September 14 to 19- Whale watching in Salinas, Ecuador

From June to October, there is whale watching in and around Salinas.

http://en.ecuador.travel/what-to-do/for-activities/ecotourism/whale-watching

Uwe and I had been wanting to go on one of the many whale watching boat excursions since I arrived back from Canada. One thing or another always seemed to prevent us making plans- I know, hard to believe when we are retired but you’ve got to be there to understand how busy life gets in retirement- LOL

Twice we did actually book and pay for a trip with our friend Edison and twice it was cancelled.

We finally approached Ben, our local whale expert, to take us. On a Saturday, we first went to his restaurant for an excellent lunch.

 

While there we had a chat with Ben and then went to his whale museum, a place I had always wanted to check out. It and the restaurant are located on the far eastern block of 2nd Av.

http://www.museodeballenas.org/

 

                                        Here is Ban standing in front of his most interesting exhibit.

 

                                                        A must see if you are in the Salinas area.

 

We had decided with him to try for this whale watching trip on either the following Thursday or Friday and we were to check if any of our friends wanted to come along. We could bring no more than a couple because we would be using a very small boat- OMG!!!

Thursday was to be the big day. Our alarm woke us up at 5AM- horrors- and after coffee and a small breakfast we were off to take the local bus at 6:30AM. We were picking Ben up on the way and then the three of us would meet our friend Randy near the mall. Randy has a car and had offered to drive us to the little fishing village of Ayangue approximately an hour north of Salinas where our boat and captain were waiting.

                                               The very deserted beach in Ayangue

 

                                                        My amiga Randy and I waiting for our trip

 

                                                        Our boat- I did mention it was small!

 

This morning was a bit more blustery than most mornings and there were waves. Uwe gets a bit of sea sickness but he had fortified himself with drugs before we left home and had additional doses with him.

                                                                                Our capitan

 

                                                Cruising through the waves out into the ocean

 

First we went to a small island a few kilometers out where there were nesting sites of Blue Footed Boobies and some rare terns that Ben was hoping to see. We did see lots of cormorants, pelicans and our blue footed friends but no Inca Terns. Then off to the sea!

After approximately the first hour, Uwe spotted our first whale. There were possibly two who were swimming maybe 100 meters ahead of us surfacing once in a while. These were not Humpback whales who are much more active so we saw no breaching, tails or those other interesting sights. OK, so off we went further out to sea to find our quarry. Another couple of hours passed before we finally saw several Humpback whales ahead. And wow, were these active. We were so busy ooing and aaaing that I got few pictures. It was very difficult to hold the camera in a moving boat, with moving whales, and unsteady hands balancing while bouncing over the waves. We were all thrilled to catch such wonderful sights.

                    Whales in the ocean playing and obviously enjoying themselves.

 

 

We were out in the ocean for more than four hours and got back to shore in time for lunch. Our capitan also owned one of the local beach restaurants. After a satisfying almuerzo consisting of juice, soup and breaded fish, rice, plantains & salad all for $3, we returned to Salinas very satisfied with our trip.

 

September 9- Our Renovations are Complete

During week 6 of our renovation, our workers started  into the painting of the kitchen and balconies, finalizing the kitchen cabinets and hardware, installing under-counter lighting, finishing all the new electric outlets and the final polish of our beautiful black granite. I could see the end of our construction ordeal coming to an end and two weeks under estimate. WOW!

Remember that we had a total kitchen demolition and rebuild including moving plumbing and replacing the kitchen sink and faucet to an entirely new location, new custom –made kitchen cupboards and pantry doors, new electrical outlets, an existing door closed, a new door archway opened up, the entire kitchen painted along with the installation of granite and backsplash, a wall demolished and the door, wall, electrical, and doorbell moved 15’ further out as well as new floors throughout our 2100 square foot condo plus another 300 square feet of balconies, new balcony doors in three different locations plus most of our windows replaced. And all in six weeks!

A huge thank you to our contractor Mike Gibbs and his amazing crews. They showed up on time every day at 8AM and worked until 5:30PM except for weekends- condo rules no weekend work- and came in on budget. As well, after every day they cleaned up their daily work area and at the end of the six week period, did a total apartment cleanup. We couldn’t be happier with their work and our now amazing condo. All that is left to do is getting the rest of the condo painted which will happen at the end of this month while we are in the Galapagos.  For now we have our apartment and life back.

