ONCE A YEAR POSTS HAVE GOT TO STOP

If  there is anyone out there who still reads my blog.. or were waiting all year for my next post...the wait is over.

I have felt since we moved to Paute that we settled into our routine and that our blog was not really going to be useful. I have been prompted by friends and family to "get on the stick" and start writing again. So here it is.

I will back track a bit. As you know we moved to Paute in 2014, we will have been here 2 yrs in April of 2016! Where did those years go?


We have been enjoying our house after we made all the renovations to it, to make it livable.
The dogs have been enjoying all the room in the back yard, as well as the garden area of the lot behind us that also belongs to our landlord.

We are now down to our 1995 Trooper, 1 Vespa 300 cc scooter. It is big enough for both of us to ride at the same time.
We have not many long trips on it ,but  getting around between  Paute and Gualaceo, the next big town over is very easy.

We visited the U.S. in May for 3 weeks. This was Randy's 2nd time returning in 5 yrs. The first was our daughters wedding. My mother who turned 94 this year, lives in Dallas Oregon, and our home town is in Richland, Wa. I stayed 10 days at my moms, while Randy went on up to Richland to visit with our friends until I arrived.

Then I returned to Visit my mom in November to help her celebrate her 94th Birthday. It was a nice 2 week visit, so we had plenty of Mom and Me time.  It was also very special as my daughter drove down from Seattle for the weekend to spend time with us!

Our friends and family are still baffled that we moved, and "left everything" behind. But that was the reason we did leave... not the people, but the things.. and the work and the stress..

Our days now in Paute are even more laid back than when we lived in Cuenca! There is a small community of Expats who live here, but most of us stay to ourselves and we do not congregate too much.

Gathering for my 59th Birthday at the local Pizzaria

So now I will try to show you what its like in a town for 40K, where most live up in the mountains.

Oh and Merry Christmas!

RENOVATING A RENTAL IN PAUTE

August 8th. Just got my bugs out. Putting pictures to posts I wrote until this happen. so its catch up time.
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We  have decided that our landlord is getting a good deal with us living here.  Insert smiley face.

We continue to update and clean up the other side of the house. Our workers are chipping out cracks and re-cementing, plastering and then sanding.. its a messy business and one that I am so glad I am not doing. 

I have not been feeling well so I was not going over and saying hello and checking in on them.. when I did pop over I was horrified to see the maestro sanding away on the ceiling with no eye or face protection. He had been doing this for hours.. his face was covered in plaster grit.. I commented and he said yes, it was bad and got on safety glasses he had. I asked if he had a dust mask and he did not.. so I made sure Rodrigo got both of them one.

This is one of the issues I need to keep in mind when we have work done. They do not use safety items like gloves, eye protection or dust masks unless they are supplied by the employer... I felt so bad that I had overlooked that. Realizing that he had done the whole other side of the house without any protection and probably would continue to work that way on his next job..it just made me sad.

The Land lady had her worker put up a fence across the back of the property so it delineates our areas.. I say that because it does not keep the dogs out.. Frankie promptly walked right under the chicken wire and went on to explore the other side.

Randy assures we will be putting up a "sturdier" fence and hopefully we can convince the LL to take down the chickenwire creation.

Rodrigo worked with the LL to get a gate put in at the very back of the property so we have our privacy. As it is now, they are coming into our front area and using a pass through hall to get to the back yard. They agreed to put in the gate, but only if we absorbed all the cost. Sigh... fine.. how much will that be?

Soon it will all be done and we can start using all of our house  :) I am looking forward to that day!

4 DAYS IN A RENTAL CAR ~ DAY 4

Riobamba... nice town. Not as pretty as Cuenca, but it has a nice main drag that has some really nice stores in it..and restaurants.

After we woke up we all met up fo breakfast at a local place we had spotted the nite before. They advertized waffles, pancakes and crepes. We the waffles were much larger in the photo than the 4 inch across ones that were served. The bacon that we paid extra for was maybe one inch across.. Randy was pleased with his microscopic sausage. We all got a kick out of our breakfast as all of our waffles, pancakes and crepes were served with chocolate sauce on it as well.. sigh.. it was tough but we managed to eat our "dessert" for breakfast.

