Ecuador Living

Chapter Four

This chapter looks at one of Ecuador’s greatest assets – food!  See below why you’ll like the Ecuador food markets.

One of the wonderful benefits of Ecuador’s agriculture is an extreme supply of excellent but low cost food.

Ecuador is a Garden of Eden and here is a fact you probably did not know. The inhabitants of this region developed more than half the agricultural products that the world eats today.Among these are more than many varieties of corn and potato. There foods also include squash, beans, peppers, peanuts, popcorn, yucca and quinoa.

They even learned to use freezing night temperatures and warm days to freeze dry potatoes and create potato flour.

Here is the market, three blocks from our hotel where we shop. Open air restaurants in the front of the market offer excellent meals, vegetarian, or chicken, steak, fish or pork for about $1.

There are enumerable fresh picked vegetables.

Offered by happy friendly people.

And every type of fruit you can imagine, from pineapple to coconut, papaya, mango, apples, pears, bananas, berries and numerous other tropical fruits all at bargains prices by Western standards and ripe all year round.

Many exotic spices at a 1/20th the cost in the US or Canada. I bought a huge bag of Star Anise (bottom right) probably a pound yesterday for $1.

This makes life especially wonderful and inexpensive.

Every Thursday is a day of markets for food in Ibarra, our nearest major city.

Often Merri and I hop in a taxi and ride to the fish market. This is the day that the vendors bring in wonderful fresh seafood to Ibarra market from Ecuador’s Pacific coast which is a few hours drive away.

There are dozens and dozens of vendors with all types of fish as you can see below.

Being coastal residents for decades, Merri and I brought our chef, Santiago, to train him how to select only the freshest fish for the Quinoa Café.

The fish at the market are wonderful. Here are fresh shrimp of all types and a great variety of fish from Red Snapper to Drum to Corvina. What’s interesting is that many of the Pacific fish here are the same we had from the Gulf of Mexico. We find baskets and baskets of fish, shrimp, calamari, crab and conchs.

We bought Drum, Reds, Pompano, Calamari and many pounds of Tiger Shrimp, enough to feed 12 people four meals. The price was under $30. We helped our chef, Santiago, cook the meals and had shrimp coconut quinoa, quinoa paella, bouillabaisse and pan sautéed Red Fish with fresh organic green beans.  Here we are with our catch!

Today’s meal was great because the seafood is so fresh.

Our Thai coconut shrimp consisted of fresh coconut (purchased at the market for 40 cents) chopped in chunks and sautéed with carrots, onions and celery. Then we lightly pan steamed red fish and the tiger shrimp. This was mixed in a bed of quinoa (the ancient grain of Ecuador) and rice. The Thai sauce (that’s my job) consists of fresh squeezed limes, a hint of garlic, lots of ginger, a little panela (cane sugar), a touch of curry paste in the coconut water and then blended with pan roasted peanuts.

One guests said it was the best meal they had ever eaten. Not bad, enjoyed al fresco in the court yard under a brilliant clear sky for less than seven bucks.

One other nice ingredient is the Salinas salt we use. We bought five pounds in the market for $1.50. This is salt that’s healthy not the refined stuff that Morton’s passes off.  Salinas parish covers a rural area of Ecuador stretching from the pastures of the 13,000 foot Andes down to tropical valleys where sugar, bananas and cocoa are grown. It has graveled roads, a school in almost every hamlet, a network of co-operative businesses and a thriving population of about 10,000 who no longer seek work in the cities. These pure salt springs near us at Salinas in Imbabura, have long been used by the natives.

Speaking of value, the Ibarra market is huge. There is the fish and seafood section. There are also separate sections for fruit, flowers, poultry, meat, vegetables, dry goods, live chickens and guinea pigs and even a section to eat and drink juices.

Those who join us for meals in the Quinoa Café courtyard say they are amazed at the low prices. We begin with a full breakfast of fresh squeezed exotic juice, fresh fruit, granola or quinoa cereal, eggs, bacon or ham, rolls, coffee, tea or hot chocolate (from the Amazon). All served here in Meson’s courtyard for five bucks.

The deserts can be really special in Cotacachi as well. This is the place of the roses and one specialty served nearby is crystallized organic rose, which does melt in your mouth!

Ecuador Cost of Living. The $700 solution.

Ecuador’s cost of living is low.

Recently our friends Larry & Shirley Humphrey just moved into their new condo at Vistazul!  They are the first residents there.

Here they are at Palmazul, their club house, (133 steps from their condo) using the broadband.  Eventually they’ll have broadband in the condos but the units are not yet completed (completion of the last units is scheduled for November 2009).