                                                 Here are some pictures of the rebuild.

First our amazing new kitchen designed, with much input from Uwe, by yours truly

 

 

                                        The new bar area in our kitchen- do I hear martinis?

 

                                                             Our redesigned pantry- enormous!

 

 

Our beautiful new floors throughout picked especially because they will never show dirt!

 

                                         Our new PVC balcony doors ( we have three balconies)

New windows in kitchen, living room and sound-proof windows in master bedroom all with PVC

 

 

Aug.26 to September 2- Filing to get your IVA Taxes back with the SRI

As mentioned in my blog many times before, Ecuador treats it’s older people very well. As well as half price off on most things, bus rides, plane tickets, movie tickets etc, I, as a person over the age of 65 and a resident, can apply to receive my IVA taxes back. These IVA taxes are much like our Canadian GST/HST, a kind of goods and services tax. They apply to almost everything we buy and are 12%. When you go to pay your bill, be it at a store or restaurant, you must give them your cedula so that the bill will have your name and cedula on it.

So what follows is my adventure or lack thereof –LOL- in getting registered. We’ve been over the bureaucratic nightmare many times before of living in my beloved Ecuador.

Several of my friends have already been through this and I was given many different pieces of advice. The most important was what documents were required to complete the process.

First I needed my cedula and a colour copy thereof- done. Next, I needed a letter from my bank- yes, you require an Ecuadorian bank account- see my Blog  http://uwepetrastravelyear.blogspot.com/2012/01/jan26-getting-ecuadorian-bank-account.html

 re getting one. We have an account at the Banco Pichincha so off we went to get that done first. You have to talk to the bank officers sitting near the front door of our branch on the Salinas Malecon. Here we took a number and then sat with the next available person. I had written down in Spanish as to what I required and handed it to the young man. He seemed a bit mystified but after conversing with his peer at the adjoining desk, he accessed the system for our bank information.  We gave him both our cedulas and our account number. When we had gotten our account back in January 2012, we only had our old passports since replaced. He told us he needed to change to our cedula numbers now and could do so - yea! After only a few moments he gave me a letter to sign for the bank’s records and a letter he signed for the SRI/IVA office. This was way too easy!

The next day after getting a copy of the bank letter- yes, you need original plus a copy- we were off to the SRI office in La Libertad where this application and future filing is handled. The office is on the main road near the La Libetad Malecon in the same block as Banco Guayaquil. We had also been told that it would not be necessary to take an interpreter if we dealt with Carla Villon on the second floor who spoke perfect English. This proved the best advice of all. When we walked in there were many many people waiting to talk to the several officers working on this floor. I went to the security guard and told him I needed to see Carla Villon on the second floor and was told to go right up. On the second floor we were the only ones and were shown into one of several offices immediately. Now the only bad news is that Carla was not there today but one of the women in that office spoke some English. Between my broken Spanish and her English, we managed to get across what I needed. After showing her all my paper work and my cedula, she gave me the application form and asked me to return  on Monday and then deal with Carla.

Monday arrived and back we went. This time armed with our August bills totaled as to number of bills and IVA for those bills. Again there were many people downstairs and again I told the security guard we needed to see Carla Villon upstairs and again no problem. This time there were two groups of people in front of us, both Ecuadorian and filing their monthly bills. Our turn came quickly and I asked the young woman if she was Carla Villon- yes- yea! I gave her all my papers, she filled out yet another form which I had to sign and then had her boss approve. And yet again- no problems! Wow, can you believe it. Can this be Ecuador?

After this, I had to go downstairs to a young man who again spoke English to get my password so that I could enter their computer system to check on my filings and returns- WOW!

And that was it! I could file next month’s bills anytime from the 1^st to the 7^th of the next month or any month thereafter ( the date depended on your cedula number) and the IVA returns would come into my bank account after each quarter. Of course, we now wait to see if this actually happens. Stay tuned.

