Do you have the costeño accent yet. Hablé serio pue nano. It’s nice to read an expat having a good life in Guayaquil. Si, en todo lado hay gente buena y mala.

True, in many parts of the city there are great groups of neighbors. I’ve experienced both in Quito, bad neighborhoods where no one talks to each other and everyone keeps to themselves, and really good neighborhoods where we all help each other out.

That’s really good to hear.

de nada, pero no entiendo la palabra "enfancy".

Awesome!

On that part of the coast Olon was my favorite town but I haven’t spent enough time out there to have an informed opinion.

@@FallofftheMap yeah the town of Olon is a really cool town. A great mixture of locals and expats. We take our dog to the vet in Olon.

That’s awesome. What was the job? Have you been back since? 2013 was the year I moved to Ecuador as well.

@@FallofftheMap I forgot to mention, I lived in Tumbaco for a bit less than a year. Absolutely loved it and felt very safe and comfortable there. It looks like that may be where this video was made.

@@FallofftheMap Teaching English at EIL Ecuador, an institute on Mariana de Jesus near Mall Jardin. I have not been back since then but I would really love to. My original plan was to retire there. I just retired last month. After leaving Ecuador I became interested in the Philippines. I'm now married to a Filipina and the most sensible thing would be to retire there. My wife and my daughter arrived here in the US about a year and a half ago.

@@timrupp4219 many of my friends from various overseas contracting gigs retired to the Philippines and love it there. You do realize that now that your wife is in the US she will spend the next 10 years in the honeymoon phase with America and refuse to let you retire in the Philippines.

@@FallofftheMap I'm sort of torn between the two countries. I love the weather of La Sierra but Filipinos are much friendlier than the ecuadorians were. Safer too, the first thing I noticed is no need to hide your phone like I had to in Ecuador. That's probably the worst thing I can say about Ecuador, I prefer to focus on the good things. I hear you about coming to the US but actually she's not too impressed with the US. She misses the Philippines a lot, not just her family but the lifestyle there. We just purchased a pre-selling condo so when it's ready for occupancy in about 3 years that's our goal. Unless I can talk her into Ecuador 🤣. Actually I do want to bring her to see Ecuador for a week or so. We can probably swing that next year. A bit more backstory, the short time that I did live in tembacho I worked at Charlotte English School. I taught English there to all ages in contrast to when working at EIL I specifically taught aviation English. Being a licensed pilot and making the right connections once in Ecuador is how I landed that gig.

Glad you enjoyed it!

He’s a really good neighbor. He helped me out while I was building the house, let me store a bunch of stuff in his shed.

@@FallofftheMap Nice

Yeah, that has been my experience too. The sierra is by far my favorite. I am trying to invest in Napo province but not for a place to live.

What’s your plan? Will you move to a city or the countryside, or a little of both, like me? Do you plan on buying or renting (I strongly recommend renting for a few years first)? Are you retiring here or making this a home base while you work online or travel for work? Sorry if I’m barraging you with questions.

You’re welcome. I have an older videos talking about real estate in Ecuador. It’s not a great vid because the sand flies were harassing me so I was moving around too much. I plan on creating a new video on the topic once the current crisis winds down and more people start thinking about moving to Ecuador again.

@@FallofftheMap@FallofftheMap " Sand flies" lol - My family and I went to Playas last year and rented a house for a few days, and we also had to run away from mosquitos; they were eating us alive! 😅

Oh wow, that is awesome. I’m always really happy to hear from people that were motivated by my videos to choose this sort of life of adventure.

I’ll try to. I’m a bit inconsistent with uploading videos. Sometimes I’ll put out many, like now, if I’m feeling inspired. Other times I go months without making a video. I have to feel like I really have something I want to say or something I need to show people to do this.

My experience with the courts has been that they are not helpful. When I was totally new and naive in Ecuador I tried to buy a hostelería in the Intag. The only lady selling it was using Remax. Remax insisted I pay 10k earnest money. We wrote up a contract that explicitly included all the furniture and equipment for the business. The seller immediately broke the contract by clearing out all of the furniture and did a few other weird things like cut down all the fruit trees. I requested she return the earnest money since she broke the contract. After about 7 years of paying various lawyers I managed to get 7k of the 10k back but never actually got to go to court. Other case in point, my wife tried several times to get parental rights removed from her ex. He abandoned the family when my stepson was a baby, left Ecuador, and has never paid any child support. He comes from a politically powerful family in Ecuador. Despite no-showing to the court date, the judge sided with him.

