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| The Church in Santa Elena |
Todd and I have been scurrying around like crazy prepping for the next few weeks, which promise to be even more hectic. We’ve made several trips to Santa Elena and Libertad recently.
Santa Elena is kind of a cool little town (at least for shopping) and is on the outskirts of Libertad. There is a central plaza next the beautiful church and is generally where we go when we need to find gardening, hardware, and electrical supplies that aren’t available or more expensive in Olon. There is also a “dollar” store called “TIA” that sells a lot of cheap household items, though their inventory is limited. It’s not my favorite place to shop, but I’ve found a few good items there.
We also took the chicken bus up to Libertad a few days ago (about an hour ride for $1.50 each) to shop the “BuenAventura” shopping district, just a few blocks from the mini Terminal Terrestre. There is a “BuenAventura” mall, which is a two-story bazaar type shopping center, crammed full of various booths, mostly selling clothing, but has a number of electronic and cosmetic stalls as well.
Across the street is a pleasant plaza with a pretty fountain, and an outdoor “food court”. Also in this area is about a 5-6 block radius of a gazillion stores that sell everything from mud boots to fabric to paper goods (even a couple of “party supply” stores). I LOVE poking around these winding streets, though I really don’t enjoy it as much with Todd, since he has a low shopping tolerance, as most men do.
All I had to read on the bus was my Spanish-English dictionary, and just discovered that (and I quote):
“In Spanish, unlike English, the following words are not capitalized: the names of days, months and languages (i.e., jueves, octubre, español)”.
I’ve been incorrectly writing these words if I’ve used them here on the blog.
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| Ruth |
Even though our local friends tell us our language has improved, we still have so much to learn!
Actually, one of the hardest speaking habits I’ve had to overcome is to NOT use the phrase “mas major” which I thought to mean “much better” but actually translates into something along the line of “more better” and considered illiterate-sounding. Our Cuenca friend Ruth (who also owns a home in Curia) pointed this out, and has been wonderful about correcting my grammatical errors and pronunciation. Ruth is several years older than us and a real “pistol” – spry, funny, and energetic.
She’s just a lot of fun, and spends the night at our house several times a month when she is in town, when her Curia caretaker has a night off. Ruth speaks a little English because she has a daughter living in Florida that she visits often.
We are prepping for several groups of guests coming to stay at our house from the end of October until mid-November (though there is a short break between these visits). My brother Jack and his partner Doug are coming to Olon the first week in November for around three weeks (and so we have been busy getting their house ready too). Additionally, neighbors and friends (Rocky and Elizabeth from South Carolina) are arriving in a few days, and we are looking forward to seeing everyone again!
In mid-November our friends, Robert and Barbara Strauss (from Stanford, CA) make their final move to Ecuador into their newly purchased beach home in Curia (next town north of us). Let me tell you, these folks are organized! They were here in January and have managed to purchase/close on their EC house, sold their CA home, set up the cargo for the belongings being brought here, and are on-top of residency visa paperwork/status since then, and certainly have our respect.
And between now and mid-November, Todd and I are scheduled to make trip to Southern Ecuador next week for a couple of days, and then Doug, Jack, Todd and I are driving up to Quito for a few days shortly after they arrive. I’m looking forward to the drive, and to seeing Quito area again, since I was last there in September 2007, and then only for around a day and a half.
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| Montanita street show |
But it’s been a little trying to juggle all these balls in the air right now.
Daisy is thankfully over her sexual shenanigans, but has had an on-going left eye-problem (cloudy, blurry, a little weeping). We’ve had her to the vet twice, who thought it was probably due to some type of external abrasion, but the condition has still persisted after several weeks of injections/medications/eye drops, so we are going to get another vet’s opinion shortly.
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| Daisy with Dr. Byron, our current vet who comes to Olon 2-3 times a week, along with our animal loving friend Melanie |
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