We went house hunting the other day, but found nothing to suit us.  http://mls-ecuador.com/en/search/rs1600198  which you can view here, was too old and the bedroom windows were a mere metre from the street.  However, it had one Ecuadorian feature, an enormous underground cistern 1m squre and 3m deep, in the front yard.   Apparently, before piped water, the tanker truck would come and fill it for you.  Nowadays it gets automatically filled from the system.  However, if the water is turned off for any reason, you have about 3-4 days supply on hand.

http://mls-ecuador.com/en/search/rs1600270 is completely new but boasts a vertical back garden space I would not want to tackle.  As in all Ecuadorian houses, there are no built in cupboards, just an alcove with a hanging rail.

http;//mls-ecuador.com/en/search/rs1600057 has a nice yard with plunge pool and outside shower - something always found with a pool here, but not in RSA!  It was built and lived in by a Chilean family and all the internal doors are those flimsy concertina kind.   Apparently Chile gets a lot of earthquakes, and no-one wants to be trapped in a bedroom with burglar bars on the windows and a warped doorframe.  After the recent quake in Ecuador, they are beginning to look like a good idea.

Spanish has changed.  Well, all languages do, but you never notice it with your own, because it is daily and small, incremental steps.  But when you have not used a language for 50 years and then come back to it, you realise, you learned it another world where there were no SIM cards, ATMs or computers,; where nothing needed recharging, recycling or rebooting and semi-skimmed milk and probiotic yoghurt were unheard of

So it is a minefield and you cannot begin to guess what some of these words might be.  In French, and ATM is an electronic window but in Spanish, it is a small automatic box.  Go figure------ but of course you cannot.  I asked for plain yoghurt without sugar the other day, and got it sweetened with artificial sweetener instead.  Back to the dictionary to learn that what I really want to say is no endulceado - not sweetened at all.

However, I am learning and have so much actual success that Calvin now wants me to buy a crown top bottle opener, which is a bit of a facer if it is not on display.   I foresee mime and "for beer" in my future!

Another aspect of bureaucracy here - or rather the lack of it.   When I was here in November, I had a small infection and had it successfully treated (in English) by a doctor in Quito.  It has suddenly recurred, and I was not looking forward to telling a doctor here in Spanish, since there is very little English spoken here in the south, all my problems with antibiotics.

I consulted my American landlady about finding a doctor and the conversation went like this
"Do you have the original scrip"
"Yes"
"Then you take it to the nearest pharmacy and get it refilled"
"As simple as that?"
"Oh yes, you can use it until it falls apart"
So it proved. No questions, and I still have the original scrip.   Its a failure in the system, certainly, but saves a lot of hassles and expense also.

I received one of those letters where I had to prove I was still alive.  It needed countersigning by someone official, and as I know no-one yet, I went to the police station and spoke to a constable, who called a corporal, who called a sergeant, who called the senior sergeant.  They all deliberated over the document,which none of them could read (it being in English) and asked for a translation of every word.  - and what I was getting a pension for, and from whom and what I had done in my working life.  All this strained my Spanish to the limit, but eventually, the senor man wrote his name, grade, etc. signed it and affixed the police dept stamp, which was what I really wanted.  Smiles all round and they took my cell phone number for their records.  So when the earthquake hit, I got three reassuring messages from them by SMS No 1.  Keep Calm.  No.2 There will be no Tsunami and No.3 Try not to travel in case of aftershocks.

Of course, that hurdle surmounted , I then had to beard the Post Office to get it sent by some secure method.  I was sent to the Civic Centre, a long low white building (but then most buildings are white) rather like a shopping mall.  All airconditioned and with a wide walkway containing benches, while each department lives behind a glass wall, so you can see what they are up to.   Here I found public health, child welfare, electricity account, telecom, transportation and refuse collection, and my destination - the Post Office whose office contained chairs for you to sit on while you wait.  I only saw the ground floor so goodness knows what lurks upstairs

The lady who helped me spoke some English so we established the urgency, the security and my fears.  She said it could be tracked all the way, but the system was down.  She took the letter and said she would email me in the morning with the tracking number, which she duly did.  I am beginning to gain some faith in the infrastructure here! (although all Americans remind me this is a 3rd world country.  They just dont know what that really means)

Learning to use the buses.  We have five busroutes which pass the end of the street - about 100m away and we have only learned to use No7 which goes to the Municipal Market which is much like markets everywhere, a large warehouse building with the stalls inside along the walls being fruit and veg, dry goods and miscellaneous items such as shampoo, dogfood and plastic household goods,

The central space is occupied by marble slabs where seafood, fish, poultry, pork, beef and other meats are sold.  Each aisle is one kind of product and perhaps the "other" aisle is the most interesting, consisting, as it does, of offal, some recognisable, some not, goat meat, home made cheeses, strings of sausages and other bits I can only guess at until my Spanish improves.

There are apparently bus stops, but you actually just flag one down where you are and get off by moving to the front near the place you want to alight.  The fare is the same, whatever - 15c.

Like all buses, and these are luxury coaches with A/C, they have airbrakes, but none makes the gusty sigh I am used to.  Some growl like lions, others like angry canines.  Some cough like leopards, and yet others squeal  like pigs on the way to slaughter.  Coming up behind you, when you have not heard them, this can be quite frightening, especially after dark.

Today is dustbin day and has a certain novelty here.  As there are no wheelie bins in this area, rubbish is put into large black bags.  But if you leave them overnight, the local dogs, not to speak of the vultures which decorate the overhead wires, will get them, so when the dustbin truck enters your street, he plays music, just like an icecream van, and you can take out the bags for him.

First order of business ....get a local chip in my cellphone.  Very easy as it happens and I like the way you load airtime.  They have ATM type machines where you key in your number and then the amount you want to load.  Put in the money and the cellphone in your pocket goes ping, and it's done.

Next thing...accommodation. We are in the cottage in someone's garden, with the use of the pool.  Only a block and a half from the hypemarket, in an area called Ballenitas, which means small whales.  Once we are unpacked, I shall tell you more

On the first evening we went  to a barbecue restaurant and ate brochettes of steak, green pepper, onion and sausage.  Calvin celerated by ordering a black beer.  When I read the label on the bottle, some of the darkness apparently came from the fact that it was flavoured with chocolate!

The following night we wet to a fish restaurant and I had a whole sea bass ( a small one) and Calvin a fish and shrimp casserole in a pimiento sauce, and we drank the most delicious juices.  Mine was lime, not too much sugar and his was coconut - each one a half litre or joy.

I walked one kilometre yesterday along the seafront and hope to do better today so you can see my health is improving.