If you are interested in a walking tour of Old Town Quito,
and an insider look at expat life in Quito, please call or write:
“Legends of Old Quito” with Liliya
cell: 08 703 8310
Email: lbassist2003@yahoo.com

VILLAGE PEOPLE.
AGORA CASA DE LA CULTURA ECUATORIANA
July 23 at 8 p.m.
Tickets from $30 to $100
http://www.tuboleta.com.ec/show.asp?code=VILLAGEQ
what to expect at Teatro Agora - stadium bench seating,
capacity 4000, liquiors and snacks for sale,

La Semana Del Rock (Rock Week)
Plaza del Teatro
July 21,22,23 from 1 p.m.
Free
La Semana Del Rock  (Rock Week) with 120 rock bands performing in Quito,Guayaquil, Cuenca, Lago Agria and Riobamba.  The best way to enjoy concerts at Plaza del Teatro -
to sit at Cafe Teatro, sip your drink, watch people and listen to the live music.

Margarita Lasso
Teatro Mexico
July 30 at 8 p.m.
Tickets $10
http://www.teatrosucre.com/calendario/obra.php?id=1271

El Caminante
Teatro Variedades Ernesto Alban
July 30 at 8:30 p.m.
Tickets:  $5 -$8
http://www.teatrosucre.com/calendario/obra.php?id=1273

Alexis Cárdenas (Venezuela)
Recital de violín
Teatro Nacional Sucre
July 30 at 8:30 p.m.
Free
http://www.teatrosucre.com/calendario/obra.php?id=1254

Unfortunately, there is no easy answer to this question. Ecuador is famous for shaking up the laws and rules on a regular basis. Up until a few months ago, you were about guaranteed to get 90 days each time you re-entered the country by air. Land entry was more of a gamble. Several clients have let us know recently that they only received 10 days when re-entering by land or air.

While it does not make much sense, the consulates of Ecuador often do not know what is going on in Ecuador. Their information is often outdated. Rather than rely on the information from them, you should always try to verify what you are told with other sources.

Ecuador law permits people to be in the country for a maximum of 180 days out of any 12 month period. The year does not start in January. How Ecuadorian consulates and government offices choose to interpret and apply the law is another story.

As has been said many times in these blogs, do not overstay your visa for any reason. You will be fined and deported. The exact amount of time you will be required to stay outside of Ecuador is not well defined.

Here’s a July update from our Quito Cultural Arts reporter, Liliya Bykova.
If you are interested in a wonderful walking tour of Old Town Quito,
and an insider look at expat life in Quito, please call or write:

“Legends of Old Quito” with Liliya
Email: lbassist2003@yahoo.com
cell: 08 703 8310

ROCK N QUITO
PLAZA DE TOROS - QUITO
August 1, 7:00pm
Rock groups from Argentina: Attaque 77, Todos Tus Muertos
Nacional rock groups: Ayawaska, Biorn Borg, Sal y Mileto
Prices from $25 to $60
http://www.tuboleta.com.ec/

RICARDO ARJONA EN GUAYAQUL
ESTADIO ALBERTO SPENCER
July 22,  9p.m.
Prices from $25 to $120

RICARDO ARJONA EN CUENCA.
ESTADIO ALEJANDRO SERRANO AGUILAR
July 26, 7 p.m.
Prices from $25 to $120
http://www.tuboleta.com.ec/

TANGO POR CULPA DE UN BANDONEON
Teatro Nacional Sucre, Quito
July 9 & 10, 8:30 pm
Tickets $10 - $25
http://www.teatrosucre.com/calendario/obra.php?id=1248

JUAN CARLOS TERAN
JUAN CARLOS TERAN, OFRECERA SU TRIBUTO A
RUBEN BLADES
Teatro Mexico, Quito
July 24, 8:30 p.m.
Tickets $5
http://www.teatrosucre.com/calendario/obra.php?id=1197

ORQUESTA: SINFONICA NACIONAL DEL ECUADOR
Teatro Nacional Sucre, Quito
July 24 at 8:30 p.m.
Tickets $1
http://www.teatrosucre.com/calendario/obra.php?id=1252

PIANISTA Y GUITARRISTA ARGENTINO,
LITO VITALE
Teatro Nacional Sucre, Quito
July 29 at 8:30 p.m.
Free
http://www.teatrosucre.com/calendario/obra.php?id=1253

If you are 62 years old or older, and a resident of Ecuador, you are considered tercera edad, which means “third age,” and you are entitled to a 50% discount on the price of tickets in Teatro Nacional Sucre, Teatro Mexico and Teatro Variedad.  Be sure to have your cedula and a copy of the cedula as proof so you can receive the discount.

