no service and no menu for food. We won't be back to that establishment. We walked to a small supermarket and grabbed a few things and then on the walk back we stopped at a restaurant that Claudette wanted to try. Had my first steak since arriving.
An evening on the Salinas malecon
The Calgary Flames were still playing in the play-offs every other evening, so I was trying to make sure I would boot up the laptop to stream the games as DirectTV down here would not be carrying any hockey games. If it were soccer, then oh yes, it would be on the telly.
Our first Good Friday in Ecuador and we got to experience the procession coming down the malecon. Both Claudette and I and several neighbors were out on our balconies to witness the event.
In the photo above you can see Jesus hauling the cross along with Roman guards prodding him to keep him moving. The crowd that was following was a block or two long with music playing. This is the first time that I have ever seen a live re-enactment. You can watch them go by in the following video
We have also been enjoying the Men's Rugby Sevens and it was pleasing to see Canada defeat the US in the Gold Cup final game. We have been out swimming in the ocean again and have noticed that it is cooling down. It's now 26.1 C and was 29 C when we arrived. Apparently it gets as low as 25 C during the summer months and that's when the wales show up. We have already seen dolphins swimming in Manglaralto.
We have been trying out different restaurants around Salinas. We tried out Marazul Restaurant one evening and enjoyed some fish, shrimp and rice with veggies and the cost was $15.00 for the two of us plus drinks. It was a nice quiet place and the service was quick. I made sure to add it to Google Maps along with some photos.
We normally enjoy walking back along the malecon although I enjoy walking down some of the back streets at night. We found that on Tuesday nights there is a jazzercise on one of the lower sections of the malecon. Claudette told me that she was going to join them next week. That would ensure that she gets her 10,000 steps in for sure. We have been going out for long walks once or twice each week. Actually not much different than what we were doing in Calgary. Of course in the wintertime it's harder to get out for a long walk for a couple of months unless a Chinook would pop into town. The only thing I hated about the Chinooks were the migraines that came along with them. That's one reason why I do not miss Calgary. I love the city, but not the migraines.
It was now time to start thinking about doing our taxes. We have been using Quicktax for many years who have now converted to TurboTax which has been easy to use even when it was complicated with a business and all. We have been getting things mailed to our daughter's address and she has been opening and scanning and emailing to us. Just have to double check to make sure we have everything. Deadline is May 1st and it can be submitted electronically which we have already been doing for several years.
And then when you think everything is going smooth, I get notice from our lawyer that there is a problem with the sellers deed. It will now take 2 or 3 weeks to get it corrected and that may happen when Claudette has already left for Canada. We were hoping to spend a little bit of time in the house so that we know exactly what we can get rid of and what we can bring. And to do that, they would want some money up front. Our realtor advised against doing that and so did our realtor up North in Manabi.
So after a few emails back and forth I requested that we go back out and view the property one more time. Looks like we will do that sometime during the first or second week of May. I then emailed our Visa facilitator Dana to see if she had any advice as this is now going to throw some problems into obtaining our Temporary Residence in time to ship and receive our household goods that will be shipping out mid June and arriving near the end of July. We are obtaining our Temporary Residency based on Property Purchase and the property has to have an assessed value of $26,500.
After thinking about it a little more, I decided to contact our realtor for our other lot in Manabi to see how the transfer of the deed was coming along. He emailed me back and said it would be done in another 10 days. That should work out as then I could use that and get it over to Dana in time before I depart for Canada to go through everything and get it ready to ship. Wondering why we love Ecuador, not anymore!
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