April 12- The Sad Saga of our Internet

Since we had first arrived in Ecuador in October 2011, we have always had an internet connection of some sort. We really couldn’t do the kind of travelling away from friends and family that we do without it.

When we first moved into our condo, we went with one of the local internet companies, Gold Soft, that worked through an antenna on our balcony. It worked well for the year we had it but when we returned back to Ecuador after our summer home in Canada, we found that even though we had paid for 512Mbps we were only receiving 256- not good! After complaining our speed was bumped up to what we had been paying for but it left a bad taste with us for their service.

We had also decided that instead of paying for TV service- another story entirely-LOL- we would do streaming from our computer to the TV screen and use Netflix, MLB package, First Row Sports, Hulu and USTV- all internet accesses to TV content. Of course for that, we required more bandwidth.

The local government run phone company, CNT, would provide up to 3Meg of service for a reasonable cost, around $36/month, however you also had to buy a local phone line- no naked DSL in Ecuador. Other companies in Salinas would only provide up the 1.5Meg unless you were a business and then at a far greater cost. Please remember we are pensioners on a budget!

Eddie came with us to the CNT office to apply (thank god for our friend Eddie as I doubt our Spanish will ever be good enough to deal with this kind of stuff). The office was very modern, air-conditioned and organized. We took a number and after maybe 20 minutes, our turn came up. A very nice competent young woman took all our information and requests and told us we should hear something in 8 days. Only a few days later our landline was installed first and then several days later our internet- no problems.

For two and a half months we had wonderful internet! Always up to 3Meg, no breaks in service, good VOIP connection for my Magicjack, adequate streaming to our TV, we were happy and then……….

Yes, you were waiting for it, weren’t you? This is after all Ecuador.

On the weekend of April 16^th we had our last major rain storm and storm it was. When we woke up the entire naval base looked under water and most of the back streets had huge puddles. And, you guessed it, our internet was out!

In our other life we had been telephony engineers dealing with outside systems so we were well aware of what rain can do to copper cables. And we were patient assuming that service would be restored soon however the weird thing was that our landline was still working!

When by Monday we still had nada, we asked our friend Eddie to please go to CNT and complain – maybe they didn’t know we were out of service. As well, our internet started coming up periodically. We’d have service for 5, 10 minutes or sometimes several hours and then nothing.

An inside technician came after several more days and replaced the filters and assumed that was the problem when our internet came back up. Then it went back down while he was still here and he blamed the Magicjack connection- of course not true. We took the Magicjack off and internet was on momentarily and then back off. He called his manager to join him and help and after much checking/ discussing etc, they determined that the problem must be the outside line. An outside repair technician actually came the next day and called us on our landline while our internet was on it’s periodic up mode. Was our internet working?- yes, right now- did you give us a new line?- no, but no problem on the old. End of outside work!

Our internet continued to work for several hours and then again nothing the next day. And so it has been going on for the last 2 weeks. Uwe and I went to the CNT office yet again on April 4^th, again explained our problem and again were told that a technician would come to fix within 24 to 48 hours. Again we waited patiently at our condo both the next day and the day after and once again nothing. Are we seeing a pattern here?

Luckely our friend Lauri had her internet working – she lives in a condo two floors up from us- and we used hers every day to check in with friends/family.

On April 9^th we did yet another trip to the CNT office. Once again a polite young woman helped us, even giving a credit on our bill, and yes a technician would come today or tomorrow morning and once again nothing.

We had reached the end of our patience. Because our CNT account was actually in Eddie’s name- he has a cedula, we don’t as yet- we asked him to please go and cancel both our landline and our internet.

That same day, we had a new internet installed from yet another private company, Fox Service. This time for only 1Meg- 3 Meg being way too expensive- but everything seems to work adequately, Magicjack, internet, streaming,- we are happy once again.

April 2013- Life in Salinas

You may have noted that I am not posting as often as previously. Well, when you live somewhere for a while, even in paradise-LOL, there is only so much new and interesting stuff to write about.

So let’s then talk about life in Salinas during the utterly delightful months of March and April. I can only describe that the weather is awesome! Every day it’s been sunny, about 30 to 33C with lovely ocean breezes. The last rain we had was midway through March. Every day has been beach time and since I’ve described that activity many times, I’ll go into the rest of our daily/weekly/monthly life.

Even in retirement you have to do the weekly household chores. A lot of fellow expats have either part time or full time maids but we do most of our own regular cleaning though I do have Tito wash all my floors every two weeks.

Then we do grocery shopping maybe once a week at the Supermaxi- a large modern grocery store much like you would find back home. You can find anything there that you are used to purchasing. We tend to stick to local brands- Familia toilet paper rather than Scott- as imported merchandise has a much higher tax on it. We normally take the local bus there- 25c- and get a taxi home- $2.50 for the ride. Our doormen at the condo then help us bring the groceries upstairs- $1 tip.

As well, once a week we go to the Mercado, much like a farmer’s market, where you can get fresh fruits- all kinds- fish, meats etc. The Mercado in Salinas  is much smaller than the one I had previously written about in Cuenca but entirely sufficient for our needs. We usually walk there, maybe a 25 minute walk, and either walk or get a taxi home-$1 for the ride.

During the week we also buy necessities at our local much smaller grocery store which is only a short walk away. Here we get whatever we may run out of between Supermaxi visits such as bread, beer, wine- the daily necessities!