Here’s a special note for people looking for good prices on air fares.
Some Russian friends of mine own a travel agency, and they offer the most reasonable priced airline tickets in town!!!
Ecuadortur
Office:  022454782  from 10 a. m. - 5 p. m.
Email:  info@ecuadortur.com
Please  be patient with their English.
They speak English, but speak slowly.
You can ask in Spanish as well.

Here are a couple of excellent articles about Ecuador.  The first article explains how Ecuador is attempting to save the rain forest.   The second article is an interview with Ecuador President Raphael Correa following a speech at the United Nations.  Both articles will help you get an idea of the political scene in Ecuador.

Subject: Oil or Trees? Germany Takes Lead in Saving Ecuador’s Rainforest — by Jess Smee

Oil companies are salivating over the supply of black gold beneath Ecuador’s rainforest. The South American country is pledging to keep the oil in the ground — if the international community provides compensation.

Now Germany has taken a leading role in raising the necessary cash.There are many attributes which make the Yasuni National Park special: It is one of the most bio-diverse places on the planet, it is home to indigenous tribes which hunt and gather in its remote interior, and there’s a unique breed of small bat.

But the national park also has a geographic curse: It sits atop Ecuador’s largest known oil reserve, thought to contain hundreds of millions of barrels.

And this potential fortune threatens its very future. In response, Ecuador has come up with an unusual plan to safeguard the UNESCO biosphere Reserve.

The cash-strapped South American country has pledged to leave the oil in the ground forever – something unheard of among oil nations — if the international community compensates for some of the lost income.
…
Read the complete article at http://www.CultureChange.org/go.html?466

The following link is the Democracy Now! interview with President Correa.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22947.htm

Enjoy.

North of Ayampe there’s a small port town called Salango.  Just off the coast is an island that is considered sacred.  The Presley Norton archaeological museum is worth a visit, housing archeological finds.  But lunch turned out to be the highlight of our stop in Salango.

Restaurant Delfin Magico - Salango

I’ll be talking about the extraordinary meal I had there for years to come!
I’ve eaten snails, snakes and euphemistically named mountain oysters, but never have I seen or tasted anything like the dish called percebez, served to us at Restaurant Delfin Magico.  Ruy told us that this delicacy costs $80 Euros or $100 U.S. per kilo in Spain. At $10 a plate in Ecuador, it was still a pretty expensive treat.

Piles of percebez, also spelled percebes, filled the serving bowl brought to our table.  Looking like part of some underwater sea monster or a metallic octopus, each piece consisted of about 20 long tentacles encased in what had the look and texture of metal chain mail worn by knights of old.  At the end of each tentacle was a two-piece shell of pink and green, resembling a bear claw or shark tooth.  Very beautiful. Dixie and I saved the smelly shells to make jewelry.  I’ve got a stunning necklace in mind.

Ruy showed us the trick to reaching the 1-inch tasty morsel inside the barnacle:  grab the shell with the thumb and first finger of one hand and hold the tentacle with the thumb and first finger of the other hand.

Twist in opposite directions with each hand, then twist again in the other direction, and pull.  We dipped the flesh in lemon juice and cilantro sauce.  Delicious!

Percebez, or goose barnacles are harvested by hand at low tide, which is very dangerous work. Harvesters have to time the ins and outs of the tide or risk being thrown into the rocks or the very barnacles they are trying to cut loose.

And watch out!  While you are eating them, the barnacles may spray you with liquid, so wear a bib and pay attention.  This means the ones you are eating are fresh.  Use another napkin to dry off the people nearby who get squirted.

Another warning:  Don’t eat the plankton filter that sometimes comes out at the end of the flesh when you pull it out of the tentacle.

Here’s a comment from L.A. Times’ writer Anthony Capella:  “The shell itself contains only the sex organs, and they’re not usually eaten, although anyone adventurous enough to devour a plateful of mollusc feet is unlikely to be put off by its genitalia.”