Since Merri and I are only part timers in Ecuador, I continually ask readers who have moved full time about Ecuador’s cost of living.

Recently our message entitled Cotacachi Cost of Living showed how Bill & Joe Daily live in Cotacachi on about $700 a month.

Another message Cotacachi House and Condo Rentals shows how Lee and Peggy Carper live for even less.

So I was not surprised when I spoke with Larry and Shirley that they told me it was costing them about $700 a month to live (without rent).  Their comment was, “we receive over $2,000 from our Canadian pension, live on $700 and save the rest.”

We could call $700… the Ecuador cost of living solution!

Yet low cost living is not even near the biggest benefit of living in Ecuador quoted to me by residents here.  A more relaxed lifestyle is often number one.

I could not agree more. Here I am with Ma in the Pamazul front yard… working hard.

I am thinking.

Other times I take my lap top and enjoy the benefits of a broadband global business by working from my balcony… with this view… and the sea breeze… the warn sun and sound of the waves.

Usually I quit working though for the sunset. Here is one sunset shot I took from one of our Vistazul condos.

These condos are now available for rent.

Good health comes in as a reason to live in Ecuador as well. Everyone walks more… eats fresher food.  A great article on Ecuador beach restaurants shows why.

Larry and Shirley are from Calgary and had a successful jewelry business there but the pace of life was ruining their health.  Since arriving at Vistaazul, Shirley has seen her weight drop 20 pounds and is completely off all the medications she needed when she lived up north.  Both tell me they feel so much better… so much more relaxed… filled with energy again.

Merri and I watch them enjoy playing in this surf every day.

Some times alone.

Some times with the local kids.

Some times with just the pelicans and sometimes…

on this totally empty beach.

Style in Ecuador construction also offers some wonderful little things that one would never get in a condo up north… like this window trim.

Each unit has its own special wood carving in the window.

Gardening is another.  Here is one block of the Vistazul condos. They look a bit bleak now but not for long.

Here are some of the flowers you see around Vistazul.

So many shapes…

sizes…

colors…

smells.

Until next chapter may your living be filled with beauty, great food and your cost of living be low.

P.S. There is an added joy that comes from all these pleasures. The hotel is totally owned by a charitable foundation started by Joe Cox Esq., Joe Spano MD, Merri and myself. See www.landofthesun.org

In our years of making donations down here, we have learned a lot about giving. There are people here who are homeless and not totally competent. They need help and we feed them at the hotel.  Here is one of our regulars.

Many children need help and we have organized and funded a children’s lending library.  We have 300 plus children, teenagers and campesinos all learning English free here weekly.

Then there are those who wish to work but cannot find employment. LOTS main goal is to create true employment. We run the hotel and an expanding real estate rental service. We also fund free English courses and computer science programs so locals can compete from Cotacachi in other markets with their computer skills.

All proceeds from the profits of the hotel go to programs such as feeding the poor, the library, teacing the young.

Gary

Join us in Cotacachi and on Ecuador Coast in March.

Merri, our webmaster and I have created our Tangled Web course  to help readers learn how to earn around the world.  Here is a special offer on this new course.

You can enroll in this special course for $299. However if you sign up for our three courses in March 2009, I will send it to you free. You save $299.

March 8-9 Imbabura Real Estate Tour

March 10-15 Ecuador Import Export Expedition

March 16-19 Ecuador Coastal Real Estate Tour

Get our web based course FREE if you join us in Ecuador this February or March.

Attend any two Ecuador courses or tours in a calendar month…$949 for one.  $1,349 for two

Attend any three Ecuador courses or tours in a calendar month…$1,199 for one.  $1,799 for two

Future 2009 courses

May 29-31  JGAM Global Asset Strategy Seminar

June 12-14 Shamanic Mingo Tour
June 16-17 Imbabura Real Estate Tour
June 18-21 Ecuador Coastal Real Estate Tour

July 3-6     Ecuador Import Export Expedition
July 8-9    Imbabura Real Estate Tour
July 10-13 Ecuador Coastal Real Estate Tour

July 24-26 IBEZ North Carolina

Sept. 17-21 Ecuador Spanish Course
Sept. 23-24 Imbabura Real Estate Tour
Sept. 25-28 Ecuador Coastal Real Estate Tour

Oct. 9-11     IBEZ North Carolina

Oct. 21-24 Ecuador Import Export Expedition

Nov. 6-8    IBEZ Ecuador
Nov. 9-10 Imbabura Real Estate Tour
Nov. 11-14 Ecuador Coastal Real Estate Tour