How It All Started

Many of my family and friends have asked all about my upcoming move to Ecuador and what in the world made me pick Ecuador?  They wanted to know if I'd ever been there before, did I know people there, and whether or not I speak Spanish.  There were plenty of other questions but those were the top three.  There were so many varied questions and people that I lose track of who I've told and what I've told to each person. 

This is my attempt to help all of that go more smoothly.  Here I'll tell you how I got to this point in my story and in coming days, weeks, and months share the adventure with you.

For many of you this will be a lot of information you already have. For others this may be the first time you've heard anything about it.  So I'm going to start with the very beginning of the story and move forward from there.

How It All Started


A very dear friend of mine went to a conference in Ecuador.  She decided it would be a great time to extend her conference into a vacation so she stayed another four or five days so she could be a tourist.  One of the places she visited was Cotacachi.  It's in the northern part of the country, up in the Andes.

She fell in love with this lovely little town.  When she got home, we talked several times about it and she kept thinking about it and how it might be the place where she could retire.  She also said, "Cynthia, you would just love it there."

That's all it took for me to go to my computer and spend hours and hours researching Cotacachi, Ecuador.  The more I read, the more I fell in love with it.  She was right, it suits me to a T.  Here are many of the reasons:

• The people are very accepting of gringos (that's not a negative term there the way it is sometimes used here).
• The weather--oh, my, the weather.  Since it is at the equator, the weather stay the same all year round. Since Cotacachi is in the Andes at about 7,000 ft altitude, the daily temperature ranges between mid to upper 50s at night and upper 60s to mid 70s during the day.  That is my kind of weather.
• Cost of living--It's still possible to live comfortably for $600 a month.  When I say "comfortably" I mean a somewhat frugal life that includes the ability to eat out on a semi-regular basis, have someone clean my apartment a couple of times a month (those of you who know me well know how much that means to me), and have money left over to put in savings if I want.
• Pace of life--life there isn't rush rush hurry hurry. It's laid back with less emphasis places on having to everything NOW.  
• There's a large English-speaking population.

So you can see the beginnings of why I adore it so much.

I've continued to research for at least several hours a week, learning more and more about the area where I've chosen to live.

That's it for now.  Coming up: more about my decision-making process.