Goose neck barnacles were not the only new taste sensation I experienced at Restaurant Delfin Magico.  We also dined on grilled snook and spondylus with lime.

Spondylus is another rare dish from the sea, a bivalve mollusk also known as a spiny oyster.  I’ve heard that divers must plunge way down deep to recover the orange and purple shells that are turned into jewelry and art objects.  Ecuador’s coast provides much of the spondylus used in the Andes for jewelry.

Hosteria Mandala – Puerto Lopez

Puerto Lopez rests in a great setting—a beautiful blue bay with sandy beach.  Deck chairs, hammocks, volley ball and juice bars help to distract you from the fact that there was lots of trash along the road and in town as we entered.

Beaches on the north side of town are cleaner, away from all the fishing boats in the bay. The specialty of the region is called corviche caliente, which is a pastry made of bananas and flour stuffed with fish.
Our destination was not the beach.

We headed for Hosteria Mandala and a tour of the rooms and grounds with Jill, the hosteria manager.

Owned by Aurelio, an Italian artist whose work was evident throughout the hosteria and Maja, his Swiss wife, the buildings and gardens are a lush wonderland.

Aurelio designed the main building and small bungalows, each tucked privately into its own dense garden at the end of a path.  I thought I was in a fairy village.  Plants and trees of every kind grow in dense profusion.  There are endemic plants and flowers and many exotics.

The main building has a music room on the second floor, a cactus garden on the third floor and roof gardens with flowers, herbs and pools, artfully built on the roof of the carport.  The long roof garden takes you to steps that descend into the magic of the garden area, cared for by 3 gardeners.

The cabanas have no television.  Built about ten years ago, the hosteria has twenty rooms, some for families and others for couples.

Alandaluz – south of Puerto Lopez

Alandaluz is a remarkable place.  When we walked into the main structure, with its towering beamed ceilings made of gigantic bamboo, I knew we were in an unusual environment.

Built in 1987, with 20 rooms and 9 bungalows, and a large swimming pool, Alandaluz is known as the most complete ecotourism development in Ecuador and has won numerous national and international awards. Most of the employees are locals.

“Those of us in the Alandaluz family feel that we are part of Mother Earth; that she is our only home and a beautiful garden where our children should play. Therefore, together with the communities of southern Manabí, Alándaluz has built a place that is more humane, fair, fraternal, and beautiful.”

Situated just behind the beach, this hotel and ecolodge focuses on maintaining a sustainable and healthy environment, both on their grounds and within the local community. Ecological solutions include recycling and compost toilets in the rooms. The hotel runs a volunteer program and also operate a wildlife sanctuary at Cantalpiedra.

There are plenty of birds on the hotel’s extensive grounds—frigate birds over the ocean and numerous bright-colored birds flitting among the palms and exotic trees.  The bamboo main buildings are very interesting architecturally, as is the newly-built open-air meeting room in another part of the compound.

The Hosteria will arrange a number of activities, including scuba diving, horse-back riding, whale watching and boat tours to Isla de la Plata.

If you want to support meaningful, sustainable, socially and culturally responsible eco tourism, make Alandaluz your destination.  They are proving that sustainable long-term projects are more productive than short-term ones that damage the environment.

Check with the management regarding swim conditions at the hostel’s beach.  There is a strong undertow. While we didn’t go to the Machalilla National Park, the beach at Los Frailes is excellent and usually quiet deserted, so you can enjoy swimming and a picnic.

Hosteria Islamar – near Puerto Lopez toward Ayampe

There is a tall hill, or a small mountain, 9 kms south of Puerto Lopez on the ocean side.  A Swiss man owns most of the hill and he has the romantic-looking Hosteria Islamar, on top with a rounded white tower.  There is a restaurant/bar with fresh fish and seafood with an international menu.

The hosteria consists of 5 modern bungalows with tile roofs, private patios and modern furnishings.
Further up the road at the very top is a lookout with a lovely view in every direction from the wooden lookout tower.  Be careful of missing wooden boards on the floor of the tower.  We made a small donation to the volunteers who patrol.

 Continuing our tour of the Ecuador beaches north of Guayaquil, we crested a hill and there was Ayampe down below, with its miles of beaches, the winding Ayampe River and coconut palm plantations.  Ruy drove us down to his piece of heaven which begins just past La Meson de Quilote Hostel on the left side of the road and continues to a dirt road that took us to the beach. 

