Wrapping up our year in Ecuador.

I am sure we will never ever have a 'normal' life (whatever that is), so trying to surf the waves without too much tumbling and chaos, is probably all we can do.

So last week we decide to go back to Europe and probably go to Spain. 

This means we have to sell everything we have managed to accumulate in a year. And even though we came on a plane with only suitcases with clothes and some tools and bedlinen, we have managed to fill a house up with stuff again, by now. And what to think of the Toyota Prado..?

But as soon as we made the decision, we put the car on the various online market places of Ecuador. The car was online by Wednesday and it was sold the next day. The man who bought it, drove all across the country for it. The paperwork was also sorted in an hour and the money was on our account in half an hour. Remember it took 2 weeks to buy the damn car??? 

Whatever!

While this selling of the car was going on outside, our neighbour saw this happening and got curious. So Eric told her we were leaving. She felt sorry for us having to leave so out of the blue and asked what else we wanted to get rid off.

In my mind I could NOT get a mental picture of how to do it all; how to sell everything and still live here until the last days. I could see a lot of misery, a lot of work, a lot of chaos ahead of us. And all this without a car to drive us anywhere, in the middle of nowhere.
I thought lots of different people would have to come into the house, look at everything, spread over days and days, because they could not make up their minds about if they were going to buy it or not, etc. And then, the last days we would have to camp in the house, without anything to sit on or eat from.

Thank goodness my thoughts did not manifest.

Because what happened was very different.

The neighbour followed Eric into the house, right after the guy left with the car. She looked at everything, asked what we wanted for it, took about 500 dollars off that total amount and said; I will take it all whenever it suits you, for this price.

And then she even offered to pay a large part of the flight tickets, from her Ecuadorian account (so that we wouldn't have to use our credit card or our euro's) as the 'payment' for everything.

I have a vivid imagination, but I could NOT have thought that up.

So, we bought the tickets to Madrid together with her today. And we can bring stuff over next door whenever we know we will not use it anymore. 

It did not run as smoothly as I write it now, because there was a lot of confusion and a lot got lost in the Spanish/Dutch/English translations between us and the neighbour. And sometimes she would talk in rapid Spanish about something (what? What??) and start crying because it was apparently a very sad subject. And then she would throw her hands dramatically up to heaven 'all is in the hands of the lord' or 'only He knows the whole plan' she would then say in Spanish (I think).  I wish I would have been able to really talk with her and understand what the hell she was saying, but that (small) uncomfortable and frustrating feeling was ok in the light of having everything sorted so well, so quickly.

So the coming weeks it seems we can just fill with walking, homeschooling and continuing to study Spanish (apart from a few minor things like transfering money from our Ecuadorian account back to the Netherlands at a big loss, due to money-export tax).

The flight is booked for Sunday the 16th of September to arrive the 17th in the afternoon in Madrid. JF has already bought a car (in France) and will pick us up there. They will only also have just arrived there. After that is still 'the big unknown'. Another adventure...

The pictures: our daily walks and my birthday (yes I turned 49) last week on the 8th of the 8th.

Na het beeindigen van ons verblijf in Ecuador, ga ik gewoon door met het schrijven van blogs. Maar het kan zijn dat ik dit dan ga doen vanaf een andere blogsite of website ('vertrek naar Ecuador' is dan geen juiste naam meer). Als je toch graag gewoon op de hoogte wilt blijven en de blog wilt kunnen blijven volgen, kun je hieronder je inschrijven, dan krijg je automatisch de blog in je mail.

After wrapping up our time in Ecuador, I will continue writing blogs. It could be, however, that I do this from a different website or blogsite (because it will not be about Ecuador anymore). If you would like to stay informed and would like to keep reading the blog, you can subscibe below. You will then automatically receive each new blog in your email.