We Relocate from Cuenca to Otavalo

 

Having really enjoyed our visit to the Otavalo/Atuntaqui area (in the north of Ecuador) in February of this year (see our blog of 21 February 2014) what choice had we, but to actually move there?

Well, we did actually give it a bit more thought than that, but now, here we are.

Imbabura volcano 4,630 m (15,190 ft). As seen from our new place

The first obstacle to overcome was housing. Fortunately, due to the network among Witnesses, it worked out well.

When we were up north in February, we had mentioned to a few of the brothers and sisters that we were thinking about moving there, and some said they would keep an eye out for accommodation for us. (It’s difficult searching for accommodation when you live a day’s drive away, as is the distance between Cuenca and Otavalo.)

So, at the circuit assembly in early March, a brother from the Atuntaqui congregation said to us, “Are you still interested in moving? If so, you need to speak to Frankie; he’s returning to the States in a few weeks and his apartment will become available.”

Just then, Frankie walked past, so we grabbed him and plied him with questions about the apartment, got him to draw us a floor plan and extracted from him a promise of emailing photos of the apartment etc., which he subsequently did.

It all looked promising, so we started the process of securing the rental of the apartment for around the end of April.

As the apartment is owned by a sister who was in Frankie’s congregation (one of the Spanish-speaking congregations in Otavalo), he was able to start the ball rolling for us, but as his Spanish wasn’t up to the more complicated matters (and ours isn’t, either), he put us onto another brother in his congregation who is fluent and who acted as our go-between and helped us get everything sorted out, even to obtaining the keys and arranging to meet us on the doorstep when we arrived with all our belongings.

So, having got that important matter out of the way, we now needed to work out how to get ourselves and our furniture to the other end of the country. They don’t have specialised furniture removal vans here, so it comes down to hiring a truck.

We asked around in the congregation, and got a couple of recommendations, both of whom were brothers with trucks. One of these lived locally, and we asked if he could come to our house to check whether his truck would be big enough to take our furniture. When he and his truck arrived at our house, Brendan quietly said to me, “I don’t think it’s going to be big enough”. When the brother had gone through the house and established what we wanted to take with us, he shook his head and confirmed our fears; “impossible”, he said.

So, on to investigating other options.

At the going-away party for us and another sister also moving up north (the party has yet to really begin!)

One of the brothers in the congregation used to work in catering…

We had asked a brother in Cuenca English who had moved there from Ibarra (about half an hour’s drive north of Otavalo) with his family a few months ago, how they did it. (More networking coming up … ) They had used a brother from Ibarra with a truck, and he offered to contact the brother for us and make arrangements, which we welcomed, as phone conversations in Spanish are pretty difficult for us at this point.

So, after phone calls and emails and lots of most welcome help from our local brother, that too was all arranged.

One thing he told us is that you need a Police Permit to move furniture, household goods etc., from one province of Ecuador to another. The procedure for moving from Ibarra to Cuenca is slightly different to moving from Cuenca to Ibarra – in either direction, you need to write up an inventory of your furniture, belongings etc, and take that to the Police station in order to get your permit.  If you move south from Ibarra to Cuenca, you first need to get your inventory notarised by a public notary and then take it to the police station. Not sure why, but that’s often how things are, here.

Initially we rolled our eyes about the paperwork, but it does actually make sense as a deterrent to shady characters who may just have filled up a truck with someone else’s household goods and be making off with them. Once you get out of the cities, along some of the roads there are Police checks here and there where driver’s licences and vehicle papers are checked.

So, we took the required paperwork and a helpful bi-lingual sister from the congregation to our local Police station, and because we had been told exactly what we needed, it all went off without a hitch.

The day rolled around to pack our goods and chattels onto the truck. Prior to this, we had been wrapping and boxing and trying to protect our belongings as best we could, as we weren’t sure how well everything would survive a 12-hour truck ride.

Our truck with all our worldly goods

Brendan had roped in a few strong brothers from the congregation to get everything onto the truck, and with a Danish brother directing what to put where, it all fit. (We figure if the Swedes invented flat-packing and IKEA, then having a Danish brother to organize the packing of your furniture has to be the next best thing!)

So, now that all our furniture and bedding is safely packed onto the truck, and it’s Saturday evening and we’re not leaving with the truck until early Sunday morning, where were we to sleep? Fortunately, we were able to stay overnight with a brother and sister in the congregation, and park the truck securely at their house, while Geraldo, our driver, chose to stay overnight at a relative’s house nearby.

The plan was to make an early start on Sunday morning – 4 am!! Not the time of day one usually wants to do anything other than sleep, but it would mean arriving at our destination at around 4pm, a reasonable hour. The plan changed, though, as Geraldo told us he had only had 3 or 4 hours’ sleep the previous night and he would like to start around 8 am instead of 4 am. We agreed with that, as travelling with a sleep-deprived truck driver is never a good idea!

And so began the 12 hour journey.

It’s actually quite a nice drive, just not 12 hours of it!!!

Stopping to stretch our legs

We saw some interesting things along the way, but then interesting things is what Ecuador is all about!

It’s not uncommon to see small trucks or covered utes (utilities) carrying passengers. There is always the usual amount of buses travelling along, but I guess the smaller vehicles catch the overflow passengers or those going to more obscure places.

We stopped at one service station to get fuel, and saw a small truck filled with passengers, as well as a sheep!! I tried to sneak a photo of the sheep without looking too much like a tourist, and this is what I got.

You can just see part of the sheep through the open door

Later, we parked at the side of the road to have lunch, and while we were there, two passenger buses went past, each with a sheep up on a rack on the roof! These were not hill-billy buses from the back of beyond, but quite decent buses that you’d find in western countries. How they got the sheep up there, how they stayed on and what the sheep thought of it all, we’ll never know. Unfortunately, it was too quick for me to be able to get my camera out.

So eventually, after more miles, more fuel stops, more bathroom stops and darkness falling, we finally made it around 8pm.

By this time we were all pretty exhausted, so it was nice to see our brother with the apartment keys waiting for us on the corner, and within a few minutes some brothers and sisters from the local English congregation turned up to help us empty the truck, cart our boxes and furniture upstairs (albeit somewhat dusty from the trip) and put our furniture and bed together, prior to us falling asleep amid boxes and general debris.

So, was it all worth it? Yeah, we reckon.

This is our apartment in Otavalo