August 4 to 10- Week Two of our Renovation

On Sunday after a full hectic week of renovations ( mostly demolitions-LOL), we took a drive with Eddie and Paola to the orphanage in Olon, a village close to Montanita. I had been in email touch with the director who was an older lady originally from Germany who had been in Ecuador looking after the orphanage for many many years. This was the same place where the expats of Salinas and Olon had had a Christmas party with many gifts for the children last December- see blog http://uwepetrastravelyear.blogspot.com/2012/12/december-22-26-christmas-in-salinas.html

My niece had been saving her daughter’s gently used clothing for me and I had bought another suitcase in order to bring them back with me from Canada to Ecuador.

After an hour’s drive we arrived at the orphanage about 1PM and were greeted warmly by Imgard Isabel . Between my poco espanol and vaguely remembered German and with Paola’s help, I managed to make myself understood. She was very appreciative of our contribution and gave much thanks to Melanie and Taylor.

After a short visit, we headed back to Salinas and stopped for lunch at another small beach town, Ayangue , that Uwe and I had never been to before. Again, lots of people on the beach even though there was no sunshine.

 

                                                    We had lunch at a very popular place.

                                                            Our good friends Paola and Eddie

 

                                                       Our happy well fed group.

Our renovations were proceeding very nicely. On Monday the Wintech people came to do their personal measurements of all our windows  http://wintech.com.ec/. Hopefully their initial estimate would not change and the windows would be completed and installed soon. The kitchen was now completely tiled and grouted.

 Our electrician also came to move our light switched to the new wall and run cables to the new kitchen outlets. Our outside door was also moved into our new wall- yup, we now have 15’ plus feet of additional front hallway, a perfect spot for an indoor garden!

 

Our new fridge also arrived and was parked in the living room waiting for permanent installation. As well, all the tiles for the rest of the condo arrived on Thursday and by Friday noon we had new tiles in most of our hallway and living room.

Again quite a lot of stuff accomplished on week 2.

For the lighter side of this week, I took the local bus to Santa Elena, a nearby town and capital of our province, to meet my amiga Randy for lunch. While on the bus I managed to have a reasonable conversation in Spanish with a local lady- woohoo- my Spanish is getting marginally better! I met Randy at the main church square in down town Santa Elena.

                                                       The town square in front of the church

                                                 The strange but beautiful church made of wood

My amiga and I after a delicious roast chicken lunch- think Swiss Chalet (for my Canadian friends)

Uwe and I also had a couple of good dinners out in Salinas. We are trying lots of new Ecuadorian restaurants that we had not been to before. Since we are eating out much more often during this construction period, we thought it was high time to check out new places- so many restaurants, so little time-LOL!

Sometimes during lunch and often after dinner we stopped for a drink at our new Expat restaurant that recently opened- Smokin- a Texas style barbecue place right on the Malecon a short walk from our condo.  They are still waiting for their freezer, barbecue etc so food is limited but drinks are not.
Another great gringo hangout!

                                                     The owners Kathryn and Gary