The unofficial web page of the greater Cuenca expat community

I thought the $300 per month life style was in Cuenca. !  Oh well, I'm sure by tomorrow the blogospere will have found it in some other country.  I am still loving my job, hating the weather and plodding, one step at a time. toward Cuenca.  Have great vacations and tell us all about them.  Have a great day--the rain (and snow) will end someday.
cb

As a test of my influence around Cuenca city hall, I I asked the following question at the Cuenca SIT website:

Saludos,

¿Cuando vas a actualizar el guia de buses en su pagina de web?

Gracias

P.S.
.¿Por qué la linea 50 siempre está excluido de los guias?

I received the following reply

Estimado Nards:

La guía de buses es la publicada en la Página Web del Municipio. Por lo cual debemos esperar a que ellos la actualicen,  Con respecto a la línea 50, el recorrido corresponde a la linea 29.

Saludos Cordiales.

Basically it says it is the responsiblity of somebody else to print it.  And he is telling me that bus line 50 covers the same route as the 29. Of course then why not call it the "29" in the first place. I will have to dig further.

I had my first break-in last night. I was out to dinner and forced the sliding door open and got two of my tablets. Told you I live in a dangerous, high risk area. I will need to shore up my defenses.

Apartment, home, security?

Sorry to hear that, Nards.  Just before Christmas the sister of our neighbor had her house broken into and the thieves stole just about everything that wasn't nailed down.  And in a totally unrelated anecdote, another person in Quito was offered on the street a brand new, top of the line laptop for $400.  I suspect that the trafficking in stolen goods, especially electronics, is a growth industry.

Shoring up the defenses is a good idea.  When I was in Guatemala we had concertina wire around the house with motion sensor lights.  Had correctional facility look to it but charm was not the object of the exercise.

Be safe.

Mike

Nards Barley wrote:

I had my first break-in last night. I was out to dinner and forced the sliding door open and got two of my tablets. Told you I live in a dangerous, high risk area. I will need to shore up my defenses.

Just wondering how you can shore up a sliding door.  Is it glass?  Sounds like a tuff job.  I sympathize with your loss of two tablets, I almost remember 45 years ago when I lost a dozen LSD tablets.  I think I lost them, not really sure.

Thanks Mike. Sorry I haven´t gotten back to you. I was hoping for a reprieve soon, but alas......

Mugtech, I will add a another lock. The aluminum frame bends enough that with force you can take the dead bolt out of its slot.  Of course they could have broken the glass, but that creates a lot of attention and noise. I do have an alarm but when I got home it wasn´t ringing, so either it didn´t work or they figured out how to shut it off.

They entered the perimeter by loosening the bolts on the latch of the iron gate.  I will need to add a second latch, but this time it will be welded.

Nards,
Sorry to hear of your troubles. It's a bummer for sure.
Just got back from Peru. Had a wonderful time. The place was right on the ocean. We were fortunate to have our own car, so we were able to explore the area. Small town called Mancora was about a twenty minute drive. Very cool with all the ocean side shops and restaurants.  I think a bar or two also. Nothing better than having a cold one on the beach and checking out the local beauties.
Booked my flight to Colombia to pick up the BMW. Won't post itinerary due to your trials and tribulations.
Again, sorry to hear of your un invited visitors.
Stay Well,
Neil
Ps. it wasn't me on the park bench they found Friday in Calderon.

Nards, sliding glass doors are notorious for ease of entry,  In the states we put a two by four in the base of door so that it butted up up to the sliding glass part.  You can also put a nail (drilling a hole) where the sliding and the stationary part meet.

When you make the latch you might also want to have some kind of box that covers the lock so that they can not break it or get to it.  Welding is way ahead of bolts.

I would be very curious about the alarm and what happened there.  Keep up the good fight.

Mike

Nards, I'm not a regular here but I'd like to say to you, I've been burglarized as well, and in the aftermath, it only got worse, when dealing with the insurance company. I was sold replacement level insurance and they offered me $133 for a 17" Sony Vaio laptop that retailed for $3000.