 

August 18 to 25- Fundraiser for 'Expats helping Kids in Ecuador' & other fun stuff

This weekend we actually had two gringo functions that we attended- Saturday night at Edison’s house warming and Sunday night at a fund raising dinner at Peggy & Will’s.

Let me give further explanations regarding the fundraiser for ‘Expats Helping Kids in Ecuador’ http://www.expatexchange.com/expat/index.cfm?frmid=202&tpcid=3360923. This is a yearly event at Peggy and Will’s house which another expat couple Tod and Mary also help organize. Here money is raised to help pay for operations for children whose parents cannot afford these necessary procedures. To date, twenty-three children have been helped. These operations involve children born without an anal track, congenital cataracs, missing tear ducts, water on the brain or severe disfigurement or even badly broken limps that were not healed correctly. This was the first time we had been in Salinas at this time of year and were able to attend. It was a wonderful event strongly supported with over 125 attendees both expat and Ecuadorian. It included a dinner, silent auction, live auction and raffle.

Peggy and Will’s beautiful ocean front house all decked out with decorated tables

 

Sister Veronica and some of the children this group have helped ( she is considered the Mother Teresa of coastal Ecuador)

 

                                                The many many people supporting this endeavor

 

                                                            Some of the Silent Auction items

 

                                     A beautiful young couple seated at our table, Kevin and Rowan.

Speaking of Rowan, have I mentioned that we now have twice weekly Yoga classes in Salinas and Rowan is our teacher. Yes, Yoga classes here- whoopee https://www.facebook.com/groups/545430385493649/

She teaches 1 hour classes every Tuesday and Thursday morning starting at 8:30AM right across the street from where we live at the Hotel Amira. These sessions are held outside beside the beautiful pool area.

On Monday we took the bus to Guayaquil. We have taken this 2 ½ hour ride before at a cost of $3.60/person but this time because I am over 65 years old ( who would believe it-LOL) and have my cedula, I only had to pay ½ price. They treat their old people well here. Our aim in going was to get away from our construction zone as now all the windows and doors were out. As well we needed  a shopping trip to get the still necessary items like backsplash for the kitchen, a new bathroom sink and plane tickets to the Galapagos. In order to get our residency discount plus my ½ price for being over 65, we had to buy these tickets in person.

We were staying at the Howard Johnson Hotel near the Mall del Sol, a very nice hotel but pricey. I didn’t care, after living in a construction zone for 3 weeks I needed luxury!

The hotel was connected via an over the road walkway to the Mall del Sol, a large modern shopping mall much like our huge ones back home. Here is a view in both directions.

 

 

During our first full day there we accomplished a lot. First we went to the Dicentro Mall which consisted entirely of stores selling tiles, backsplash, bathroom & kitchen fixtures, lights, furniture – a regular paradise for people doing renovations. I had been there previously with Mike but was now dragging Uwe along. We went back to the store where I had seen the backsplash I liked and bought 7.5 square metres as Uwe liked it as much as I did.

             

                                         Here is a sample- the picture of course doesn’t do it justice.

 

 

Then we went to another huge store right across the street, Boyacan, where we found a bathroom sink we both loved at 50% off. Carrying the sink, we took a taxi back to a Servientrega outlet right beside our hotel and shipped it off to Mike in Salinas.

Next we took another taxi trying to find a stereo shop selling high-end speakers that Uwe had discovered online. I’m sure I have mentioned that my husband is a major audiophile. While partying one night we had blown one of the new speakers we had brought here from Canada last fall. Yes, for those of you who know Uwe, yet another speaker has hit the dust. Let me count the numbers he has blown- LOL

The taxi driver did find the address we wanted- Guayaquil is huge and very complicated for getting around- but the store was no longer there. Oh well, back to the internet to purchase and ship another speaker.

We spent several hours walking, eating and shopping in the Mall del Sol as well. The Tame Airlines has a kiosk there and they fly from Guayaquil to Galapagos. After presenting  our cedulas which identify us as residents, Uwe got a discount from the regular round trip for tourists of $326 to his price of $269 and I got a further reduction to $206 again because I was over 65.

We were booked for our Galapagos trip starting on September 29- whoopee!

