After an “interesting” 200km shuttle trip from San Clemente with Bob and Freda Lefevre, we had a very nice tour in Salinas on the south coast the latter part of the week.  If you’re interested in coastal property, I would highly recommend you all take a look there.  Compared to Manta-Bahia area, it’s more urban with lots of shops, a mall and movie theater [movies are in English with Spanish subtitles] for just about anything you might want.  And Guayaquil is 1.5 hours away by car.  Yet, the Salinas malecon (promenade) is full of tall condo buildings right next to the beach.  The peninsula is very similar to Bahia in that you can see water for about 270degrees from condos.  They say it’s like a mini-Miami and I would have to agree.  Our agent, Amy Pinoargote (gpinoargote@yahoo.com), was most accommodating of our requirements.  We only viewed property that met our personal characteristics and price range.  We saw many very good candidates in the $120K to $200K price range throughout the region, both condos and single family homes.  For me though the area is much too flat (like Miami).  I’m a mountain guy which is one of many reasons why I like Bahia.  So for Ecuador we still favor Bahia.

Costa Rica, which we visited prior to Ecuador, is still on our list as well, but is at least twice as costly.  In our price range we could not find anything very near the beach nor direct pacific sunset (another one of my criteria).  But the transition ease factor is much higher with many English speaking people in the Jaco area (an hour due west of San Jose on the Pacific coast).

Michelle and I agree that we both need to visit Ecuador again strictly focusing on the Bahia area including San Vicente and Canoa to the north across the bridge.  But of what we did see in Bahia, we sure do like the vacant land we saw right on the water.  We talked with Bob and Freda Lefevre about this a great deal while we were together in Salinas.  This area has tremendous potential for us to purchase and develop our own Pacific coastal property in a manner that fits with the environment and more importantly with the Ecuadorian community.  We have some interesting experts amongst us that can design very energy efficient homes.  We might even keep ourselves off the grid by using solar electrical power.  Again, I want to emphasize that we could develop a unique expat community where one of our primary goals is minimal impact on the environment and the Ecuadorian people.  In fact, our goal should be to enhance our Ecuadorian community in ways that meet their needs, not necessarily ours.  Their values and beliefs just might be a tad different than ours.

Many of you also visited areas internal to Ecuador.  We did not.  Our focus right now is coastal property.  But I see us having a place in the mountains somewhere someday.  We learned that the Pacific coast is covered by clouds for about 6 months of the year, but with little rain.  We saw the sun for only a few minutes during our entire 3 days in Salinas.  But the other 6 months are purportedly full of sunshine, with about 5 inches of rain which greens up the surrounding foliage.

Jay & Michelle