Fine value homes made by a Cotacachi fine art designer, Diana Carrasco, are one of the latest additions to new housing in Cotacachi.

Second house at 95% complete – now sold to a Californian lady.

Local children walk past the entrance to the new gated community
Diana studied architecture at university in Cuenca and now, with her daughter [...]

Arts and Crafts in and around Cotacachi are becoming ever more known and in part that is due to our Import Export tours.
I’d say that at least a third of the 24 delegates on our last Ecuador import export tour were folks returning to Ecuador after being on other types of tours or seminars on [...]

At the weekend we looked at how Jorge Quilumbaqui organized, financed and ran the Cotacachi ‘Indigenous Olympics’ http://www.ecuadorliving.com/2008/11/08/ecuador-indigenous-self-help.html . He was able to do that as a result of his building business in Cotacachi. There’s been a lot of interest in his latest project, Primavera 2, the only real condos project in Cotacachi.
Primavera [...]

Affordable Ecuador lakeside property is not as difficult to find as some may think. On our last Imbabura property tour we looked at some acreage close to Cuicocha lake but without a lake view. Then we crossed the road for a delicious morning cup of hot chocolate at the lakeside restaurant/ hostel called El Mirador [...]

As mountainous country as Ecuador is, with the Andes mountains being a gigantic ridge running the length of the country, there are not so many large lakes here, and even less at a lower altitude. Good Ecuador lake properties are few and far between and I’m 99% certain there is only one Ecuador Lakeside [...]

I am always being asked how you can make money in Ecuador, what can you do? My answer is always the same – you must start a business of some kind. Trying to compete against competent low wage workers is not the best way forward – I can guarantee that. I did no more than survive for three years teaching English in Quito. It was fun, it was interesting, stimulating and challenging. But not financially rewarding.

As Gary has explained, one very viable way to generate substantial earnings is to start an import export business, which is precisely why we offer our import export expeditions.
http://www.garyascott.com/catalog/ecuador-import-and-export-tour

Other possibilities are to open a restaurant or small hotel – many have done this very successfully. But for something completely different read on below to see an opportunity concerning technology.

After just spending two days without internet at Meson de las Flores after a short duration power outage caused all the modems and routers to lose their settings, I’ve been scratching my head wondering how broadband internet could be better and faster in Cotacachi.

Of course, once we are used to having something we take it for granted – human nature I suppose, but I never forget that it’s something of an achievement that we can live here in the Andean mountain valleys and yet we’re connected by broadband to all corners of the globe. If I had a stock portfolio, and I’m glad I don’t as of today’s writing, I could be subscribed to a data service and get almost instantaneous ‘live’ data to trade my portfolio.

At Meson de las Flores we used to receive broadband from a company that uses microwave dishes to bounce the signals around the mountains until they reached Quito and the global data cable network. The only problem was that up at 13,000 feet on mount Cotacachi the dish they used was often buffeted by high winds and in some way failed to operate. I was never sure if it was inadequate equipment or just a bad location.

Needless to say there were frequent outages and so when DSL finally arrived in Cotacachi about a year ago I was front of the line to receive that service in El Meson. It has been a real blessing, trouble free and reliable for a year now, until last Wednesday.

Even so the tecs from the phone company came out the following day to fix the dsl line and then I needed to wait another day for someone to come and figure the wireless inside the hotel – not such an easy job for the amateur as we have three routers, two password protected networks and a voip phone that runs off a separate router (free internet and international calls for all guests at El Meson).

But while working in the nearby super-modern internet café, I was talking to the owner and he told me his brother is now offering a service using internet delivered by microwave dishes. The difference being that this new company has three dishes within the village so the reliability is much more assured.

In fact one of our new ex-pat residents is sitting pretty in his condo in Primavera (still priced competitively by the way at roughly $50,000 for a 2/3 bedroom with great mountain views) yet he tells me the speed is slow, ok for browsing the web and emailing, and that he pays $35/month.

I went back to the owner at the internet café again and asked him how he says you can have any bandwidth you want. The issue is price. You do pay more down in Ecuador for broadband and to get the really fast speeds that many of us are accustomed to at home now, you’d really need to pay quite a hefty monthly fee.

I think we have all heard the phrase ‘where there is a problem there’s an opportunity’.

I’d heard that there was cable tv in Cotacachi so my thinking went along the lines of “if there’s a cable network here why can’t they run internet along the cable?”

I found the owner of the local cable tv network unloading supplies from the back of his pickup as I arrived at his office. He has the whole of Cotacachi cabled and charges $13 a month for his clients to receive 22 channels. I asked about the internet and he wistfully shook his head.

