Gotta love the utility bills here. We paid the monthly electric bill for Neptuno – $9.99. 

More tile was laid on the floors today.

We stopped for lunch at a nice little place across the street from Iglesia Merced. Their $2.50 lunch special is great!

The first course was sopa, we chose queso. The second course was pollo barbacoa (left) or pescado frito with arroz, plaintains, and ensalada which consisted of cabbage, tomato and marinated onions. Topped off with a nice glass of pineapple juice. It may have been the best meal we've had.

It’s official! We now own a condo in the Neptuno because our name is printed over our parking space.

More tiles were installed on the walls of the master bath. After the floor tiles are laid, the last row at the bottom of the wall be added to finish the room.

Floor tiles were laid today. We decided to do them on the diagonal so Javier started at the entrance door just laying some out to see where was the best place to start so the pattern would work into the kitchen and master bedroom easily.

The master bedroom was finished today.

And the main area went pretty fast through the center because tiles didn’t need to be cut.

Details. Lots of details were finished up today so there are not many pictures. But the best thing of the day was the master bath. The new tiles were being installed and they look amazing!

The kitchen island will have empaste applied to the base so it can be painted. Then it’s ready for the granite.

Roger’s bar is getting closer.

Finish work on the concrete in the back room (formerly the maid’s room).

As we were walking past the city building, we noticed that some of the trees had ripe "berries" on them. Palm tree is a term like "citrus tree" so some produce berries that are used for making oil, and some produce dates, coconuts, some starchy fruits and some oily ones. These are the berries that are turned into palm oil.

Locust trees have lots of seeds and some of them are ripe also.

Paid monthly utility bills today: electric $21, water and gas $12. Ni-i-i-i-i-i-ice!

The back of our building looked a lot different today than it did yesterday. They built scaffolding and hung outside the building to cut the wall out. And by this afternoon, they had the concrete patchwork done and the holes filled and finished. We just need a window now.

Before:

During:

The view from our “back door.”

The floor in the master bath was broken up so that the drain could be moved to center the toilet under the new window.

The tiles were chipped so that the new tiles can be glued on top of them and will stick.

The wall for the shower in the main bath was built.

Forms were created and concrete poured to create the shelf the granite will rest on for Roger's bar.

The Navy does exercises in the ocean frequently. Yesterday they were in formation on the beach and then marched into the water. They swam out to their ship and back, maybe were practicing rescue operations.

We see so many interesting things, and all from the comfort of our balconies!

Bought a box of tiles to be used as an accent and took it to the Neptuno. But two of the tiles were a different color, and four of the tiles had white marks on them. We wanted to indicate which tiles to use where but Javier wasn’t there to talk to. We called Mike and he said they would just wait a day to do the tiling because they had plenty of other things to do.

Ron & Donna picked us up and took us with them to Guayaquil. They needed to go to the tax office and get some tax refunds straightened out. We ran across the street to the Immigration office.

Anyone can come into Ecuador with a passport and stay up to 90 days. Since our project won’t be done within that 90-day period, we’ve been checking into options. We called the Ecuadorian Consulate in Minnesota yesterday and found out that we have two choices: extend our visitor stay, or get a visitor visa for 6 months. Since we intend to get a retiree’s visa eventually, we aren’t sure we want to spend the $240 and the time it will take to get an extension.

Because we were in Guayaquil the rest of the day, we didn’t get to see what happened at the Neptuno. We are excited to go back because they were planning to build scaffolding and hang out the window to start cutting the wall. We will have to see that to believe it.

La Libertad – freedom/liberty. We have found much freedom in La Libertad. We went shopping there again today and are getting to know our way around so much that we even bought from a street vendor.

Our mission today was to find another tile that will be an accent on the bathroom walls. We visited five ceramic stores and checked out samples from 3 of them. (Our Spanish is improving.)

The biggest surprise was the elevator was really working when we got to the Neptuno. It took us up AND down again. And the workers had been using it to lug rubble down. This was today’s cache:

In the kitchen, all old tiles have been removed from all the walls. And the shelf to support the granite on our new breakfast bar was poured in place. Do you see the clamps made out of old rebar?

The plumbing in the master bath is nearly complete. Javier said they will start putting the new tile on the walls mañana (tomorrow). That means we had to decide on the accent tile and will need to go buy enough of it first thing in the morning.

This is the view when standing behind Roger’s bar.

Monday, June 10, 2013

“The Blame Game.” Yesterday Carlos, one guard at the Neptuno, told us the elevator was working. So we got on it and he turned a key and pushed the 8 button. Up we went and it seemed like a decent ride. We got out on 8 but hadn’t brought the new keys, so we just admired our new wall and door, talked about what we could do in the lobby to make it look better, then got back on the elevator to go down, only the doors wouldn’t close and nothing more happened. So we walked down and Carlos explained that it was OUR FAULT the elevator didn’t work. All the hammering and cement work that we were doing just broke the elevator. Right!

Jorge put a coat of empaste on the new wall after it was sealed. And Javier’s workers repaired the column with concrete. Workers carried the rubble that was removed from the column down to the garage.

We spent time with Mike and Javier going over details of how to install the wall tile in both bathrooms, and where the accents should go. Also how the showers will be redone with new plumbing, fixtures and walls. We still need a light fixture for the master bath, and to buy some darker tiles for a vertical accent.

Mike said that he pulled the painters because there isn’t more they can do until the rest of the demolition and construction are finished. He thinks the floor tiles will be ready to be laid next week.

The support for our new kitchen breakfast bar was built, cabinets and tiles were removed from the wall.

The support for Roger’s bar in the front room was built this morning. It went from this:

…to this in about 15 minutes.

They will pour concrete into molds to create a shelf for the granite to be installed on.

Roger got a haircut yesterday at an Ecuadorian barbershop.

We have learned to make more interesting meals using the local ingredients.

Watching surfers in Mantañita: