Lessons & Thoughts So Far About Living in Cuenca

We have been in Cuenca for eight weeks plus now and it is beginning to feel like home to us.  It is time to look back and see what we might have done differently and the lessons we have learned ….

First selling the house was the only way to make this move for us. We had to be free of the chains of having property in Florida.  We had been doing a lot of international traveling for the past five years.  The longest we were away from the house was eight weeks.  We had prepared the house for our long journeys, whole house generator, a company maintained the pool, weekly yard service and great neighbors would check on the place.  But, you still worry while you're away and it is also very expensive to maintain a part-time residence.

I loved my home and when we bought it I believed they would have to carry me out in a pine box.  You have to understand that I'm an Army brat and married an Army officer who served 22 years active duty.  The six years we lived in our home in Sun City is the longest I have ever lived anywhere in my entire life.  I loved the street we lived on and had some of the best neighbors in our lives there.  There wasn't anything to dislike about living there.  Strangely, I found it wasn't a difficult decision to sell the home.  We were very lucky to have found a buyer just days after listing the house.  One big hurdle was passed.

The big decision was what to do with all our stuff.  Here is where I might have done a few things differently (maybe).  We announced at a friends party that we would be putting our home on the market in thirty days.  It was three days later a couple came and really was interested.  They made an offer just ten days later.  When we received the offer on the sale of the house, we only had 6 weeks to be out.  That really isn't a very long time to be making this choices.  Also, we had a long planned trip of a couple of weeks that we had to take during the six weeks available to us.  We really believed that it would take much longer to sell the house and it would give us plenty of time to decide what we wanted to do with all our items.

I was the one that didn't like the idea of putting everything into a storage unit and then dealing with it at a later date.  The cost of that would have been around $200 per month.  I saw problems of how to sort through a packed storage unit and find the items we did want to keep.  Then, how would I have a 'garage sale' at a storage unit?  Would a tropical storm or hurricane hit the building and we loose everything anyway?  We talked about only keeping half of our stuff and putting that in one small unit for $100 per month.  It wasn't just the monthly cost of either storage unit that I didn't like. It was the thought I would have to go through all the stuff a second time and worry about it while I was gone.  Some how it felt like an anchor to me.

I looked around the house to see what was really special to me.  I found that there were memories attached to almost everything.  I grew up as an Army brat and my family had lived in Germany 6 years before my 13th birthday.  Ed and I had lived in Nuremberg, Germany for two years; Seoul, Korea; and three years in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and have travel extensively around the world.  So, it all seemed special.  How was I ever going to part with anything?  

I started by sorting through just the most precious family items.  Items that I would like to see passed down to my grand children (that might have some meaning to them).  We asked our son and daughter what they wanted from the house and it was very little.  I ended up packing just 22 medium size boxes and storing them in my daughter's basement.  I had about 7 oriental rugs, some I parted with but a few are stored at my daughter's also.  Maybe one day one of the grandchildren would like to have one of them (I'm hoping).  

So, my dining room set, master bedroom set, kitchen items and a few other pieces went up to Columbus, Ohio to my son's home.  My daughter selected the couch and a couple of end tables for her basement room for her girls to use.  A couple of other family members received a few items.  

But, it mostly went into a large estate sale that was held over two days.  What did not sell was donated to a local charity.  I had also found a wonderful consignment shop in Tampa that took several large pieces to sell. 

I had made the choice to be free of the stuff and to simplify my life.  Now looking back there are a few things that I might have held onto to bring down at a later date.  Now those items would be for their sentimental value more than anything.  I had a wonderful collection of vases.  I now have to opportunity to buy flowers every week and I wish I had a couple of those vases here.  I have bought a couple of vases locally but I don't have the memories attached to them (so I make new memories).  I had some 30 beeswax candles of high quality and I think I would have kept 6 or 8 to bring down here.  The local candles smoke and are poor quality.  Also, we had a really large DVD movie collection (600) and I kept only about 70 of them.  I brought down 30 with us on the first trip and will bring the remainder of them on our next trip down.  But, I would have kept many more (100) because we love watching movies.  The movies are maybe the only thing I regret getting rid of now.  I think I might have kept a few more small knickknacks for our condo here to make it feel a little more like my home.  But, I'm really OK with having parted with all my treasurers and feel a lighter load now.  I just haven't anything new for our new home.  

The problem with keeping so much of your stuff and having it shipped here is that can get very expensive.  The price for a half container runs around $4,000 up to $12,000 for a whole container.  The thought of shipping a ton of stuff over to Ecuador and then IF we ever returned home, would I also want to ship it back home again? 

We have purchased a new top of the line Chaide Y Chaide pillow top king size bed.  We love it and it has turned out to be one of the best beds we have owned.  The new bed set us back around $1,400 and we felt that was something we were going to do when we got here and had set the money aside.  A good bed is very important to me because of two major back surgeries.

I had listened to many of the Expats on Facebook and on their Blogs about what to bring.  I decided we loved our good king sheets, so I packed both sets.  I packed a king size down comforter, 2 king blankets, and our favorite pillows.  I also packed one set of queen sheets for a guest bedroom.  I had wonderful large bath towels and had heard that towels in Ecuador were thin and smaller.  So, into our luggage went 8 sets of towels (might have been an over kill).  I had packed a king size memory foam pad for our new bed along with a new mattress pad cover that had extra deep pockets.  I was making sure we slept well even if we didn't have enough clothes here.

I researched flights to Ecuador and found that American Airlines offered the best connections for us and that if you flew Business class it offered some great benefits.  We were each allowed 3 free pieces of luggage up to 70 pounds.  They also allowed up to a total of 5 bags per person, you did pay $150 for each extra bag.  We had a total of ten checked bags with the heaviest bag weighing in at 68 pounds!  So, we paid a total of $600 for all the tons of stuff I lugged over here to set up our new home.  I still feel that was a wise investment for us.  We each also had a 21 inch carry-on and a computer bag.  We bought over 3 laptop computers, 1 Apple modem, 2 kindles, a IPad.  

Also, for those making the trip, I can really suggest you check out ebags.com and look at their Extra Large Kelty duffel bags.  They are very light weight, strong and are air line regulation size.  I packed a ton in each of our 8 bags.  I also liked that they can be easily folded and returned to the states and used again on our next trip down.  I believe they cost about $32 per bag.

We knew that renting a furnished condo was what we needed to do.  We went through Cuenca Realtors and found a 3 bedroom & 3.5 bath unit in a very lovely building with great security.  We signed a 3 month lease to allow us time to start our residency paper work and get our feelings for the city.  This decision was a good one and the right one for us.  Some of the people come and stay in a hotel type facility and take a little time to find their own apartment.  I didn't want that stress when we first arrived.  The rent we pay is more costly per month but it had everything included and it was EASY!

Talking about stress - these items were the ones that caused us the most stress during the transition phase:

* We could not decide to either come on just a regular tourist visa you receive at the airport or apply in the States for a 6 month Visa.  Ed contacted the Cuenca Immigrations Office and was told just to come on the tourist visa and that could be renewed 30 days before it expired here in Cuenca by the office.  So, that seemed to be the easiest way to approach the Visa question.

1.  Understanding the documents that would be needed for our residency visa and then for the Cedula for Ecuador.  It seemed we received different information about this from different places and other expats kept telling us that the system does change frequently.

2.  Getting all the new certificated copies of birth & marriage certificates.  The certificates must be within 12 months of the date of issue to be used in Ecuador.

3.  Then, getting those documents Apostilled by the Secretary of State in the state they were issued.

4.  Since, we would by applying for a Pension Visa, we needed a signed Verification Letter of Benefits from Social Security.  First we learned that the employees of SS do not like to sign any type of document.  They had to discuss this with a supervisor.  The employees signature must be notarized.  We had arranged for a mobile notary to come to the Social Security office in Tampa with us.  We were able to get the letter signed and notarized on the spot.

5.  That Verification Letter of Benefits letter than must be apostilled by the Secretary of State in which you received it.

6.  The Social Security Verification Letter then must be translated into Spanish by a professional and that must be notarized.  I could not find a notary that could translate and notarize the letter.  I was able to find a translator and then have his signature notarized by again another mobile notary.

7.  This SS letter (with apostille & notarizations) must be approved by an Ecuadoran Consul.  We were living in Florida, so we drove down to Miami.  OK, I'll save you the long sad story about how that went and just say I have written a couple of Blogs on just that process.  

8.  Our first Social Security Verification Letter is still sitting in the Miami Consul's office or in their trash can.  We ended up doing that whole process all over from the very start.  We were running quickly out of time (we already had our flight arranged) so we ended up driving to Tallahassee and then my husband flew to Washington DC to visit the Consul there.  It was quickly approved and we were thrilled that we could continue with our plans.  We did think at one time it was maybe the universe telling us not to go to Ecuador, I took it as a sign that if we really wanted it, we would have to put in some extra effort.

9.  Now part of our stress came from not knowing if the documents we were bringing were correct and did we have everything we needed.  We had decided to bring 2 original copies of everything, except the SS Letter.  We had also been told numerous times that the process does change and what is OK today might be very different tomorrow.  So, were we going to run into any more Miami problems once in Ecuador????

10.  The Cuenca Immigrations Office has people who speak very good English so that was not a problem when we presented our papers.  Our young lady went through every document and told us what was needed for the Residency Pension Visa and what we would need later for our Cedula.  She marked every document that needed to be translated and notarized (she put little flags on each one).  It was very clear to us what we needed to do next.  They even have suggestions on places who will translate and then have them notarized.  Our young lady looked very closely at the SS Verification Letter and had her supervisor look over it and deemed it "perfect" & no flag for translation went on it.  

11.  We went to a suggested translation school in the old part of town.  They also spoke excellent English and were very helpful to us.  They knew exactly what needed to be done.  We were going to have all our documents translated at one time (even the ones we would not need until time to file for our Cedula).  The documents were ready two days later, translated & notarized!

12.  With our newly translated and notarized documents in hand, we went directly to the Immigrations Office.  We were given a different young lady this time.  She again went through each and every document we had.  She selected the ones she would need for our residency.  Then, she came to our SS Letter and informed us it also needed to be translated and notarized (the apostille was the document that now needed to be translated & notarized) - what this was the same doc we were told was "perfect".  What happened in just two days.?  So, it was back to the translator and get this document done.

13.  With the SS letter properly translated and notarized, it was back to Immigrations (3rd time the charm?).  This time all the documents were taken and our pictures was taken.  Now it is the waiting game.  We decided that we would not use an attorney to assist with the filing of our papers - will that cause us a delay?  We have been told by many people that filing is easy in the Cuenca office and save the money BUT as many people tell us the only way to get processed in a timely manner is to use an attorney…. what should we have done? I do now have the name of an attorney IF needed.

14.  The one paper we understand that might cause a potential problem is the police report.  First, the report must come for the state not the city or county which you live in and second it has to be apostilled by the Secretary of State from which it was issued.  It has to be presented very recently after being issued to the Ecuadoran Immigrations.  We have been told that it can not be older than 90 days from when the report was issued and presented to Immigrations.  Now, we understand that if it expires during the process it can be turned back for you to get a new one issued.  Will this happen to us???

We have been told many times that dealing with anything in Ecuador does take a bit of humor and patience.  We do feel at times that we have stepped back in time and just have to laugh.  Ed went to the dry cleaners to have some clothes laundered.  They hand wrote out the receipt in triplicate and made note for each item presented.  The time we bought our printer was another learning lesson for us.  We selected our printer, we were taken to a desk to fill out the paper work, asked for our passports and all information entered into their computer systems.  We were told to go to the glass window to pay.  We had bought the printer, a ream of paper and a cable.  Each item had to have their own receipt and paid for separately.  It took about an hour to go through the whole process…

One good piece of advice that we took and have enjoyed is buying a MagicJack Plus and phone number while in the states.  We had learned of this after we had sold our home and was just weeks away from the move.  So, one thing we could have done before was keep a phone from our home and not gotten rid of them all.  So, we ended up going out and buying a new phone before we left the states.  We use MagicJack weekly to talk to our grand kids and friends.  We also use Skype and had set that up with our kids before we left the states.   

So, really looking back I think we really made the best choices for us and our move to Cuenca.  Everything is working out just fine and we have made new friends and memories, isn't that what life is really about.

Enjoying Life,
Peggy