>On June 6th, we had a smooth series of flights, without incident, and another successful landing at Quito airport, one of the steepest descents and shortest runways in the world! Thankfully, they are nearing completion of a brand new airport (with Canadian money incidentally) and it will actually be closer to Otavalo where we live!
It was ironic that Isaac & Jo were not there to meet us because they had flown home to Winnipeg the day before! As I mentioned in my last entry, their 12-VII visas were expiring, so to save money they decided to use the return ticket they still had which was for July 5th!
We stayed at our usual B&B in the historic area of Quito overnight and the next morning met Monica, (the sister in our English group who is helping us get our visas) at the lawyers’ office.
The lawyer seemed very efficient and smoothly took us through all the paperwork necessary to set up the corporation. She assured us there was no problem that our visas were going to expire in 1 month.
She gave us a short list of things she wanted us to obtain within three weeks, like our ‘official’ marriage certificates as well as Isaac and Jo’s, and a couple of other items I can’t recall now.
So, we went home to our apartment in Otavalo tired but confident that things were rolling smoothly toward completion. It was sad to see the apartment next door looking all lonely for its now absent occupants, Isaac and Jo, but the resident dog, Tita, sure gave us a warm welcome with her tail wagging and yelps of glee.
We attended the meeting that night and it was good to see the friends again and meet new ones who had come to help out for a few months. Some were missing though, who had gone back to their home countries for various reasons like making more money so they could return for another year. When there are only 16 publishers, it leaves a large hole when anyone is missing, but that’s where the regular stream of visitors ‘spying out the land’ come in handy! We learned that while we were away for two months, some of the visitors that came were definitely coming back! Included were a couple of elders and their families, so that was great news, since also while were gone, one of the two elders in our English group had left to go to the Spanish congregation in Otavalo!
Well, we managed to obtain the documents the lawyer wanted, within the time she had asked for them. Those three weeks flew by as we had decided to look for other housing and our days were spent pounding the pavement… well, cobblestone, I guess…looking for ‘Se Arriendo’ signs (for rent). That’s the way you have to do it here. There is no local newspaper to look up the classifieds, not even bulletin boards where people could post ads. It’s all word of mouth, or signs in the windows. We did find a few apartments and/or houses for rent and looked at a couple, but nothing was suitable. I didn’t want to move out of our apartment unless we found exactly what we were looking for.
- It had to have at least 2 bedrooms (so if any of you want to come to visit we’d have a place for you to sleep)
- It had to be within walking distance of shopping and bus routes
- It had to have a fireplace (I’m always freezing in the evenings up here in the mountains and the houses don’t generally have a heat source)
- I was hoping for a bathtub (most places only have showers)
- It had to have some ‘ambience’ (I know, doesn’t seem important, but to me, it makes the difference between whether I get depressed or not)
- It had to be under $250/month
- It would be nice if it was at least partly furnished because we didn’t want to spend any more money on furniture.
Meanwhile, the clock was ticking on our visas which were going to expire on July 4th… in only a few days, and no news from the lawyer on our work visas 🙁
So, Monica contacted her again and what she was told, was very disturbing news for us. She wanted us to go across the border to Columbia (scary enough right there!) and stay for 24 hours (even scarier) then return so they would stamp our passports with a 90 day tourist visa. Now, I had read about people trying that method of staying in Ecuador longer, but many had failed! It just depends, it seems, on the mood of the guy behind the counter that day! Plus, we weren’t sure it was even legal! We decided against it, and started looking for deals on plane tickets!