Your Home Away from Home in Cotacachi Ecuador

I'm sorry you experienced some of the inconveniences of living in Ecuador. Although on the surface Ecuador appears to be a modern country with the same infrastructure and public services as we have here in the United States, it is not. The hot water in our house is provided with bottles of propane. When a tank runs out, someone has to change it. I'm sorry it took so long for that to happen. Sometimes, you have to remind busy people a second time when you ask for something.

Power outages are not that frequent, but they happen. There are too many people using electrical systems made at a time when most Ecuadorians used power strictly for lighting their homes. A few years ago, the government encouraged people to switch their gas stoves to electricity because there would be cheap hydroelectric power. People switched to electric appliances, but the hydroelectric system never came on line. So the demand for power increased, but the capacity of the electrical system did not.

There are candles in the kitchen drawer. I will include that piece of information in the check-in letter in the future. The flashlight did have a new battery when I was there the end of October, and the umbrellas were not broken. I will check on those umbrellas when I return to the house next month. We also provide two rechargeable Ecuadorian cell phones, which have a flashlight function as well.

Fires are difficult to start because the air is thin at our altitude of 8,000 feet. I do include instructions to bring some newspaper with you to use to start fires as newspaper and paper in general is scarce in Ecuador. Even with lots of newspaper, it is a challenge to start a fire at this altitude because of the thin air. And if the air is humid and it is raining, it's even more of a challenge. However, once it gets started, as long as you keep adding firewood, the fire will keep burning. I know other guests we have had have been successful in having fires in the fireplace as the firewood on the front porch has disappeared regularly.

As I mention to all our guests before they come, Ecuador is a beautiful, fascinating country with wonderful people, but it is not for everyone. We try to make our house there as comfortable to American tastes as we can, but we are in a third-world country and "stuff happens." You just need to be able to take the inconveniences in stride, roll with the punches, and you will have an incredible experience and wonderful memories.

We were happy to have you as our guests and delighted that you enjoyed your stay in this fascinating country.

There are two sides to every story. We have had dozens of guests in our Cotacachi house over more than three years of renting (and have rented to hundreds more at our vacation rental properties in Florida that we have owned and managed for more than 15 years). Never before have we had so many problems with a renter as we did with this family.

Even before they arrived, these people were the most difficult and incredibly naïve. Ecuador is a poor country and non-violent theft is a common occurrence--a situation that we warn our guests about before they come. We have installed the proper security measures in our house to avoid just this type of break-in. In this case, the break-in was due to the guests' negligence in not properly securing the house before going to bed.

And there were other issues. During the 3 months they rented our house, a 1-year old kitchen faucet (brand name from the United States) had to be replaced, the entire septic system had to be cleaned out (it had just been completely cleaned one month before their arrival and is normally cleaned only once every several years), and the housekeeper, who comes weekly during our guests' stays, had to work two full days to clean the house after they left--the first time this has ever happened. There were other issues during their stay too numerous to mention. The $200 security deposit, which we did not refund, was a fraction of what we had to pay to put the house back into the condition it was before they arrived. Look at our other reviews, and you decide.