Country Article / Postcards

Love the One You’re With

Date: 10/22/2009 Author: Suzan Haskins

After spending the summer in Ecuador we are now happily back home in Merida. That’s something of a shock to us, as we nearly had to be dragged out of our little condo in Cotacachi, Ecuador in the northern Andes, we love it there so much.

We thought the luster had faded…that maybe we wouldn’t be happy back in Mexico’s arms after our summer love affair with Ecuador.

But we were wrong.

We’re quickly settling back into life in Merida—getting reacquainted with her charms and falling in love all over again. It’s good to be home. As I write this I am sitting on the terrace, mesmerized by the pool. It’s only 10 a.m. and I’m thinking it’s almost time for a quick dip. (The weather here is absolutely perfect right now…not too hot and not too cold.)

Our cheerful new housecleaner just arrived and she’s busy dusting in the front of the house. She just asked for a ladder to reach the tops of our bookshelves…something I would never do. A crew of gardeners is here, too. And the pool boys (!) are on their way. We’ve decided to contract with a one-stop service to provide these workers every week. This will make it much easier for us to travel back and forth to Ecuador (or wherever we choose) as often as we like. Our new house manager will take care of everything when we’re gone—she’ll even pay the bills and feed our cats.

For all this, we’ll pay about $200 a month when we’re in town and a bit more when we’re not and the house and cats need more frequent supervision.

The very affordable luxury of having this kind of household help will allow us more freedom—something we’re looking forward to in 2010. Our plan is to use our home in Mexico as a base in the winter and our little condo in Ecuador as our home base in the summer. From either location we can travel to many of the places on our “want-to-see” list. We’ll rent out our homes when we’re not there.

(Shameless plug: If you’re interested in renting our home in Merida, see http://www.vrbo.com/238815. If you’d like to know about renting our condo in Cotacachi, see http://www.vrbo.com/269535.)

I don’t know about you, but we’re all about making our lives easier. We’d like to travel more…yet less. How? By spending longer amounts of time in several different locations…maybe renting an apartment in Bogota or Santiago or even Asia or Europe somewhere and staying for a month or longer to really get a feel for the place.

Does this sound like we’ll be “cheating” on Merida and Cotacachi? We don’t think so. While the odds are high that we could fall in love with someplace new (it happens all the time), we’re of firm belief that you should “love the one you’re with.” And in Mexico and Ecuador we’ll always have a special place to come home to.

We don’t think this plan will be very expensive, either. With furnished homes and apartments renting long-term, on average, for anywhere from $150 to $1,500 a month in most locations in Latin America, the money we make by renting our homes should pay for our stays elsewhere.

We’ll keep you posted as this plan unfolds, but you might consider doing this yourself. Maybe someone is interested in renting your home while you travel? If you live in a popular destination, there are many house exchange websites out there that might be perfect for you. Or just close your home and go…the money you save on electricity or heating bills alone may pay for your exotic vacation.