As I start this blog, it is the end of January of the new year, 2025. In another 2 months we will have been here a year, which seems hard to believe. We have learned lots and keep learning what we need to in order to enjoy life here. We continue to make friends both of expats and locals.
The rains finally came in the beginning of December, so everyone is happy about that. But since the drought and resulting fires had charred the hillsides, many landslides took place, from little ones to big ones. But it is nice to see everything green and lush. The downsides are more insects and weeds.
On the evening of December 30, while Rosie and I were at the dining room table, I noticed something moving on the floor off to my right. I gasped when my eyes focused on what it was - a large tarantula, coming into the dining room from our west end bedroom. My first thought was, “How did he get into the house?” He was in no hurry, and maybe decided to be still when he saw me coming, so I got out the measuring tape, laid it down next to him for reference to size, and took this pic. Yep, it does read 4”.
Speaking of Buster, he is doing just fine. Unfortunately, when the rains came he began growing his winter coat, so he will be looking for shade when it gets sunny and hot. Otherwise he is doing well, has not had an ear mite problem since last July-August. Maybe that is only during the dry months? He and the dog seem to have a truce and know their boundaries. Buster usually sleeps part of the night with us. Around 05:00 he often goes outside for an hour.
We inherited the dog in November from a neighbor who could not take her with her when she moved. She is 8 years old and well behaved with a nice disposition, and quite affectionate. Her name is Cora, which is short for “Corazon,” which is Spanish for heart. Here is her pic at Christmas time.
Last May on a hike we met a couple from Alaska who moved to the area about a year before us, Charlie and Delisa. We have lots in common. Delisa likes to cook, and she has written a cookbook, so Rosie has benefitted from that. She also likes to garden, so we share our successes and failures with that. Charlie has been a long time photographer and loves to photograph birds. So he benefits from my birding experience and I from his photographic experience, and we usually take a weekly jaunt somewhere 1-2 hours away. When learning of my upcoming birding jaunt with some friends from Oregon, he asked if he could come along, even offering to drive. So he joined us a few days into it.
In early January the patio table and chairs we purchased in mid December arrived, so we enjoy sitting out there, especially in the morning. Each morning the temperature is in the mid 60s. Greeting the dawn with a sweater and coffee is just a great way to start the day. We had also ordered a nice mattress, softer than the usual firm ones here. As I write this one of the local carpenters is building a bed frame. He had built our dining room table which we liked, so we decided to give him more business.
A couple months after living in our house, I decided to patch all the cracks, both inside and outside the house, all on the walls, and paint them over with matching paint. Now, a few months later, some of them are reopened. Imagine that! We did have a tiny tremor which Rosie did not even feel. Otherwise, I am told that the earth is always moving here, and almost all dwellings have cracks and it is almost impossible to avoid such. I also regrouted a few places in the outside floor tiles, some of which opened up. Can’t win.
(Now that more time has passed, I learned from Daniel, our construction man, that not too long before we bought the place, he came here to talk with the owner who was patching these same cracks, getting ready to paint. So now that it is all said and done, a proper soil/ground test was probably not done, nor were the footings for the pillars large enough. Much construction here simply cuts corners to save money. This may have made it so that the roof, with all those heavy tiles, are just too much weight for the 5” walls. And now that the ground is moist from the rains — all this combined appears to make it so that the walls are cracking. We are considering a new, much lighter roof.)
Of all the landslides mentioned above, two affected us. Along the road coming into our community was one power pole that began leaning backward, away from the road. They are made of concrete here. I think that the tension of the power lines ended up preventing it from falling to the ground. The electric company was informed about this, but nothing happened. Then, in early January after another torrential downpour, the hillside on which it was placed decided to let loose and came down, causing the power pole to fall sideways, and so around 08:00 PM, our electricity went out. One young couple in the community called the power company and then informed us that since it was a “private” community, we’d have to pay for a new power pole. I began to rationalize that they must know they had us over the barrel, and seeing dollar signs from all those gringos, they could charge us an arm and a leg. As we drove to town that morning we saw the downed power pole and wires, and I figured it would be weeks before they’d fix it, but while we were in town the power company came and reattached the lines without a new power pole, restoring the electricity. We hear now that it will be some $900 to place a new power pole.
The other landslide was in the same place, somewhat an extension of the first. And it covered the road so we could not get out. I wondered how long it would take to address it, but by mid morning someone with a backhoe was called who cleared the way. The cost - $45.
On our weekly birding jaunt, Charlie and I went over to the Catamayo area on 1/30/25. It was mostly a let down, but we did find a dead Tarantula Hawk. Here is his pic:
These wasps are so called because they will sting a large tarantula, killing it, and then lay their egg in it. They do this so the larva will feed on the dead tarantula, ensuring success. You don’t want to get stung by a tarantula hawk. They are said to be in the top 5 painful insect stings in the world. But the “good news” is that the pain only lasts for about 5 minutes.
