On Monday we were invited over to Chelsea and Brian's for the afternoon. We ended up staying through dinner. Finn and Tali played with Yonggi and Anaya while the adults talked downstairs. We picked their brains and had some good conversations. Chelsea made a great dinner, but I was feeling a bit under the weather and spent a lot of time in the bathroom. It was embarrassing. I don't know if it was the pitacuya (dragon fruit) or the yogurt I ate for lunch, but it did a number on me. Brian had three leads on some rentals and we decided to go see them on Tuesday afternoon.
We hired another expat, Dano, to take us around the city on Tuesday morning. We were focused on seeing family-friendly neighborhoods. We saw everything from compact city neighborhoods, to a little more green space neighborhoods, to farm land about 20 min. outside the city. It was 3 hours of money and time well-spent. We were able to get a great lay of the city and Dano was very helpful with information about this and that. There were two neighborhoods that I was drawn to...the Primero de Mayo neighborhood around the Yanuncay River and the Rio Sol neighborhood, also by the Yanuncay, but much farther from El Centro (the historic city center). We didn't end up in either one!
We met Brian at the Oro Verde at 3:30 that afternoon. The Oro Verde is an apartment building in what a lot of expats and Cuencanos refer to as Gringolandia. Lots and lots of expats live in this area. Mark and I really wanted to avoid neighborhoods with a lot of gringos (foreigners), but it was worth a look since we would only be there for a year and it is close to a lot of the shopping and grocery stores. The Oro Verde apartment was okay, but not what we were looking for. It was furnished, and while nice, it was still a little shabby and the building smelled a bit. Next stop was The Palermo, THE highrise in Cuenca. It is the tallest building in the city and I remember reading that the city will allow no other buildings to go any higher in order to keep the feel of the city the same throughout. I'm glad for that. The Palermo was a bit nicer than the Oro Verde, but again it is an apartment building and we are NOT used to living that way. The apartment was on the 5th floor and having Scout with us makes that an unpleasant prospect. It was also a lot smaller than the Oro Verde for the same money. Finn and Tali were not impressed.
Next stop was an unfurnished house. We had not even been considering an unfurnished house because we wanted to wait until next year when Mark's pension started to invest that kind of money. But, we were beginning to realize that nice furnished rentals are hard to find, so we opened the window to looking at unfurnished properties. When we first drove up to the house we immediately had a great response to it. The house has great curb appeal and the yard is nicely landscaped. When we saw the backyard we were almost completely sold. It is huge compared to most Cuencano yards. The kids could have a trampoline back there and the owner said we could also have chickens! We hoped that the interior of the house equaled the exterior. It has a lot of positives, but here are the negatives...I was disappointed that it was only half the house and that the flat is upstairs on the 2nd floor, but the house is huge and the flat has almost everything we need. Another negative is the small kitchen. I am hoping that the owner will allow us to remove the doors to the kitchen in order to allow for more space. That's it for the negatives really. What the flat does have is a huge living room and an attached tv room area. Nice dining room space and three fairly big bedrooms with beautiful flooring and built-in wardrobes. One bedroom does not have a wardrobe so that will be the kid's playroom. It also has a very large and bright office space in the front of the house. Like I said before, the kitchen is small, but everything has been newly remodeled and updated. Off of the kitchen is a little terrace overlooking the backyard where the washing machine and dryer will go. It has a tiny slice of the mountains to look at. There is space for a table and chair as well. Off of the laundry area is the empleada's (maid) room and a small bathroom with shower. We will use that as our guest quarters and for Patrick and Amanda when they arrive. It seemed like a great fit for us so we said we would take it!
All in all a great day. We went home happy campers with a price of $600 including electric and water. We were ready to sign the lease the next day. However, the next morning I was looking at some craigslist ads for houses that I had saved and I realized that one of my saved houses was the one we had looked at, AND it was priced on craigslist for $100 less! Now we were NOT happy campers. Were we being "gringoed"? We contacted Brian and talked to Priscilla, the agent, who had shown us around yesterday. She is super sweet, kind and very helpful like most of the Ecuadorians that we have met. She said not to worry and that she would talk to the owner. Priscilla picked us up Wednesday morning and we went to meet the owner. She wanted us to meet her at her house. Wow! Very nice Ecuadorian home. Her husband is an ENT and while doctor's here don't make a lot of money, they still have a very nice lifestyle. The owner is very nice as well. We were able to renegotiate after telling her that we had seen the ad. We came out of the deal happy. A great addition to living there is going to be the presence of the people downstairs. They are the owner's parents and she said that they love children. I was worried that we would cause too much noise being on the second floor. The floorboards are creaky and we are not the quietest people. But, the grandparents will be there only on the weekends and she said they would not mind us at all. I am hoping that they will teach us and the kids some Spanish. There are also smaller children in the family, 9 and 11 years old, and I'm hoping they will be over to play with Finn and Tali. One thing that I have heard over and over again is that many Ecuadorians will open their hearts to you as family in the truest sense. I hope we are able to be graced with that acceptance.
So, now we have an unfurnished apartment that needs to be furnished. :) Its kind of exciting to start all over again. The furniture here is handmade. You can bring in a picture of what you like and they will make it for you to that standard. We have been looking at Ethan Allen beds and dining room tables with clean lines. We need to buy a printer so that we can print out the pictures and take them to the furniture makers. We are going today to just look around.
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