He’s aware of the opportunity but bringing internet through the cables would require another type of cabling. The cable costs about $3,000 for a 400 meter roll. He estimates the investment might be $50-60,000 but he doesn’t have that money. I asked if he would consider a partner or joint equity scheme and after stroking his chin and giving the matter some thought he said he would.

Do you remember the time when we all accepted dial-up speeds? This is where Cotacachi is at right now. I can’t cycle down the street without finding another internet café open. Yet it’s an inconvenience to work in an internet café for any length of time. High on the Christmas wish list of many Ecuadorians is a home computer .. and once they have that they want a fast internet connection.

And then we have the expats arriving in ever greater numbers. Doing a quick mental calculation my guesstimate is that some 200 homes are either built, being built or planning to be built. Specifically for foreigners, that’s you and me, resettling here. Nearly all of us want a fast internet connection.

Luis, the cable tv operator tells me that the monthly charge for cable internet would be about $50-60 a month – which would totally undermine the current competition. So there you have it – a potential partnership with a successful Ecuadorian business man who needs a partner/investor to move forward to tap a growing demand right here in Cotacachi.

If technology is not your bag and you enjoy searching for bargains, could see yourself sourcing new products (otherwise known as being a super shopper) and traveling as much as you’d like and deducting all your expenses as a tax write-off then you will probably want to read about our last import export expedition this year http://www.garyascott.com/catalog/ecuador-import-and-export-tour

Signing off over my now wonderfully stable DSL connection – Steve

Being in England for 4 weeks I’m aware that my Spanish has tailed off a little. If you don’t use it then you lose it as they say.

I knew this would happen before I came; it did last year too. But I have made a couple of phone calls in Spanish, swapped some emails in Spanish so that all helps.

Now that I am fluent in Spanish (which doesn’t mean perfect by the way) I intend to keep hold of this language for life. That shouldn’t be difficult as long as I live in Ecuador, which I intend to, and even if, at some point in the future, I move away from Ecuador I still think I have the techniques to stay on top of the language; the same techniques we now use to teach Spanish in our Ecuador Spanish course.

I remember wanting to speak a foreign language at a young age, perhaps after watching an early evening movie at the legs of my parents. I also remember lying in bed at night as I ‘practiced’ an imagined fluency in another tongue. As I lulled myself to sleep, a torrent of rhyming nonsensical words burbled softly (less anyone hear my silliness) and rapidly from my lips as I pretended I was speaking foreign languages in far-off lands.

And then I dreamt of nonsense in nonsense lands.

A portent of the future?

Yet this childhood desire to speak with the mysterious peoples of distant lands ran across two rather large stumbling blocks in my home land; the first was that it soon became clear that I had no natural ability at languages whatsoever and secondly this was compounded by the education techniques used in grammar schools in the seventies in England.

We now know that all education is more successful when students relax and have fun. I wish somebody would have told this to Ghenghis Khan (real name forgotten) our Latin master. He was a stickler for neat hand-writing, learning by rote, good time-keeping and neat appearance. I failed on the first two accounts and probably on the third and fourth many a time after rushing around the playground playing soccer until I was the last one left with the ball as my class-mates were already filing into class.

‘Ghenghis’ punished us by grabbing and pinching our ruddy cheeks and shaking his hand with the fold of cheek in it. That was for poor hand-writing. If we failed to comprehend his explanations of verb conjugations he went to slap one cheek and as we flinched he cunningly, and swiftly brought his other hand round to meet our other cheek which produced an audible slap (and reddening of said cheek) much to the amusement of the rest of the class.

Mick Lowe, our form teacher and Francophile French teacher who dressed like a Frenchman, took all his vacations in France and drove a sporty Renault 5, was perhaps not too surprisingly unforgiving of chattering and sniggering back-row pupils. Instead it was we, his students, who received a shocking surprise as projectiles, normally the chalk he had in his hand, fizzed through the air (he had a good throwing arm did Mr. Lowe) at great speed and smacked against the wall above our heads. Occasionally he ‘missed’ and accidentally hit a head.

Naturally I haven’t forgotten these first learning experiences and now look for fun ways to teach classes. It’s an on-going process but you can see how our Spanish Course delegates below have fun as they string out sentences after just 4 days in class. My role was to step back and let them enjoy the process as I take photos as my native-speaking assistants, Carmen and Julio, gently prompt from the sidelines.

Of course, back at school, my Latin and French marks suffered enormously. The French exam marks and end of term grades I received were dismal . From a possible ‘A’ to ‘E’ I miraculously, and constantly, conjured a ‘U’ which stood for ‘ungraded’.

I recount this to show you that even if you consider learning a language to be improbable or even impossible then I’m here as a kind of living metamorphosis from ‘dunce’ to ‘ace’ to prove that just isn’t so.

