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July 6th – August 3rd
Once our Columbian border fiasco was behind us, we now had 3 objectives:
- concentrate more on the ministry
- look harder for a house to rent
- try to keep our lawyer on track with our visas
The first two items blended together one day when I went to my bible study, Anabel. At the end of the study she said she had found a house for rent if we were interested. She gave me the name of the owner who was someone she knew very well all her life and was married to a doctor. They had moved to Ibarra and so the house was vacant. It had 3 bedrooms (check); It was in town, so close to shopping and bus-routes (check); We went to see it and the first thing I spotted as we entered the door was… yup, a fireplace! (check); It had some ambience because of the marble floor down and wood floors up plus a few Spanish type architectural features and a nice little ‘courtyard’ where I could envision putting lots of plants to give it some ‘nature ambience’. I would definitely have to give it an ‘old world’ paint job though to complete the cozy atmosphere I so needed. (check); It was partly furnished with…everything we DIDN’T have… so (check); I looked in the main floor bathroom…no tub…I looked in the 2nd floor bathroom…shower, but no tub…looked in the ensuite…no tub. Hmmm… no check for that, but since it was the ONLY thing on the list that was missing, I figured I could live with that. It also had a bonus roof terrace with clothelines which were covered so laundry could be hung out rain or shine! A rarity in Ecuador! It also had an awesome view of the two volcanoes on either side of Otavalo, Cotacachi and Imbabura! So, we decided to take it! The landlady said she would have it cleaned and painted and it would be ready in 3 weeks. I asked if I could pick out the paint colours and she agreed. Perfect. We gave our notice at the apartment.
The house is in a little gated community of adjoining houses. Usually these gated communities in Ecuador are built by and inhabited by gringos, but this one is different… we are the ONLY gringos here!
As you can see, there are three floors: main floor has the living room, kitchen/dining, el banyo social (the social bathroom), and the small courtyard or enclosed patio. Second floor has the three bedrooms (however the landlady only wanted us to use two of them because she wanted to keep the third one for storage 🙁 ) The master bedroom is humungous and has a small ensuite bathroom. We use the second bedroom as the office.
Here are some before and after shots of the house:
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