IBARRA

Much if not most of Ecuador has been google streetviewed, Including Ibarra.

You can drive the google car around and take a look. Doesn't look like any great shakes, but a nice enough tidy well-kept town.

I picked a random centralish street view, get in the google car and look around -

https://www.google.com/maps/@0.3526512, … 312!8i6656

The main roads in Ibarra were flooded the rainy evening I drove through earlier this month, December of 2016.

Another factor is that the percentage of Gringos in town is much less than in Expat favorites such as Cuenca, Quito, Cotacachi and Vilcabamba.

cccmedia

cccmedia the gringo thing good or bad? hahah

kathy Fitz wrote:

cccmedia the gringo thing good or bad?

Depends on what you’re looking for.

Most Expats like the company of other Gringos from time to time.

A few prefer a Gringo-free environment where they never hear complaints about the mañana attitude, problems with dealing with Ecuador’s creative bureaucracy or the many perspectives on Donald Trump.

cccmedia

[Re: Having Gringoes around good or bad]

I think perspectives will widely differ. What's yours, kathy Fitz?

Here's mine.

Some expats have no intention to assimilate or learn the language and as such want to solely take advantage of lower cost of living. Some of these people want to maintain as much as possible from their native country here as possible and that includes having friends who speak their language.

This in actuality is no different in many ways than immigrants from developing countries who migrant to developed nations to take advantage of better quality of life but at the same time don’t assimilate nor make an effort to learn the language and mainly socialize with people from their native country.

There are others however who want to learn the language because it makes sense as it makes life easier here but they don't want to assimilate for whatever reasons.

There are yet others who not only want to learn the language but also assimilate and  become part of local society. And the likelihood of this happening increases the more one delves in one’s new country.

Ultimately, people have different circumstances, different motivations and as such have different expectations for the country they migrated to.

Which category does one moving  to or living here want to be? Or is there another category one wants to share?

I for one favour the assimilation model,as it is much more fun knowing the local people.  However, in the Vilcabamba area, where a lot of business lies in catering to North Americans, Europeans, etc., there can be an opportunistic slant to relations.  Can you blame Ecuadoreans for this philosophy , gringos have themselves promoted it unwittingly.  For true community relations, this can getting to know whole families and being involved in their lives in some way, or volunteering. There are opportunities everywhere.