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Published: August 2nd 2009
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Casual Beach House
May all your beach fantasies come true. Ecuador's got beaches. Lots of beautiful beaches. Lots of beaches with no one on them. We traveled about an hour south of Manta today to Puerto Cayo and checked some of them out on the way.
About 30-minutes from Manta, the road took a brief detour inland through a cloud forest. One moment we were in clear weather with barren terrain, the next moment it was drizzling to the point of raining—and everything around us was delightfully green. Jack has a saying whenever we travel through the verdent northwest—"Beware of Green!" What he's really saying is anyplace that's wonderfully green is likely to be very wet as well.
That's the nice thing about Ecuador. You can choose the kind of weather you want, and because this county is the size of Colorado, you don't have to go very far to do it.
Along the way to Puerto Cayo, we passed a few interesting villages, including El Aromo, so named because the original inhabitants had the great idea of building the walls of their home with a mixture of sand and cow manure. Things weren't too bad until the rainy season. Then you could smell the village from far
Private Beach
Lots are about $50,000 in this area. and wide. A great aroma in old El Aromo.
Another village is Pilé, tucked into a little beach valley. They claim they made the original "Panama hats." Of course, we've run into at least three other places that say the same thing. At any rate, there's still a lot of weaving going on in the little village and you can buy "Panama" hats on the beach for as little as $5. No guarantees on the quality, but they'll keep the equatorial sun off your face.
Going toward Puerto Cayo, we saw several homes and lots for sale. A note about buying a home in Ecuador. If you're not living in a gated community, you must have someone living there all the time to take care of your home and protect it. And if you do have a caretaker and they've been employed for awhile but aren't doing their job, you can't just fire them. The law requires that they be given severence pay if they've been on the job for a year.
Yesterday, we witnessed negotiations involved in evicting one caretaker family from a beach house that some norteamericanos purchased last year for $140,000. An Ecuadorian neighbor
contacted the owners to let them know that the caretakers were letting the place run down and needed to be replaced.
The new caretakers are a reputedly responsible Ecuadorian family of three. Their job will be to restore the grounds and make sure they're safe, secure, and well-maintained. The absentee owners are providing a basic residence and a $225 monthly salary.
By the way, the minimum wage in all of Ecuador has been raised recently to $218.20/mo. (Yep...per month!)
On to Puerto Cayo.... It's a quiet little village with some great beaches and humpback whale watching tours. Manta and other villages up and town the coast offer them, too. With a pair of binoculars you can sometimes see them just off the coast. There were several little beachfront restaurants in Puerto Cayo and we stopped for a drink and snack. Nice homes dot the beach up and down the coast from there, still at reasonable prices for North Americans. You get the feeling though, with all the homes and developments being planned for the coast, that things will change very soon. A lot of norteamericanos are getting the word that Ecuador is one of the best and
Surf's Up! (But Not in Ecuador)
Sorry. Couldn't resist! This is North Shore, Hawaii, last December. Enlarge and there's a surfer on that wave! least expensive place to buy in South America.
Another lovely home we saw, not for sale, is owned by the son of a "tuna king." There's a lot of money in the Manta area that's been made by locals in the fishing industry.
Returning to Manta Linda's, we rested then journeyed to dinner for nine at the nearby hillside village of Montecristi, also known for making Panama hats. More competition for Panama Hat bragging rights since Montecristo advertises themselves as "the home of the finest Panama hatmakers in the world." They also have a fine Italian restaurant run by a real Italian chef. That makes a difference in foreign countries we've discovered. Jack and I once had pizza in Lithuania: raw dough with ketchup and cucumbers on top. Mama mia!
Weather is great today... cool morning, gentle breezes, the music of waves rolling to shore. Hope your day is fine, too. Ciao! Or more appropriately, "hasta pronto!"
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