Saturday, October 17, 2020

The End Of Our Vanlife?

It's a fair question to ask after what it took us to get to Ecuador during a global pandemic if we are done with vanlife. The answer is no. The current situation requires us to wait a while, but we - okay I - spend a lot of time thinking about the next rig. The last vehicle we made some choices based on fitting into a storage container for the boat ride across the Darien Gap from Pamama to Colombia, but the next rig will have no such issue. Our plan is to go see South America and then sell the vehicle here and when we go finish Central America we will buy a vehicle there and sell it there when we are done. With no crazy size requirements there are lots of possibilities. Here are some of our musings.
First a truck with a camper. What it lacks in good looks it also lacks in function. There are times on the road when you need to be able to "stealth camp." That amounts to pulling into a residential neighborhood and parking for the night. The ideal way is to park and cover the front windows while slipping into the back to sleep. The truck camper isn't a great option for that. The second idea is the old, rusty, Ford van. I don't like fixing things enough for a rust bucket like that and it would be nice to be able to stand up inside in the next van.
I know I could convert a tiny van, especially since we wouldn't take as much stuff as we did leaving the States. Let's be serious though. These things are super tiny. So maybe something bigger?
With these rigs we could have an ensuite guest room! There would be room for hitchhiking serial killers and maybe even some hippies. Anyone want to buy a ton of bus seats? Otherwise I don't know how I would be able to dispose of them once the conversion began. The fuel economy and ease of operation might be lacking as well. Pam seems to be against getting a commercial driver's license for Ecuador for some reason. Oh well, a boy can dream. We will probably just have to wait and buy a vehicle that is already converted to vanlife when the pandemic subsides enough for us to overland travel with relative ease. That's all for now. PEace and love peeps!

Wednesday, October 14, 2020

Residency Visas in Ecuador

If you want to stay in Ecuador you either have to hide once your original 90 day tourist visa is up or you need to get a resident visa. There are three options for a person who wants a resident visa - Pensioner visa, professional visa or investment visa. The pensioner visa requires that you have a steady, monthly income of about $800 for an individual or $1100 for a couple. After I list all three I will add the other things necessary for the visas. The investment visa means that you need to "invest" $40,000 in Ecuador. The easiest way is a 2 year CD which pays 8.5% interest yearly. You can also buy a house or apartment or start a business, but the CD is easy. We opted for the professional visas since we both have college degrees. Our degrees needed to be registered in Ecuador and the rest of the visa documentation needed to be completed as well. We had to order transcripts and copies of our diplomas along with our marriage licence and Pam had to do an adiitional affidavit of name change since her diploma was in her maiden name. All of those documents had to be apostilled in Ecuador which is like a kicked up notary public thing. The rest of the required documentation for a visa requires a FBI and a state criminal check which requires you to be fingerprinted on 4 seperate forms. The process also has costs and we opted for a Visa company to do our paperwork to limit the headaches. Our total cost for both visas was between $4000 and $5000. Both of our visas are complete now and we are now going to apply for and get our Cedulas which is a National ID card that is used even at the grocery stores. It is the basis for most other items like a pass for the Tranvia - the tram that runs through town. We hope to have them in hand by mid next week. As to the amount of income necessary for a pensioner visa, you can live in Ecuador for $1100 per month as a couple. There are furnished one bedroom apts for about $400, food and utilities are really inexpensive and many apartments include the utilities in the price. We are fully settled in now and next week we are hosting a couple of artists who have a showing at a place near our house. It will be fun to have some guests in the guest rooms. We will certainly post about that soon. We hope that you are all well and we wish you peace and love from beautiful Cuenca.

Puebla Magica San Antonio De Ibarra

About a year ago Pam reached out to a couple who are artists from San Antonio de Ibarra which is north of Quito because they were going to h...