A couple thoughts. What did you find out about the alarm system? I'm sure you were thinking what we all were thinking. Inside job. I once had an expensive stereo put in my car and it was stolen that night by thieves working with the stereo shop. Discretely ask around about the alarm company and your landlord. See if others have been victims of similar crimes. Perhaps the police will have heard of the same M.O.

We own two homes now. Both have several layers of security. I can pull up video camera feeds of either house on my smart phone. We can arm and disarm the alarm systems from the phone. The systems cannot be defeated by cutting electrical power. They have their own battery system. Both have very loud sirens both inside and outside the homes, to alert neighbors and to annoy the burglars while inside. We have signs reading; WARNING, 24 Hour Video Surveillance, all around the house, and the cameras are quite visible. We also have the standard; Beware of Dog signs. We keep our gates that lead to each home locked and at one house they are also padlocked. We do not own any firearms (yet), but just purchased a wonderful little toy that looks a lot like a police baton, but is a very capable 120,000 volt stun gun / stick. At 19" in length, we can ward off pit bulls while staying clear of their jaws and claws.

Additionally, I would consider timers attached to reading lamps, and maybe leave a stereo turned on low while you are out. We plan to leave a disabled car in the carport of our Phoenix home to add further deterrents. Is it possible to find a trusted neighbor and pay them to babysit your apartment while you are out? It sounds a bit extreme but in my experience, people who are victims of burglary tend to become victims again. If they were successful once, they may only wait until you replace the lost property before they return. Remember, someone was watching you for days, getting to know when you were out. They may have followed you out and phoned their friends to proceed to rip you off while they stood look-out, following you around.

I hope you find a security system that frees you from worry and adequately protects your domicile.

J. Daniel

Thanks guys. One of the things I learned is the alarm rings for only 3 minutes. If the sensors aren´t  picking up motion, then it simply stops ringing. It is very well possible the alarm worked.  Of course the alarm was programmed with like a 15 second delay, so that I have time to walk up the stairs and turn off the alarm where the panel is located.  So, the burglar may have been in and out before the thing started ring. Without the alarm he may gotten a whole lot more stuff than a couple of tablets.

I had an alarm monitoring service come out last night who made some good suggestions including putting a sensor in the front patio area, getting a remote control for the alarm, placing some kind of chain on the door that results in the immediate sounding of the alarm, and placing a siren outside.  I contracted their monitoring service for $20 a month.  If the alarm sounds they will call me and come out within 6 minutes. If they can´t reach you, they will contact friends or family.

I may have been able to avoid the burglarly, or forced him to break the glass, if i had some kind of stick in the sliding track. The sliding doors are acutally adjacent to a vertical glass door. Both the sliding doors and the veritcal door lock to an aluminum bar that separates them. By applying pressure to the frame the burglar was able to slip the bolt out of its slot for the vertical door.  I have now added a stick to the track which resists that bending, and will have a secondary lock added on Monday which will apply a counter force to any effort to bend the frame again in that manner.

Of course my primary objective is going to be to prevent the burglar from pentrating the front perimeter. I will have the main lock welded on the gate so somebody can´t unscrew them, and I will add an electric fence. I would have already added the fence, but since the neighbors were also interested in having it done as well, I was holding off.

P.S.
I am going to have built a kind of vault underneath the stairwell where there is a small storage space. Essentially it will be a metal door connected to the brick walls that I can lock with a padlock.  If I am going out of town, I will put my computers, tablets, and tvs etc in there.

The BBRC in its role as Roku Jedi master was summoned to help another boomer watch Netflix yesterday. On my way to town  I stopped at the McDonalds located across from the Parque del Madre.  This is my second trip to this McDonalds. The first trip I tried to get a side saldad instead of fries, since it was promoted on the menu board. I ultimately gave up on getting that salad since it created too much confusion somebody asking for a salad.  I overheard some gringos at another table saying that had been waiting 25 minutes for their food. I wonder what they had ordered.

This time I went with the french fries from the start and got my food fast pretty fast.  I sit down in the patio area and finshed the fries first. Then I bit into my Big Mac, chewed, and then said to myself WTF? There were no meat on my burger. So, I took the Big Mac back and they gave me another after a couple minutes.  I went to the patio area and sat down, opened the container,  and once again there were no meat on my Big Mac.  Finally the third time was the charm.