Spanish is probably one of the easiest or maybe even the easiest language to learn. I didn’t really appreciate this until I learned from Merri some of the techniques that she had unveiled as she learned Spanish many years ago in Mexico.

The fact is there are roughly 4,000 words which are very similar and some are exactly the same in English. Knowing this is an encouraging start. Knowing just 17 simple rules gives us these 4,000 words and allows us to add those rules to our ‘tool bag’. We learn how to learn the rules.

Of course we have to know how to pronounce the words but again Spanish is simplicity itself once you learn the rules of pronunciation. Spanish pronunciation is simple because there is a profound lack of exceptions to the rules. Every word is pronounced according to the rules and apart from the occasional strange place names there are no funny exceptions.

Consider the English words ‘rough’, ‘bough’, bought’, ‘through’ and ‘though’ – the ‘ough’ part is pronounced 5 different ways … pity the English language learner as they have to decide how to pronounce any new word they come across with ‘ough’ in it.

My aim when teaching Spanish, and even when speaking, is primarily communication. When I taught English for nearly 4 years in Quito, to students ranging from children to diplomats, the most common complaint was that though they could read and write the language they were to embarrassed or afraid to speak the language. I nearly always found this was because they were confused after having ‘swallowed’ too many grammar pills.

Granted, some grammar is necessary but I keep it to the absolute minimum. We do this by using about 15 starter phrases and learning how to say ‘I’ or ‘you’ in these phrases and then working with verbs in their base form such as ‘to eat’. We also learn ‘finishing phrases’ which are normally expressions of time and places. So we learn quickly how to say “I want to eat lunch now”, or “Do you want to visit the doctor later?”

This is communication at it’s most basic, but what I’ve found is that as in most endeavors in life, success breeds enthusiasm and confidence, which in turn breed more success. There’s nothing more dispiriting than not being even able to spit out a sentence after 2 or 3 months at an evening school apart from “My name is Steve”, “I live in Ecuador” and “I am ?? years old”.

On the other hand, we learn how to ask questions, express our desires, needs and preferences by the third day of a 5 day course.

Then of course, we have to remember what we learn. Advanced Learning techniques were first brought to the world’s attention by Lozanov, the Bulgarian master, who the SuperLearning books were famously written about.

As far as I’m aware we are the only people who offer a beginner’s course in a Spanish speaking country that incorporates Lozanov’s methodology to relax and aid speedy learning. We also emphasize getting out into the community to practicing what we learn AND incorporate a simplified content to get you communicating many times quicker than the normal.

I’ve taught all age groups from teenagers to eighty year olds. One of my aims is to build confidence and enthusiasm so that when you leave you are motivated to continue studying.

This is what S and K said after our course in June. They are a couple 78 and 64 years old and tour in Spain virtually every year but had always had difficulty mastering the language.

“We loved the property tours and found that the Spanish course was just right for us. Indeed, we have both been motivated to learn more. We have bought little mp3 players and we each have all 6 of your Super Thinking Spanish CDs already downloaded and in use …. I’m also going to get hold of a Michel Thomas course and put that on as well. So thanks again for providing such an inspirational starter course. (Of course, major thanks to Merri and Gary for having the knowledge to make it possible – but your delivery of it all was just right)”

Even as I contemplate the mystery of how I learned a language and then the even more amazing transformation (for me) to teaching a language, I just give thanks that through a series of synergies I’ve been able to find support, techniques and methods, not to forget a wonderful location in Cotacachi, where it’s all come together and I’m able to help others to communicate in Spanish.

It’s hardly work at all and it’s marvelous to know that I’m helping others in such a positive way with no recourse to flying chalk!

We have one more Spanish course this year next month in September but if numbers warrant we can put on private courses and in the not too distant future we’ll have a correspondence course which ties in with the courses here in Ecuador. If either would be of interest do write in to Gary at Gary@garyascott.com or Merri at Merriscott@live.com

Sept 23-27 Ecuador Spanish Course
http://www.garyascott.com/catalog/ecuador-spanish-course

September 17-20 Ecuador Coastal Real Estate Tour; Quito Real Estate Tour
http://www.garyascott.com/catalog/ecuador-coastal-real-estate-tour

Sept 28-29 Imbabura Real Estate Tour
http://www.garyascott.com/catalog/ecuador-real-estate

See discounts for attending more than one Sept. course
http://www.garyascott.com/catalog/ecuador-tours-savings

Oct 14-18 Ecuador Import Export Course
http://www.garyascott.com/catalog/ecuador-import-and-export-tour

Nov 7-9 International Investing and Business Made EZ Ecuador
http://www.garyascott.com/catalog/international-business-made-ez-ecuador

Nov 10-11 Imbabura Real Estate tour
http://www.garyascott.com/catalog/ecuador-real-estate

November 12-15, 2008 Ecuador Coastal Real Estate Tour; Quito Real Estate Tour
http://www.garyascott.com/catalog/ecuador-coastal-real-estate-tour

Ecuador’s new refinery means even cheaper gas prices in Ecuador. One of the things that new visitors to Ecuador have always noted is the cheap gas prices in Ecuador. Super gas is at $1.80 per gallon whilst regular is at just $1.20 and diesel is at an incredible $1.03 per gallon.
How can this be?
Aren’t gasoline [...]