Again we fired up the trusty Garmin and we were off to find our way out of town.. we did it! First try. Well, kind of. The road was being worked on so we were detoured.. The Garmin lady was not pleased.. "In 50 meters make a U turn".. oh shut up... We were all backed up on a dirt road with cars trying to get up a hill that was all muddy.. Mug bogs anyone? We decided that a local in front of us had the right idea as he took a sharp right and headed off in another direction. We followed and found our way around the steep muddy hill , boucing and bumping along the dirt road out to the main paved (thank goodness) road.

Our 4th day was pretty smooth, considering we hit MAJOR fog. So bad that we were creeping along at maybe 15 km. Then we hit some heavy rain, and one of the areas that we came to was awash in mud from the neighborhood next to the highway.. Randy had to come to a stop and slowly cross through the mud river. Once again... I was so taken over by what was happening I forgot to whip out the camera and take a picture.

Flooded road in a town we passed through..

We found a nice restaurant on our way back and had a lunch. (thought not as nice as the one in Puyo). The scenery was nice, the bath room was horrible.. Remember ALWAYS carry kleenex in Ecuador.

We had planned on staying the nite in Paute, as the rental car did not have to be back until noon on Friday.. but we were so tired. We drove staight through to Paute, dropped off one friend, then another in Cuenca and raced home. Off went our shoes. On when the REAL comfy clothes and back into our comfy chairs... ahhh. I love going on a vacation; cause then home feels twice as nice when you return.

ZHUMIR RUM TOUR

Again the Chamber of Commerce here in Cuenca has outdone themselves with arranging a very informative trip. Today they took a group of 20 folks to visit the main bottling and distributribution facility in Paute, a 40 minute bus ride.

When we arrived we were greeted by the two main gentlemen in charge of the facility.

We all were given hard hats and asked to please stay in the group and not wander off. It was explained how the liquid products were brought to the bottling facility and from there put into tanks. We were first shown the stainless steel tanks and told how many gazillion liters they held..

It was explained to us that water is a very important part of making a great tasting product. There are 5 different types of cleaning that the water goes through. The water comes originally from the mountain springs. They have it piped directly to the facilty!

Then the water is run through the clarifier.

Then filtered through sand and then through activated charcoal

and finally a reverse osmosis. And somewhere in there I missed the UV that the water is exposed to

We were taken to the lab and were shown all of their equipment. It was pointed out to us how detailed they are about checking for methanol. We had a horrible incident here in Ecuador with some bootleg alcohol that had massive amounts of methanol in it, so we were being educated on the stringent protocols to protect the consumer of their products. Zhumir did not have any problems with their products. They were very proud to state that they ship products to the U.S., parts of Europe, and Central America. Because of this, the standards for their products has to pass not only their own countries protocols, but also the countries that they ship to. 

We were shown the bottling machines and told that the little pint bottles were bottled at a rate of 60,000 an hour. The larger 750 ml bottles about 12-16K an hour. While we were there they were bottling a specialty Pina Colada bottles, These we were told take longer due to the need for more hands on by the bottling staff.

We all had a great time walking along the bottling lines. We were even let into the juice bottling area which is enclosed and all persons wear face coverings.

Zhumir has a wide range of alcoholic and non alcoholic products. They do a line of juice called Vivant, as well as they bottle Gatorade products. Here are some photos of the different products. Some of these products are specific to the countries they are shipped to.

After our tour inside the factory part of the facility we were taken into the "Cava".. or cave. Here they have a type of Reservado rum that they produce. There were five more rooms like this one.

After our tour we were all offered bottles of water, juice, and tea, as well as some home made Canelaso, and then we were all treated to another product that they make called Tacao..Oh Yum.. look out Baileys, I think you have some stiff competition in Ecuador.

Just before we left we were all gifted with a bottle of Pina Colada!

We were all impressed with how much time and detail they went into with us. It was very informative and fun. My view of the Zhumir products just took a 100% increase in respect.