 

August 11 to 17- Thermal Baths in San Vicente plus other fun stuff

Week three of our renovation has started. OMG what a mess! I thought that the kitchen demolition was bad but week 3 was even worse. Most of the tile in all rooms plus balconies was underway. This included taking out the balcony doors and the constant cutting of tile to fit. The dust, the noise arrrgh! As well, the kitchen upper and lower cabinets came and were installed. A small burp as I thought the cabinets were installed a little high from the counter tops. They were at 24” and when checking with my friends in Canada who have done many kitchen renovations and our family who just had theirs done, we found that the norm in Canada was 18”. Since labour is cheap but my kitchen won’t be, we had them all lowered. No problemas!

               Pictures of the latest changes- new tiles almost everywhere and new kitchen cabinets

 

 

On Sunday we had lunch at Luccy’s new location of her Mexican restaurant.

https://www.facebook.com/LuccysCafeandGrill

 Uwe had tacos and I had quesadillas- delicious as before- we sure missed you, Luccy, welcome back.

We also went to Dolar Pizza on their Tuesday night 2 for 1 special.
https://www.facebook.com/DolarPizza
After many deliciosas pizzas were enjoyed, we all wished the owner, Marco, a happy Birthday.

 

My friends and I felt we needed a Women’s day at a spa and since some of us had never been to the Thermal Baths at the nearby town of San Vicente, we decided to give that a try. The following well written Blog basically describes all the fun stuff but I’ll tell our tale as well. http://nanlevin.wordpress.com/2011/01/08/banos-termales-san-vincente/

First of all, it is a reasonable distance from Salinas, over ½ hour drive and a $20 taxi ride round trip. Connie’s friend, Fernando, picked us up about 10AM and drove us there and was to pick us back up at 2PM.

                                                  Here we are standing in front of the gate

Connie, who had been there before, showed us the various locations we would be going to and then we changed into our bathing suits in the private dressing rooms. A reminder, bring your own towels- 2 is good- soap and shampoo especially if you are getting a massage.

We booked our massages first, Connie and I wanted an aloe massage and Denise wanted a mud massage first and then followed by an aloe massage. We then spent a pleasant half hour in the warm thermal pool, much like a huge hot tub but with natural hot mineral water. Wonderful!

Ok time for our massages. If you are shy please be aware that these 30 minute massages include an almost full frontal as well as your back.  I had chosen an aloe massage for my dry older skin. And lather it on she did while kneading my tense muscles. There wasn’t a single piece of me- body,arms,legs,face and my full head of hair, that was not thickly covered in aloe.

Now here is where the soap and shampoo become absolutely necessary. It took me forever to get all the aloe out of my hair and my bathing suit will need a heavy duty laundry to become clean again.

The mud pool was next. I know, here I was just newly showered and off to the mud pool? Denise who had had a mud massage was already covered head to toe in mud. The water in the mud pool was cool and about 2 feet deep where we went in. The problem was that there was another foot of mud into which your feet sank- a truly weird icky feeling. Then you were supposed to bring the mud up with your hands and spread it over your body.

 

 I opted to do most of this sitting on the side of the pool as I really didn’t like the feeling of standing in a foot of mud. There were lots of other people there most of whom seemed to enjoy this experience.

More showers and more hair and body washing- this is where an extra towel comes in handy.

After one more turn in the thermal pool, my favorite of the day, we got changed and went outside the venue and had a delicious lunch- soup, breaded fish, rice and beans, juice all for $2.50 per person. A perfect day with mis amigas! And better yet, a relaxing day away from THE construction zone.

Walking on a late Saturday afternoon along the Malecon, we were so surprised at the number of people still on the beach during what is Salinas’ low season.

This weekend we were invited to a house warming party for one of our Ecuadorian friends and his family. Edison Salinas also runs a Real Estate business at the same address so it was both house warming and intro to his new venture.

The party was hosted by the Blairs, Don & Leslee, who are also our Canadian consulate representatives in our area.

                         There were delicious appetizers and lots of good wine and beer.

                                 We met many old and new friends and per usual,had a wonderful time.

 

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

 

July 29 to August 3- First Week of our Condo Renovation

Early Monday morning, our contractor Mike Gibbs and several of his guys, arrived to start our kitchen renovation. Not only were we re-doing our kitchen totally but also retiling all our floors including our three balconies plus replacing most of our windows and balcony doors. Whew!