The new highway in front of the property is now complete and a sign announces the location of the coming eco-development.  Ruy purchased the beachfront land in the early ’90’s.  In addition to large single family homes on the site, there will also be condominiums and a hotel.

 Right now there’s nothing but open beach stretching in both directions.  Beautiful vistas lead the eye to the horizon.

To the left of the property along the water’s edge, a river meanders down to meet the ocean. Constantly changing, its boundaries were totally different when Gary was here a few months ago.  Sandbars come and go, forming a lagoon at certain times of the year.

Later the river will burst free of its constraints and rush to the ocean, where hungry fish await an easy harvest of shrimp from the river.  The river’s unleashing of water also brings a layer of rounded river rocks that line the beach for a while, only to be swept away once again, leaving just the sandy shore.   

 Nature at her most creative, painting a landscape with water, stones and waves.

Standing here with only nature surrounding me, watching the frigate birds and pelicans, I was struck by how rare a gift this piece of land is. 

There are fewer and fewer places on earth where I can commune with the natural world unencumbered by the inventions of modern man.

A Expat Community of Two

After a few spins on the beach in the rental car and a good look at the mangroves Ruy has worked hard to preserve on his land, we headed back to the highway.  Next stop a few doors down is the beach rental of our friends and partners in the Ayampe project, Dixie and John Walker.

These newlyweds moved to Cuenca from Australia.  It didn’t take them long to realize that the beach is the place for them.  They have already vacated their beautiful apartment in Cuenca to live in Ayampe full-time.  What perfect balance:  the soft serenity of waves gently lapping to lull you into profound repose or just a short plane ride away–the stimulating perks of city life.

Living on the beach is a dream come true for Dixie. Cuenca is lovely but lively and the pace of life is so much slower in Ayampe—and warmer.  John was having a bit of trouble with Cuenca’s higher altitude.  The beach suits him much better.  Being so close to Eco Ecuador Living, they will be able to better assist those coming to live here.  The community of expats living in Ayampe will soon grow larger.

These two expats have all the modern conveniences at the beach, including a washing machine and a Jacuzzi in their 2-story thatched house.  A short distance from the tree-lined front gate the surf and sun beckons. 

Nothing else much but soft breezes, rustling leaves and tranquility.  I’d say they have found their own personal paradise.

After a short visit with Dixie and John, Ruy took us to our hostal, Cabanas La Tortuga, and our tour ended for the day.

Cabanas La Tortuga is owned by David, an Ecuadorian who has created his own family compound inside the walls of his bamboo and thatch hosteria.  He’s right on the beach under coco palms and a large almond tree.

There are individual cabanas, rustic with only a bed (ours was king-size) and table, and private bath.  The shower had plenty of hot water with great pressure for getting all the beach sand off.  We had a covered patio complete with rocking chair, table and chairs and hammock.

A brilliant living fence of Indian red and fuschia boughanvilla lined the property beachside.  The setting is undeveloped, peaceful; nothing but sand and a few beach cabanas at the ocean’s edge with unfettered views in both directions.

The thatched hosteria cabanas are spread out for more privacy.  

A rounded two-story main structure has an enclosed kitchen and dining room downstairs and an open-air tile and wood covered patio upstairs for dining, dancing, whale-watching or sun-bathing in padded lounge chairs.  Across the road there are economical camping spots available.

I now realize that Ayampe and the southwestern coast of Ecuador is not just beach and bars or surfing and sun.  It’s a unique state of being, a way of life like no other I have experienced in Ecuador.

There’s a plethora of natural and man-made wonders to delight in and we only touched the surface on the first day of our tour. 

Ayampe borders an incredible national park and I’ve heard tales of the discovery of a new site similar to Machu Picchu.  In later blogs I’ll share more of our adventures in the Ayampe area and points north.

Continuing our tour of the Ecuador coast with Ruy, we are only a short distance from Montanita, with its famous surfing beach.  Our tour of the southwest coast of Ecuador has just taken us through the village of San Antonio, much greener than previous towns.

This is where the rainforest used to reach.  Outside town there is a small twin engine airstrip.  I made note of the fact because of its possible use by visitors and expats moving to this area.