The last day of January saw us headed to Loja. The main reason was to retrieve our Passports and Cedulas from our visa agent, which we accomplished right away. The reason he had them: Before we can apply for our “Permanent Residency” we need to have our Marriage Certificate “Registered” with the state. That needs to be done in Cuenca, which is a 4 hour drive to the north and is just another hassle when dealing with the system, so we paid Ulises to do it. We will apply for that permanent visa in February of next year.
On February 1, Rosie was meandering around the yard when something red caught her eye. She asked me to come have a look. She said “Isn’t that what we see at the produce market?” Sure enough, it was the red variety of “Dragon Fruit.” The correct name is Pitahaya. Here’s a pic.
 |
They grow on a cactus plant, and there are many types cacti around here. This one was quite large when compared to what we see for sale, probably because they get picked earlier when not so big. Frankly, I prefer the yellow ones because they are sweeter. So we ate it that evening, but I felt I needed to put some sweetening on it. There are other fruits which we have not tried yet, so I suspect we will eventually. Speaking of food, the basic Ecuadorian diet is rather bland. Not spicy at all. We usually have to ask for salt when we eat out.
Here is another fruit we recently tried, called a Zapote. Looks like a homemade bomb.
It tastes like some kind of a sweet winter squash, sweeter in the middle around the large seeds.
We finally visited the huge wholesale produce market in Loja. When I say “huge” I mean is was close to the same square feet as a football field! We bought a box of 55 mangos for $20! They were the good eating kind and all were the same ripeness, so I ended up putting about 2/3 in the food dryer, so now we have lots of dried fruit for snack food.
In early February our groundskeeper, Vincent, brought over 10 banana trees. These are a different variety than the ones close to the house. We have now concluded that the ones close to the house have stopped growing because the soil is too poor. But there is an area below our house where the soil is much better, so we have higher hopes for them. A few months ago we planted some papaya seeds, and finally some of themx germinated. Eventually they ended up in larger pots and it worked out that these were planted also by Vincent the same day. So maybe in a year these will both start producing. Since the soil is good in the lower part of our property, we bought 3 mango and 2 avocado trees which Vincent also planted. I then decided to ask him to dig up the 20 newer banana trees which our former groundskeeper had planted near the house down below where the soil is better. So that makes 30 banana trees. Hmmm, I wonder if I will regret that?
March 2, 2025: I mentioned that I’d be doing a tour with 2 friends from Oregon, and Charlie did join us. We finished up Feb 22 with over 400 species tallied. While on the east side we got the news that a bridge to the south of Loja had collapsed due to the rains, and so in order to get back to Vilcabamba, we’d have to go the long route over to Catamayo to get home, some 90 minutes out of the way. That resulted in us seeing a Pacific Parrotlet, one of the smallest parrots in the world.
We have been thinking of getting our Ecuadorian driver’s licenses. However, for some strange reason, if we do that the proper/legal way, we will have to fork over our Oregon DLs. We can see no good reason for this, especially since DLs in the USA are now used for a wider ID. So we are doing what most expats here do, and that is to bribe someone to have them done. This is expensive, but the benefits outweigh the alternative.
We ended up giving Buster a haircut. His hair was getting too long and he would be overheating as soon as the rainy season let up. There is a large set of gates which we open and close to our property, and there is a concrete wall on the upside, and all the water in the ground has pushed the wall a tiny bit such that those gates don’t close properly. Tomorrow Daniel’s construction crew is coming to fix that, as well as wire in some back up batteries for when the electricity goes out, and also install some larger water tanks. We are having this done because the potable water occasionally stops flowing into our present, smaller tanks, and the electricity stops now and then.
Earlier I mentioned our gardening successes and failures. With the rains everything grows faster, and the insects come for the plant food. Some of our veggies have been inundated with caterpillars now, so I pulled up a few things. The groundskeeper said to sprinkle lime to deter them, so that I’ve now done. So we shall see if it works. Broccoli, Kale, Green Beans and Chard grow well here. We tried planting sweet corn, but a couple months into it and the aphids and other bugs wreaked havoc on them, so we pulled it all out.
Friday, March 28. A year ago we arrived in the country to start a new life here. Since it is our one year anniversary, I thought it would be a good occasion to send this out. Seems like the time has just gone by too fast. I mentioned this to some friends yesterday and one of them said that time seems to go by faster here because you don’t have the 4 seasons to look forward to which break things up. She may have had a point. While we do have the rainy and dry season, these are not distinct. However, we are ready for the rains to subside and to see more sunshine.