We had been given an estimate of two months for the work and been warned that we would definitely be living in a construction site.

The day before we had emptied our kitchen, placed everything that we thought we may not need in the shower stall of the guest bathroom. We also placed 2 plates, 2 bowls, 2 cups… you get the idea plus some cook ware and utensils in an easily accessible cupboard in the guest bedroom. We moved our fridge, microwave, toaster and coffee maker into a corner of the living room and placed tarps over everything else.

In our bedroom which would hopefully be done last, we had placed two of our living room chairs, some coffee tables, a small stereo and our computers- our sole entertainment for the next 2 months.

The boys started each day at 8AM and worked to 5:30PM. A lot was accomplished the first day!

Our kitchen counters were all made of concrete with tile on top plus another layer of concrete underneath the bottom cupboards. Lots of stuff to be smashed out by hand in order to make room for the new.

The cabinet maker that worked with Mike came and we went through my new kitchen layout and related pictures showing what we wanted where. Having been an engineer in my former life my measurements where cabinets, doors and new sink location would go were right on. The lower cabinets would hopefully be complete by the time floors were done.

On Tuesday I went to Guayaquil with Eddie, Mike and one of his managers. My job while Uwe stayed home was to pick the granite for our counter tops, new kitchen sink, faucet and fridge plus check out some back splashes. Such responsibility on my little shoulders!

We went to several huge granite outlets- to say confusion reigned for me would be an understatement. Who knew there were so many choices of black! Next the sink, faucet and fridge. The outlet that we went to had what we wanted for the first two but no white fridges.

On to the Mall de Sol where there were several outlets selling appliances. Mission accomplished with our choice of fridge and then on to Di Centro, an entire mall consisting of outlets selling granite, tiles, backsplashes etc etc. Too many stores, too many choices! Did I ever mention that I am one of the few women I know that hates shopping.

That said, we did end the day successfully with granite for kitchen counters, sink and faucet and refrigerator picked out and bought.

On Wednesday, Uwe and I went to one of the tile stores in La Libertad to make our final selection. We had already agreed on the kitchen ceramics but our initial choice for the rest of our condo was not available. We settled on a really nice and more expensive porcelain tile- oh well, we are only going to do this once. The only thing left was the backsplash behind the kitchen counters and I had a pretty good idea what I wanted now the only problem was to find it. By the way, on the beach we do not use wood floors or rugs- termites & sand- so our entire condo will be tile floors.

Uwe and I had also decided that for our window/ balcony door replacements we wanted PVC instead of aluminum. Living beside the ocean, everything metal eventually rusts even aluminum. But finding a custom window maker who uses PVC was another story. Why that is I have no idea since so many of us gringos are doing major renovations in homes along the ocean shore.  The one person Mike knew was busy doing a large job in Quito and not available. The person who had done our friends’ doors in Puerto Lopez denied doing this kind of work??? We checked the internet for Mike but only found companies in Cuenca and Quito. My FaceBook group Ecuador Coastal came up with a company name, Wintech, and after Mike contacted them, they came up with a professional quote for exactly what we wanted. Another mission accomplished.

So during this first week of much noise and dust, we actually did have some fun times. We cooked at home three of those days, barbecue, salad or left-overs and we also went out several times.

Our Tuesday night dinner at Bella Italia watching the beach at sunset

We also went to our friends, Denise and Javier’s condo, to help her put up some shelves etc. They have a beautiful condo overlooking the ocean on the Malecon. She treated us to a great local lunch after Uwe’s hard work.

The amazing rice and seafood dish I had

Uwe and I also discovered another keeper on the road behind the Malecon. We both had an entire fried corvina ( like sea bass) rice, salad, plantains plus a large beer and one small one for me for a total cost of $13.25.

Here is the restaurant front- clean, nice patio and great food!

 

 

 

So how much was actually accomplished on week 1? Our new door into the kitchen was in, our old door into utility room was closed, wall and new door entrance almost complete, electrical and plumbing conduits run in kitchen and tiles started in kitchen floor. Not bad for one weeks’ work.