P.S.
Rember that dog that bit me a couple weeks ago? Well he and two of his dog buddies were coming at me yesterday as I was walking buy and I pulled out my pepper spray and zapped them with it. It stopped them cold.

An excellent video from the Frugals on buying fruits and vegetables at Feria Libre.  I aspire to buy fruits and vegetables like them.  Some day.

P.S.

I even got replies to two of my comments.


https://www.expat.com/forum/viewforum.php?id=519

Nards Barley wrote:

.  Finally the third time was the charm.

Was it beef?  I was wondering how it compared quality wise and price wise to McD's elsewhere and also what kind of meal could you get someplace else in Cuenca that knows what a salad is.

Pepper spray does have the effect of marvelously making one wonder "why are my eyes on fire?  Am I going blind?"  Glad to hear that it makes dogs reconsider criminal acts...

Mike

Pepper spray doesnt  work on everyone/everything. When I worked at the jail after I left the service, we were trained with various thing, including pepper spray. There was one cop who did react at all the pepper spray. Crazy weird to see him sprayed with the stuff.

While I rather be eating a grinder at Fabianos, I am sttuck at home as usual waiting and hoping people will show up to address some security issues..

I killed some time working on a template for a business card for the BBRC.  I still don´t know what exactly a culture integration specialist does, but it definitely  includes troubleshooting Rokus. On that point, you can tell everybody, I´m the.......................................

Since Protec was the first to respond, I contracted them to do secuirty monitoring of my house.  However, Crime Stop came by and did an impressive sales presentation with TWO of their patrols accompanying the sales rep, and since they are closer by and cheaper at $16 a,month, I might go with them. Crime Stop is also going to be doing a sales proposal for the security fence. The guy from Crime Stop is American. His dad apparently is the owner and supposedly has been in business with Cuenca for at least 12 years. 

I had like 23 contact requests which I hadn´t bothered with because I didn´t see the point of this feature when somebody could just leave a comment or pm me.  In any case, since each contact request could be a potential client of the BBRC, I have decided to approve all contact requests. If I accidentally deleted somebody, feel free to re-send contact request.

I am pretty sure i will become a client.
by the way....yellow or green split peas?

Ah, bless your heart. I don´t think I have ever tried yellow ones, so I will say green.  I haven´t had any since I placed that order on Paypal some time ago.  I grudingly have adopted to lentils.

Nards Barley wrote:

I had like 23 contact requests which I hadn´t bothered with because I didn´t see the point of this feature when somebody could just leave a comment or pm me.

I feel the same way -- I can't see the point of 'contacts'. Perhaps someone from the Admin team could explain it.

Hello BobH

Please note that in the old version of Expat.com, it was difficult to see who wanted to add you as friend. We put this option "contacts" up because for some members it is very important to stay in contact with other members.

For example, we have lots of teachers who come here on Expat.com to offer private tuition to students, they may use the option "contacts" to see the list of students they have, it gives them more visibility and of course it help them to stay in touch with their students.

In fact, some may see that this is a useful option and some may not. But the most importantly, we made it available as we received requests for that.

Thank you and hope that i made it clearer for you

Priscilla
Expat.com team

Hey Nards,

Glad to see you are overcoming your security setback and proceeding with the BBRC.  A great, uninformative card you got there.  I am sure the patient list or memberships or whatever it is will increase tremendously as a result.  Those cards will be gold, local watering holes could have special BBRC nights, the sky is the limit.

Thanks, Priscilla.

oh the yellow are awesome! I have a big pot on my stove right now making yellow pea soup...yum yum. I will bring you both!

Nards Barley wrote:

Ah, bless your heart. I don´t think I have ever tried yellow ones, so I will say green.  I haven´t had any since I placed that order on Paypal some time ago.  I grudingly have adopted to lentils.

Yelow split peas...yum yum. I will bring you both!

During my cab ride back home today from the post office, I noticed panic buttons in the taxis. The driver said they are new and all cabs should be getting them. Of course, only some months ago they had added security cameras to the taxis as well.

