View from our living room window looks over the rooftops to the iconic “New Church” trio of blue domes.
The last couple days have been a flurry of dealing with professionals of all types. We came to Ecuador, fully expecting locals to work on “Latin Time.” We had heard many horror stories of people making appointments and showing up hours, or even days late. We were determined to just be laid back, realize that since we are retired that we have plenty of time, and go with the flow.
When was the last time you had Comcast or AT&T or similar installers out to your home in the US? Ours were almost often many hours late, sometimes into dinner time before they arrived. It was then a crap shoot if the person was competent or not — some were very good, but others needed remedial training if everything didn’t work exactly right.
In Ecuador, ETAPA or PuntaNet are the two main internet providers. We decided to have both installed, since Internet in Ecuador is slower than the US, and less reliable. DirecTV is our TV provider. Between them, we had three different professionals come out, each at a different time. Every one of them rang the doorbell precisely at the appointment time! I suspect they were waiting downstairs for the time to arrive, as I can’t see how they could have been so extremely prompt otherwise. Each installer was completely professional, and resolved every problem that came up. None spoke a word of English, but we managed to get understood. In one case, my question for the DirecTV installer was too advanced for me to be understood with my limited Spanish, so he called his office, got an English speaker on the phone, and my questions were resolved quickly that way.
I was impressed, to say the least!
We also brought in a carpenter for one day. Two guys showed up to install some shower grab bars (being on crutches, I needed them to be able to take a shower), fix a broken shower head, replace the under-sink plumbing in all 3 bathrooms, and various other items. They arrived at 8AM and worked solidly until well past 6PM (with about a half hour lunch break). The entire bill came to $80. That would have bought about 90 minutes of one person’t time back in California…
The Doctor Visit
I decided to see a general practictioner doctor a couple days after arriving. This doctor was recommended by two different Cuencana friends, and they said he would refer me to an orthopedic doctor if needed for my broken ankle. I had heard pretty good things about medical service here, but was still a bit anxious about entering into the system with an urgent immediate need (the broken ankle).
We were told to instruct the taxi to go to Pronto Pizza. Huh?? Did that, and looked around. No doctor office anywhere in sight? Looked a little closer and discovered a tiny walkway to an office building behind the pizza joint. Walked about 30 feet, and there was the building entrance, with the doctor on the 2nd floor. That pizza joint sure does making taxi directions a lot easier, even if it does seem strange!
Walked into Dr Pedro Martinez’s office about 10 minutes early. His receptionist told us he was not here yet, but to have a seat. Not the neat, futuristic office I would see at Kaiser in California. Rather, it seemed like a comfortable country doctor’s office that you would see on a 60’s TV show. Pedro (as he later told us he prefers to be called) walked in right on the dot of the appointed time. Batting 1000 for on-time professionals… He led us into his very cluttered office, on which sat a 2013 27″ iMac — I LOVE the man already! (same computer I use at home)
We did some small talk, then got down to my general health history. I had brought a flash drive from Kaiser California to give him a full history. He popped it in and started reading and asking questions. He knew each and every drug I used and what each was used for, as well as which were not available in Ecuador (“we will figure out a workable alternative, after the ankle is resolved”). Though I am older than he is (that seems to happen a lot lately…), I felt like I was talking to a kind old father — one with one heck of a deep understanding of his profession.
When we were done, he gave me a prescription to get an X-Ray done. He explained that X-Rays here are different than in the States. Here, I own the X-Ray. It will be given to me, and I can then hand it to anyone I choose, but will keep it myself long term. We asked about payment, and he said the bill for this visit was $30.
Note that is $30 total. No insurance. No co-pay / deductable / whatnot. Simply the doctor’s visit was $30. About what my copay was at Kaiser…
We went to get the X-Ray the next day. No appointment needed — just walk in, have the X-Ray made, hand them $40 and walk out with the film about 20 minutes after walking in. That was where the offices were more gleaming and reminescent of Kaiser. Returned to Pedro to have the film read. He showed us where the healing had occured, where two screws had come out of their holes (“probably not a problem, but we will watch them”), and told me to call him in 3 weeks to arrange for the cast removal. Cost for the return visit? $0. Zero. Nada. I would have paid my full copay at Kaiser for this second visit.
I will give a final blog entry detailing the entire medical cycle after the cast is off. For now though, color me impressed.
The Lawyer Visit
After we had gotten the medical issues taken care of, along with the household issues of internet, TV, grab bars, etc, it was time to turn our attention to getting our resident visas. I called our lawyer, and he said to come over at 3PM that afternoon. We used Carlos for the purchase of our condo last January, so knew where to go. We showed up about 10 minutes before our appointment, were greeted by his assistant (who also happens to be his daughter), and were told he was not here yet.
At precisely 3:00, Carlos walked in the door. Wow, I can get used to this level of promptness!
Again, after a little small talk, he opened up our folder with our deed to the condo. He explained how it would be used for the visa, and other issues. Nothing new, but he was assuring we were starting with the same knowledge base. He then asked for our apostiled docs, went through them and announced they all looked good. Next he asked for our passports… and the first hint of trouble came up…
We travel so much that we often fill our passports before they expire. We were out of empty pages on our last passports, so got new ones this past Spring. That means there was only one entry on them — the one getting us into the country a couple weeks ago. Carlos wanted to know if we had our old passports. Nope. We didn’t think they would be useful, and had put them in a box with some stuff Evelyn stored with her brother back in California. After some hemming and hawing, he said he would try to make it work (whatever that means!).
He then told us we had to go cross-town to the Policia Immigration to get a Report Migration. We hopped in a taxi (when on crutches, ‘hopped’ is an even more appropriate description) and went to their office. 10 minutes later, we left with the reports. Showed that each of us had entered Ecuador 7 times in our lives, and that there are no arrest records for our time in country. Went back to Carlos.
OOPS! We had noticed that the report used the same passport (our old one) on each of the entries. It did not properly reflect the new passport numbers for the most recent entry. Wouldn’t have changed anything if we had noticed though, as this can only be changed in Quito (the capital — 6 hours drive to the North). Fortunately, Gaby (Carlos’ daughter and assistant) was driving to Quito the next day to solve that exact same problem for 4 other clients. She was called in, the issue discussed briefly. She said “no problem, we hit this all the time” and took our passports.
We expect to get a call from Carlos this coming week to come in and complete the application process. I’ll keep you posted on progress and final success (at least I hope so…).
Changing clouds help keep the view from our living room interesting