Do you yearn for peace and tranquility? Do you want or need to write that novel you promised yourself you’d write one day? Here’s an opportunity for solitude near Cotacachi.
Have you ever had that desire to live off-grid in the U.S or Canada? In Ecuador you can experience the remoteness of off-grid without the inconvenience. [...]

If you missed those articles you can see them at www.ecuadorliving.com/2008/05/24/real-estate-quitos-colonial-center.html and www.ecuadorliving.com/2008/05/28/quito-colonial-real-estate-urban-renewal.html

Today I got to see the latest developments. What is fascinating for me is the opportunity in Colonial Quito property when I see one street where prices are still low and then two or three blocks away prices that have sky-rocketed. So you have this property below

where the owner is asking $180,000 (and would almost certainly sell for less) for many thousands of square feet for a colonial Quito property that has already had $70,000 spent on it. It would certainly be a big job to convert it into condos but across the street below …

… that is exactly what somebody else has done to a colonial Quito building that has a similar facade but looks very different inside

This colonial Quito property has been converted into modern 2 and 3 (small) bedroom condos. They are aimed at the local market and will sell at under $50,000.

Just 30 yards down this same road, Rocafuerte, in Quito other owners are converting a similar house. Part of the money is lent on favorable terms by the city government under a scheme called “Pon a Punto su casa”. Here are photos of construction under way.

Two blocks away we see a lot of restored Colonial Quito properties in Calle La Ronda and just four blocks away in the oppoite direction we can see Calle Junin where the whole area called San Marcos has risen in value. John Papski thinks that Rocafuerte will be the next street to be labelled ‘desirable’ by Quito’s young professionals and it’s hard to disagree with him. The opportunity certainly seems to exist here.

Below a house across the street is in really bad shape. But it’s 16,000 feet of land in a prime area and just pulling it down ready to restore may represent a good investment. Here is the group inspecting this property and it definitely is not for the feint-hearted!

Yet properties such as the first one the group looked at (top photo) are being restored and now the area has changed for the better and prices are rising fast too.

The square in nearby Calle Junin – just 4 blocks away from Calle Rocafuerte

This colonial Quito property above once represented opportunity.

The property above was once an old building, run down rickety and un-loved. Hard to believe that it is now being turned into 40 condos starting to be sold at $100 per square foot. These condos are of a high quality with communal areas and rooms.

John and delegates talk with the realtor in charge of the property development

Communal meeting room with fireplace

The impressive facade of this Colonial Quito building has been retained and behind, the condos start at $95,000. The architect tells me there will be an owners club that control who can buy into the project. For more information you can contact Karina Hernandez at khernandez@mail.mpichincha.com

These are the opportunities available with Colonial Quito property. We will have another group down for a coastal tour in September and again we will be taking the group to see Colonial Quito property as a fee add-on to that tour.

September 17-20 Ecuador Coastal Real Estate Tour; Quito Real Estate Tour
http://www.garyascott.com/catalog/ecuador-coastal-real-estate-tour

Sept 23-27 Ecuador Spanish Course
http://www.garyascott.com/catalog/ecuador-spanish-course

Sept 28-29 Imbabura Real Estate Tour
http://www.garyascott.com/catalog/ecuador-real-estate

See discounts for attending more than one Sept. course
http://www.garyascott.com/catalog/ecuador-tours-savings

Oct 14-18 Ecuador Import Export Course
http://www.garyascott.com/catalog/ecuador-import-and-export-tour

Nov 7-9 International Investing and Business Made EZ Ecuador
http://www.garyascott.com/catalog/international-business-made-ez-ecuador

Nov 10-11 Imbabura Real Estate tour
http://www.garyascott.com/catalog/ecuador-real-estate

November 12-15, 2008 Ecuador Coastal Real Estate Tour; Quito Real Estate Tour
http://www.garyascott.com/catalog/ecuador-coastal-real-estate-tour

See discounts for attending more than one Nov. course
http://www.garyascott.com/catalog/ecuador-tours-savings