So, when somebody appears to be about to be about to forcefully enter into your cab, push the panic button.

Interesting that the verbiage on the buttons is in English. Do they think Ecuadorians would have no need for it?

Sorry, that image was not taken by me but one I found on the internet. The acutal button is in Spanish as says something like "botón de auxilio¨.

P.S.
Due the fact my tablets were ripped off during the recent break-in,  I won´t be able to post any of my own photos for a while.  I am currently trying to decide which tablet to buy.

Nards Barley wrote:

Sorry, that image was not taken by me but one I found on the internet. The acutal button is in Spanish as says something like "botón de auxilio¨.

P.S.
Due the fact my tablets were ripped off during the recent break-in,  I won´t be able to post any of my own photos for a while.  I am currently trying to decide which tablet to buy.

The new Ipad air is supposed to be quite good. Much lighter than my old Ipad. However....$$$$$$$$$...there are cheaper options.

janet119 wrote:

The new Ipad air is supposed to be quite good. Much lighter than my old Ipad. However....$$$$$$$$$...there are cheaper options.

I am stricly an Android guy.  I figure I am eventually going to lose, break or have them stolen, so I look for the bagain models. Plus, I have purchased so many Spanish dictionaries from the Google Play store, I wouldn´t want to have to buy them again from the Apple store.

Nards Barley wrote:

I am stricly an Android guy.  I figure I am eventually going to lose, break or have them stolen, so I look for the bagain models. Plus, I have purchased so many Spanish dictionaries from the Google Play store, I wouldn´t want to have to buy them again from the Apple store.

Like you, I go for cheap Androids (for the same reasons). Let us know how your research/shopping goes, because I may be buying one soon, also.

I bought a Samsung Tab 3 (10.1) the last time I was in the States.  The camera sucks but I like it for portability.  My wife has it now in the States (with her niece who just had a baby) and loves it.  I like the back lit screen for reading.  We got it on sale for less than $300.  Whwn we are not home we keep it in a pit surrounded by cobras.

BobH wrote:

Nards Barley wrote:

I am stricly an Android guy.  I figure I am eventually going to lose, break or have them stolen, so I look for the bagain models. Plus, I have purchased so many Spanish dictionaries from the Google Play store, I wouldn´t want to have to buy them again from the Apple store.

Like you, I go for cheap Androids (for the same reasons). Let us know how your research/shopping goes, because I may be buying one soon, also.

I went with a refurbished Hisense Pro which is the same 7 inch tablet I had before.  I won´t be replacing the 5 inch samsung galaxy player, unless somebody starts making a decent 5 inch tablet again.   Of course most people have cell phones of this size, but I am not allowed to mail one of those over here.

http://www.rakuten.com/prod/hisense-ser … 5HPStwNw&&

I have to tell you Nards....when I first read that you had been burglarized and I read what they had taken..LOL I thought that was odd that they went for furniture. A few posts later I realized you had said TABLETS not TABLES...LOL

janet119 wrote:

I have to tell you Nards....when I first read that you had been burglarized and I read what they had taken..LOL I thought that was odd that they went for furniture. A few posts later I realized you had said TABLETS not TABLES...LOL

Yeah, I wish they had taken my dining room table, even though it and the fours chairs cost more.

All in all, I feel fortunate they only took my tablets since they could have easily of taken my bicycle and multiple computers etc..

Is is really difficult to get buy fruits and vegetables from the outdoor markets? From their videos they make it look easy, or is it just the matter of getting them to sell it to you for a good price?

alezandrie wrote:

Is is really difficult to get buy fruits and vegetables from the outdoor markets? From their videos they make it look easy, or is it just the matter of getting them to sell it to you for a good price?

Sometimes there are gringo prices, as you are perceived to have more money.  Many say that if you shop the same markets and become familiar with the vendors, speak their language and are willing to haggle you can get slightly better prices and develop true relationships of trust.

Actually, there are two sets of prices.  Both my wife (from Panamá) and our comadre go shopping at the market.  Neither want me to go as the prices would go up.  That said, they are putting up signs with an established price for the fruits, vegetables etc in some of the markets.  And even if you pay a bit more, it is way under prices in the States and a lot fresher.