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!