@@FallofftheMap Thank you for your expertise. I am sorry about the painful experiences you have endured. Especially, the child support case. That is heart breaking. The owner of this community is politically well connected. Our only hope is to sell and move.

Much appreciated

so glad i experienced it, sure makes it hard to see what it has become

I experienced it growing up, but only because I lived in a unique community. Once I moved to a typical neighborhood I hated the way our neighbors behaved. There was no sense of community.

Very true. My time contracting taught me that adaptability was the most important skill, it was what determined who was successful and who couldn’t cut it. That same skill determines who thrives living in a place like Ecuador and who can’t get the hang of life here.

I read this comment and totally thought I responded, but for whatever KZfaq glitchy reason it appears my response was lost. There’s a lot of similarities between the Philippines and Ecuador and if I do eventually move the family somewhere safer it will probably be there because of the ease of language adjustment for my kids while changing to a much more calm and safe culture.

@@FallofftheMap exactly, it's an easy fit. And actually there are higher elevations where the climate is cool so there are options in that respect. We'll be based on Cebu City. That's the only place I've experienced in the PH that reminded me of the US. Somehow for me it has the feel of California. IT Park is their tech area, I suppose that's the connection.

Good to hear!

You’re welcome

Thanks!

Glad you enjoyed it

Thanks.

You’re welcome. It’s a question I really should have answered long ago, though it definitely took a bit of careful consideration to explain clearly

Yeah, I spent some time in SEA while I was trying to figure out where I wanted to live. I felt like it would be too difficult for me to integrate into the cultures and communities I experience there.

Interesting. I had to stay in Albany for work a few years ago. I thought it was one of the most unfriendly places I’d ever been. I really didn’t like it.

It is challenging. English is not common. However, if you have a good attitude and are creative there is always a way to communicate. Learning to speak Spanish isn’t terribly difficult it learning to understand when others speak it, especially if they use slang or mix in a lot of indigenous words… that’s challenging.

@@2freakout I don’t know. I haven’t heard anything more about them.

But you do, especially with a city like Guayaquil. It’s not really about the city as a whole but visiting specific neighborhoods or even specific blocks. Yes, most of Guayaquil is crowded, noisy, polluted, and dangerous. I wouldn’t choose to live there, but for those that like big cities and that climate there are parts of Guayaquil here and there that are less noisy and more secure.

Yeah, you probably should have married her.

Pichincha. A little over an hour NE of Quito. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/Zqdpat15qN6nqnk.htmlsi=wtdqhKdWklOWbagv

Places change. America changed significantly in the years I spent there. It’s changed even more since I left. And I know there are still some places in the U.S. where that spirit of community a d helpfulness still exists, but it’s becoming very rare especially in most cities.

​@@FallofftheMapMy parents live in a nice mobile home park in California. But you rarely see any neighbors except if they're arriving or leaving. "Community" is non existent.

One of the weird things I’ve noticed in Ecuador is that in rural areas I often find I get the opposite of gringo pricing at tiendas and fruit stands, especially if it’s a place I shop often. I end up getting a better price than my Ecuadorian wife at three little stores around here, usually when the person at the shop is a younger woman. If it’s an older lady or a guy I still occasionally have to negotiate a bit to avoid gringo pricing. For most things most of the time I get charged the same prices as my Ecuadorian wife, though the gringo pricing really kicks in on expensive things like real estate and cars. In areas that have a lot of tourism and expats gringo pricing is much more common, but when you’re the only foreigner in town it usually doesn’t even occur to people to charge more, or if it does they go out of their way to underprice things so that they can demonstrate that they aren’t treating you like that. In particular there’s a young lady that sells me 7 avocados for a dollar (her mom sells me 5 for $1, the normal price), and a couple workers at the local store that I frequent correct when they significantly undercharge me (the store owner is a cool guy so I don’t want to take advantage. Of course the other possibility is that this is their way of flirting. I can’t quite tell.

True, I don’t experience that as often in Quito.

Everything you just said is true. What most people miss is that America before the 80s was very conservative officially yet on the neighborhood level it was very socialist. Neighbors helping and catering for each other is a type of socialism… not state socialism, but community socialism. Americans often have a hard time recognizing socialism when it rings their doorbell and brings them an apple pie.

To each their own. I didn’t speak Spanish when I first moved here. I learned along the way. Healthcare is a bit of a complicated topic. Healthcare is far more accessible and affordable here, even going uninsured and paying out of pocket is usually cheaper than the cost you’d face even with insurance or Medicare in the U.S., but the quality of care is often lacking. For routine stuff it’s fine though.