We mostly cook at home but do go out to eat maybe 2 or 3 times a week, sometimes with fellow gringos or Ecuadorian friends and often by ourselves. Salinas being a beach resort town, has a great many restaurants with both local type foods plus Italian, Chinese, Pizza, Fish & Chips, Mexican- you name it, it’s here!

Ok, so what else do we do to keep busy all week? We have yet to find any kind of exercise/yoga class, so we try to work out at home every 2 days. We have weight equipment and a yoga tape. Most days we take a long walk along the nearly empty beach in the morning before breakfast or maybe later in the day. We read many many books. You definitely need an ereader here as there are no English book stores. Our local expat bar/hangout Score Sports Bar or affectionately called Will’s Place does have a book exchange so as long as you start off with one paper back you could keep exchanging. My other more recent activity, one I just started trying again after an absence of 40 years, is oil painting. I had the local wood shop build me an easel, bought painting supplies at the Mall and am now practicing drawing. Soon I will know if the talent I had in my 20’s has followed me into my 60’s! The other and probably most important thing we do is learning another language- Spanish. Though you can actually live here knowing little of the local language, speaking Spanish makes many things less difficult. My favorite practice lately is trying my Spanish on our many taxi drivers.

Same as back home we have dinner parties with our friends. We have made some wonderful new friends here. Because we have all left our home countries to try this great new adventure, you immediately have something in common. We also have Ecuadorian friends who have been invaluable in helping us through some of the beaurocratic nightmares.

Ok, so what are the downfalls to life in Salinas or anywhere in Ecuador. This is a third world country! As explained in my other posts there is garbage on the streets, stray dogs, walking must be done defensively- manholes without covers, no poop scooping- and everything takes longer. Patience is the key word. A good example is the repair?  for our internet- read next post on my Blog.

So what is our conclusion regarding life in Salinas, Ecuador? Are we happy here? Absolutely! Do we miss our family? Of course, but with internet and magicjack we are as close as possible. And we go home to Canada at least once a year. And we have an entire new continent to explore.

And probably most important- we live in paradise where we never have to shovel snow!

 

 

 

March 25- Finally our Residency Visas!!!

Woohoo! We finally both have our residency visa.

For those of you who follow my Blog regularly, you know that we started the process last year. Over the summer while back in Canada we had gathered all the required documentation, had it translated, notarized, approved and legalized- see Blog September 2012   - Getting our Documents for Residency  http://uwepetrastravelyear.blogspot.com/2012_09_01_archive.html

In October we went to Quito, Ecuador, and met with our lawyer to start the arduous process.

First we needed our movements in and out of Ecuador- see Blog October 18--- Getting our Movimientos Migratorios  http://uwepetrastravelyear.blogspot.com/2012/10/october-18-getting-our-movimientos.html

Then having everything we needed neatly put into two separate packages- one for me and another for Uwe- we went with our lawyer Sebastian to get our documents checked, approved , filled out the application, paid the $30 application fee and got the visa process started- see Blog October 25- Submitting our documents for Residency  http://uwepetrastravelyear.blogspot.com/2012_10_01_archive.html

What follows is the long, sometimes humorous, sometimes frustrating story of the last few months. And we had thought this would be easy!! NOT!

In December, three months after the process started, Sebastian informed us that the Visa people now wanted the 2013 receipt of payment of our taxes on our condo- we are using our condo for our investment visa. It seemed that the receipt that we had already submitted did not have our names on it. So in early 2013, we went and paid our taxes and fedexed the original to Sebastian- see Blog January 3,2013- Paying our Property Taxes  http://uwepetrastravelyear.blogspot.com/2013/01/january-3-2013-paying-our-property-taxes.html

 

On January 25^th, four months after that process started, Sebastian let us know that my visa was approved and Uwe’s would be approved any day. We quickly sent our passports to Sebastian- these were now necessary to get the visa stamp. And then we waited and waited……..

Near the end of February, Sebastian informed us that the person working on Uwe’s visa insisted on the original tax receipt- our lawyer had placed the original in my package and a notarized copy in Uwe’s. Though he told the visa person repeatedly to just take the original out of my package and place in Uwe’s, the cretin doing Uwe’s visa didn’t/wouldn’t understand!

Finally finally the supervisor realized the error, Uwe’s application was approved at the lower level and sent it on for final approval.

We received the following note from Sebastian:

 

Unfortunately your files have been analyzed by two different persons and it caused one (Uwe’s) was suspended because they missed the original impuesto predial payment.

It was solved and has been approved by the first level and now it has to be ratified by the director. I’m insisting every day. Even the supervisor is trying to get it approved as soon as possible when she found the mistake.

 

This was now early March almost  4 ½ months after we started the process.

Again we patiently waited for news. On the morning of March 25^th, I again sent a note to Sebastian , ‘any good news??’    and received the following reply. Unbelievable!

No yet Petra. They have required an update of the police record. Since we submit it on time, they requested through INTERPOL (international police organization) I have been monitoring this procedure, I went in person to INTERPOL, to make sure they send the information. So they did it on Thursday and now I’m insisting to get the approval. I hope to have this week

Poor Sebastian- Uwe is a lot of work!!! LOL

Of course  Uwe’s police report had run out, we got in June 18^th, 2012 and it is only good for 6 months ( yes, 6 months not 90 days!). Luckily for us, Sebastian was able to do it all without Uwe’s having to go the Quito and Interpol himself.     A few hours later we got the good news!

Uwe’s visa was finally approved! Amazing.

Now stay tuned for the Cedula process ( National ID card that we now need to get- more documents!)