(Scroll down for the other articles in the series of our tour of the beach from Guayaquil to Ayampe)

Montanita is a deliciously disorderly town, a party town that attracts mainly a younger crowd from all over the world.  Here in this bustling beach town is played out a familiar scene I’ve witnessed throughout my travels in Thailand, India, Malaysia, Guatemala.

Every country seems to have that one spot that is more hip, more attractive and more international than other tourist destinations.

For Ecuador it’s Montanita.

It’s an international melting pot, a place to relax, surf, swim, play, dance and mingle as you listen to the competing beats of techno, rap and reggae.

The glut of cafes and restaurants in town are a great place for checking out the tanned bodies strolling by.

A Glimpse of Montanita’s Past and Present

Our guide Ruy reminisced about how Montanita used to be such a beautiful little town of thatch and bamboo houses, with a charming lagoon, rainforests and mangroves. The mangroves were cut down, as most of them have been that used to line the coastal waters.

Without the mangroves to protect it, the sea advanced further inland, eroding the beach and destroying the lagoon, which has disappeared.

Turning off the highway toward the ocean there are dirt streets densely lined with many-storied buildings of creatively funky and unusual architecture.

Wildly artisanal, they are built with huge bamboo poles, rocks, shells, thatch and the generous use of paint and murals. In fact, it seems that any material available is given an artistic new use and becomes part of the architectural mix.

We returned to Montanita a few days later with friends, so stay tuned for more about Montanita in a future blog.

Olon Beach—Ecuador’s Most Expensive Beach Property

Twelve kilometer long Olon Beach is just over the hill from Montanita.

It stretches out along the shore, clean and white and is edged with some of Ecuador’s most expensive beach real estate.  Current prices for oceanfront land with no infrastructure is $150 per square meter. Houses are in the $500,000 range.  Most of the owners are wealthy Guayaquilanos.

The main highway at Olon is also lined with large estates behind tall walls and gates, but we could glimpse expanses of lawn, multi-storied homes, and colorful landscaping.  One estate has thoroughbred horses in stone stables.

From Manglaralto, near San Antonio, to Tunas, the road will be two-lane concrete instead of 4-lane asphalt, because there is more humidity.  In addition to more rainforest there is a seasonal condition called garua, which is several months of light drizzle or dense sea mist.

We Enter the Rainforest

After Olon the rainforest was very evident in all its many shades of green splendor. The concrete road is partially finished and wound through mountains thick with trees and nothing else to mar the beauty of the landscape.  I held my breath because the change of scenery was so magical.

This continued for a few miles and would have stretched further except that we hit an area being clear-cut for agriculture and cattle.  I have to wonder if the locals know that clear-cutting jungle leaves very poor land in a short time.  It only takes a few years of monoculture to quickly deplete the soil of nutrients.  Ruy told us that the cattle in this area are sickly.

Now we are only a few miles from Ayampe, the location of Ruy’s green development, Eco Ecuador Living.  Stay tuned as I share our experiences of Ayampe with you in future blogs.

Ruta del Sol:  Our southwest coastal tour of Ecuador with our guide and partner Ruy Quevedo had brought us to the more densely populated area north of Salinas.  Here the wide open spaces of the savannah along Libertad Peninsula have changed to small villages dotting the Ruta del Sol as it winds close to the ocean.

Most of these villages look alike–unfinished houses of concrete or bamboo, dirty streets, locals lounging, talking, selling or eating.  But one town stands out from the rest–the town of Simon Bolivar. Once fairly indistinguishable from the rest, it now shines with a whole new way of doing business, relating and selling.

Ruy began to tell us about a Spanish foundation, Ayuntamiento de Madrid, that came to Simon Bolivar about five years ago.  First the foundation gave business and restaurant training to locals and then created jobs for the trainees.  The participants had to pass the training before they could receive money to start their own business or restaurant.  We could tell that the foundation has had a very positive impact on the entire village as we drove into the town limits.

Both sides of the highway were lined with orderly rows of extremely neat thatched businesses. 

The restaurants each had distinctive menus and artistic signage.  They were very clean and so were the highway borders. 

Retail shops carried well-made crafts and clothing, lamps and jewelry, some items made from shells and sand.

The cleanliness and pride was in stark contract to the general disarray, even squalor of many of the previous villages, proving that it is possible in a short time to instill a sense of professionalism and order into a community.

