The Craziest Idea I Ever Heard!

That's what I and my girlfriend Jazmin thought 2 years ago when my husband Hector blurted out that we should move to another country...Costa Rica to be exact! We both looked at him and started to laugh.  I echoed Jazmin's words: "Tu Es Muy Loco!" (Translated, "You are crazy"). Day in and day out that's all my husband would talk about retiring and moving out of the country.  He would leave websites of beautiful beaches on my laptop (I was never a beach person, I was not impressed, besides we lived in Florida...beaches every where!!).  What did impress me were the "Low cost of living in South America" headlines. I worked 14 hour days in my commercial cleaning and painting business.  We made a nice living but at the end of the month we both wondered where did all the money go.  It was to the point that it was driving me crazy.  We weren't living extravagantly, we were just paying our monthly regular bills.  We were on a hamster wheel! One night, frustrated from looking at my ledger and the money that I "apparently" made that month, I decided to go to one of the  websites to investigate living abroad. I googled rental property in Costa Rica and found some pretty impressive low rentals.  So I started inquiring and searching blogs online and to my surprise a lot of Americans have moved to South America and abroad.  I began striking up conversations with my friends about living abroad and I really liked the feedback I was getting; so after a year, I decided to jump on the bandwagon with my husband's train of thought.  We eventually told our friend Jazmin and her husband Brad and they both screamed, "Tu Es Muy Loca, Tambien!" LOL

Yes, I was tired of trying to live the American dream that was actually an American nightmare.  Working long hours, kids stuck in the house because we were too afraid of what could happen if we were not home. Too tired on the weekend from working; trying to recoup our energies. Kids bored because they have been stuck in the house all week and looking at my husband and I to take them places. This was not living to us, so we decided to investigate this crazy idea a little bit more. I put it out in the virtual world that we were thinking of becoming expats and moving to Costa Rica. Boy am I glad I made that announcement...because my cousin Henry steered us from the wrong country to the very right country. Ecuador!

We both have never thought about moving to Ecuador, it never came up into our minds, our hearts, zip, nada, nothing! Ecuador? I questioned Henry. He proceeded to tell us that he had been studying different countries where he wanted to retire and also where his family could just enjoy day to day living on the beach and Ecuador was the best one out of all the countries he had studied. There was no money exchange rate or conversion because they use the American $, cost of living was definitely cheaper than Costa Rica by a landslide, the weather was beautiful year round (except for rainy season), this country was the easiet to learn Spanish for him and his daughter as his wife Anna was already bi-lingual. He told me so many things that after our first conversation I was sold! But... Hector had talked about Costa Rica for nearly 2 years so even though he liked what he was hearing about Ecuador, Costa was still in his system, so we decided to go country shopping and took a trip to Costa Rica. Let's just say everything my cousin Henry said about Costa Rica was true and then some.  It was soooooo expensive, the exchange rate drove us crazy! We knew that the driving in any country would be a bit much to take, but Costa Rica was insane! We rented a car for a week and took it back after only one day! Pedestrians DO NOT have the right away either, as we were neither safe in a car or walking.  When I thought of Costa Rica, I thought it would be like Jurassic Park, waterfalls every where, lushous landscapes, etc.  We went in search of a waterfall and drove for 2 hours...and got nothing.  We went back to the hotel to arrange for an excursion to the waterfall and the costs were unbelievable! $200 per person!   We left Costa Rica so disappointed and needless to say, Hector got Costa Rica out of his system right away.  Two weeks later we land in Ecuador. The difference was amazing. 

It was the end of rainy season when we got there, from the plane you could see where the city of Guayaquil (the second largest city in Ecuador) took a beating from the rain.  Some roads had been washed out and houses were sitting in the middle of what seemed like a lake, water was everywhere.  My heart sunk. But when we landed, it was not as bad as it looked from in the plane.  Not knowing what to expect in another country when it comes to the weather and natural disasters was constantly on my mind at this point. So I was very skeptical.  Yes, I know I come from hurricane valley, but being centrally located in Florida, we were somewhat protected from the elements. In my  23 years of living there, we've had 5 hurricanes and 4 of them hit Lakeland in 2004 and eventually turned into tropical storms. So yes, we have been very fortunate.  Now we are considering to move to a place where tsunami's, flash floods and mud slides could come from any direction, yes, it was a bit nerve-wrecking to think about, yet, we continued on our trip with high hopes that we could live in this country.  Rainy season here in Ecuador starts in January and ends in March.  We arrived March 1st so it was just ending.

We had 16 days to find out (1) if THIS was the country we wanted to live in, (2) find a cozy city where the kids could keep busy , (3)  Find a nice house or apt to rent, (4) Inquiry about schools; public or private. So we began our journey.

The craziest idea I had ever heard was becoming a reality!

Contact info: conciserrano@gmail.com