Country Article / Postcards

You Could Get Used to the Good Life in Ecuador

Date: 01/28/2003

Dear International Living Reader,

The lifestyle here is simple...and almost never as efficient as we were accustomed to in our other life, farther north. But it's easy to get used to.

My wife Julia and I are living in Cuenca, Ecuador. How did we get here?

The company we both worked for offered an early retirement package, so, at the age of 49, we armed ourselves with the Ecuador Owner's Manual, packed up our side-by-side offices in Manhattan, sold everything that wouldn't fit in our sea container, and headed south. We didn't have a lot of money and our income was even smaller. If we were back in the States, I'd still be working. But here in Ecuador, we live an upper-class lifestyle.

We withdraw $240 every Monday from our U.S. account at a local ATM. This covers all our food, clothing, gasoline, entertainment, and eating out in restaurants two to three times a week. If $960 per month sounds like a small amount to maintain this type of lifestyle, remember that a professor here earns only $220 per month. In this economy, $960 a month is a lot of money. You could live on less.

Our 4,400-square-foot home in Cuenca cost $170,000, and services and utilities run about $60 per month. Property taxes are less than $10 a year. A haircut is $2, an oil change is $9, and a beautiful handmade woman's leather jacket can be bought for 30 bucks. You can see a first-run English-language movie for $2...buy a bottle of Chilean wine in a restaurant for $9...or attend a concert by the local symphony orchestra free.

We've recently invested in a vacation home in Ecuador's Valley of Longevity, near the town of Vilcabamba. We bought a small three-bedroom home with a guest cottage on 2.5 acres on the Vilcabamba River. It's in a tropical setting with bananas, papayas, mangoes, and oranges growing on the property. Cost was $34,000.

The downsides?

Well, the truth is, Ecuador's not an easy place to live as a foreigner. There are no established expat communities, where you can play bridge or golf with other gringos in the afternoon. You've got to blend into Ecuadorian life...and you've got to learn to speak Spanish.

The infrastructure is a challenge. The phone service has to be among the most frustrating in the world. "Unreliable" would be a polite description.

But here in colonial Cuenca, we have several ISP's, a symphony orchestra and a local theater, and, best of all for us, a rich indigenous culture. The flowers, fresh fruits, and hummingbirds are with us year-round.

Lee Harrison
for International Living