This foundation is truly performing a priceless service. They are now spreading out into surrounding towns.  A better quality of life is having a ripple effect.

We ate on Restaurante Rafaelito’s outdoor patio with the surf crashing on the nearby shore.  The excellent training that the teen-aged waiter had received from the foundation was evident as he rattled off the menu specialties by heart and thoroughly explained each dish to us.  He was attentive to our needs, even while managing to balance his time with his wife and baby, who were seated at a table near the kitchen.

After we each sipped our seafood chowder with shrimp, conch, squid, octopus and several kinds of fish (absolutely delicious, I might add), we shared entrees of smoked fish that we drizzled with lemon-cilantro sauce and a mild barbecued fish and vegetable dish served with rice, fried bananas, and steamed broccoli and cauliflower.

Driving to the next town, we found that a similar story of renewal and hope was occurring, with the assistance of another foundation.

Fundacion Pro-Pueblo

In San Antonio a Swiss foundation called Fundacion Pro-Pueblo has a Fair Trade Market.  The foundation began by assisting women in the town to make pottery.  Now men, too, are making recycled paper, purses, jewelry, tagua animals, birds and figurines, ceramic bowls edged with bamboo and baskets.

We peeked into the neat workroom where men and women were carefully arranging tagua animals in rows for shipping. The warehouse was a model of cleanliness and professionalism. The workers even make their own balsa wood boxes for shipping items.

Some of the Best Honey I Have Ever Eaten

We bought 3 jars of rainforest honey for $3.85 each at their gift shop, replacing the jar of honey Gary bought on his last trip here.  The honey is like none I have ever tasted—very dark, extra heavy and absolutely delicious.  So naturally we had to have more.  The first jar Gary bought lasted less than two weeks.

This shop will definitely be high on our must-stop list on our next trip. 

There are board games like tic-tac-toe and chess made with carved tagua pieces, trays, flower pots–all very unique and very good quality and design.  They carry handsome pottery bowls rimmed with woven bamboo, hats and purses.

My next blog recounts our adventures in Montanitas, Ecuador’s best surfing beach and a major party town, and next door Olon, which reputedly has some of the most expensive beachfront property in Ecuador.

This article created quite a stir among our readers, many who said, and I paraphrase, “I will never come to live in Ecuador now.”

Yesterday, I received the following news article from a reader:

NEW PERSONAL ASSET REPORTING REQUIREMENT REJECTED BY COURT

Ecuador’s new asset disclosure law remains in limbo after a court in Guayaquil ruled the measure illegal early this week. The law would require the reporting of personal assets by Ecuadorian citizens and residents of more than $200,000 held by individuals and $400,000 held by married couples.

Following the ruling by the Ninth Court of Guayaquil, director of Ecuador’s Internal Revenue Service (SRI), Carlos Marx Carrasco, said the SRI (equivalent of the U.S. IRS) disagreed with the ruling and would appeal.

An unnamed source at the SRI said that it is unlikely that even with a reversal of the court decision that the government can enforce the new law this year. “We don’t have the data bases to track and verify most financial information. To establish this will take several years.”

He added that his office expects a very low rate of compliance once the rule is in effect. “Most Ecuadorians are unaware of the requirement and those who are understand its real intent, which is to pursue assets taken out of the country during the economic crisis 10 years ago and during changes of presidential administrations. Billions of dollars in government assets were removed from Ecuador illegally. Most of this is in Miami and Panama City and we would like to get it back.”

This brings me to today’s View from the Roof.  There are three ways to approach life:  1)  from the head, 2) from the heart, and 3) a combination of the two.

A good number of the emails and inquiries we get these days are from people in category number 1.  They are motivated by fear:  fear that an economic/political tsumani is coming to North America, but fear also that they are considering moving into the path of a similar storm in Ecuador.

Their emails are often filled with countless questions and a feeling of anxiety, as the writers try to figure out what is going to make them safe.  Some say, “I am considering retiring to Ecuador in a few years, and please tell me all about visas, shipping, land house prices, political stability, attorneys, taxes, banks, Columbia guerillas, etc. etc. etc.

Of these inquiries I would say that only 10% ever make it to Ecuador.  And it comes as no surprise that those who do get here are quite dissatisfied because “this isn’t the way they do things in the U.S.”

If we focus on fear, we take that fear with us no matter where we go in the world and then we create from that fear.  In other words, we will manifest those fears.

The heart people in category 2 move more by instinct.  They feel the same tsunami coming and write, “I’m coming, will be there in two weeks.  I’d like to have land or a house.  I’m interested in the beach. (Or the mountains.) Can you help me when I get there?”

These people generally have an easier time of it.  They are coming more from a place of trust and of positively creating the new life they want.  That is their focus.

But unless they are very grounded, they can tend to have some difficulty getting everything together.  When it comes to the actual logistics of making the move, they may tend to revert to the “Please, somebody help me,” stage because they don’t always do their fact-finding or due diligence.

The last group of people are those we call Eagle and Condor people. They are motivated because their instinct tells them that something big is coming and they need to get out of the way.  But they have followed up this feeling or anxiety or suspicion with some practical homework, reading the news, and checking out the economic and political situations from more than one perspective. Then they began to focus on their options and desires.

Ecuador comes up on their radar as a possible place to live.  It just feels right.  They tend to write a few emails to us to confirm both their intuition and to gather additional information needed to make a balanced decision.  Once confirmed, they begin to take action and make decisions based not upon their fear of the future, but upon the practicality of the moment and the following of their dreams.

They recognize that politics change, presidents come and go, not only in the U.S., but in other countries as well, and that none of it needs to be taken too seriously with the head.  If the heart senses a significant change in climate, balanced with enough good common sense and fact-finding from the head, then this needs to be taken seriously. Action generally follows with not a lot of second -guessing.

In pre-war Nazi Germany many Jews sensed a huge tidal wave of change coming, but their heads kept telling them, “No, it can’t happen here, not to me.  I’ll be okay, I’ll just keep my mouth shut, pay my taxes, be a good citizen and do what I’m told.  Everything will be fine.”

But the ones who listened to their hearts, collected accurate information with their heads and took the next logical steps made a move and escaped the horrors of Buchenwald and Auschwitz.

My point in all this is that the head will always attempt to find ways to over-ride the heart. “Correa is a flaming socialist,” is one of the primary reasons people choose not to look at Ecuador, never noticing that one of the largest companies in the U.S., General Motors, is now owned 60% by the U.S. government, and that the bank bailout, started by Bush, now puts most banking and insurance risk in the hands of U.S. taxpayers. 

“I’m afraid the Ecuadorian government will take my property,” is another cry we hear often, even as hundreds of thousands of American are being foreclosed upon, and the bankers who created the mess are being bailed out with trillions of our tax dollars.  Isn’t this a massive takeover of North American property?

The truth: foreclosures are very rare in Ecuador, as most people own their own homes, free and clear.   Long-term mortgages are uncommon.  In most South American countries, when land has been confiscated, and that has happened, it is because huge land holders are holding land that is not in production.

Typically, it has been taken away, often with just compensation, but not always, and given to small farmers to return the land to productivity.   Sounds a bit like the eminent domain process in the U.S.  That system allows building contractors and others to seize property. 

In Central and South America, the incidents of small land holders, typically indigenous people, having their land taken away and given to large multinational corporations, with International Monetary Fund and World Bank support, is much more prevalent than the state confiscation.

Right now in Peru, a huge battle is in the works.  The U.S. -supported government of Alan Garcia is using the new Free Trade treaty with the U.S. to justify taking huge swaths of Amazon land for commercial exploitation, without considering the rights of the native peoples who have been living on the land for centuries.   Dozens have been killed.

So take much what you read and hear with a grain of salt and a skeptical view.  If it sounds unreasonable, it probably is, or will be shown to be.  Do your own due diligence.     What seems like today’s fact is often nothing more than grist for tomorrow’s fiction.

In truth, none of us know what is going to happen tomorrow. But what we can do is learn to listen to our hearts, supplemented by information gained by our heads. Then act—calming, rationally and with trust and enthusiasm for the new life you will create.

When the huge Asian tsunami hit a few years ago the ocean began to withdraw from the beach.  Those in touch with what was happening began a mad dash towards the hills. They were not panicking.  They simply knew, both from instinct and experience, what was coming and they hauled ass.

Many were saved.  Others who were not in touch, got excited that they were able to walk way out into the newly-expanded beach.  And they had a very different experience. Guess what happened to them . . . ?