May 18 - June 10, 2022: A Trip to Fort Lauderdale
	April 29 - May 6, 2022: A Househunting Trip to Ecuador
	Return to the Index for 2022

As a result of our househunting trip to Ecuador, the three of us have settled on a particular house, and before we left for home, we began the process of purchasing it. This process won't be completed for at least 60 days; things go slower in Ecuador than in the US. But we fully expect to become the proud owners of this house in about that time (and indeed the transaction did finalize about the middle of June.

On this page, I want to tell you about the house- where it is and what it is like- using the pictures that the three of us took while we were touring it with our Realtor.

Where are Ecuador, Quito, Cumbayá, and the House?

Before we take a look at the house itself, let's look at the area where it is located.

Ecuador is almost due south of Miami. Many of the non-stop flights to Quito from the US leave from there, although other cities may have non-stop or direct flights as well. There are non-stop flights from, Ft Lauderdale, Atlanta and Houston and lots of connecting flights through places like Mexico City, Panama City and Bogotá. The interesting thing is, and it's one thing many folks often forget, is just how far east the entire continent of South America is. In fact, if you flew due south from Miami, you would entirely miss South America on the west (but just barely).

Ecuador is is about two-fifths the size of Texas, although it has about 60% of the population that Texas has. Most of the Ecuadorians live in Quito and Guayaquil, althouth most US expats seem to prefer Cuenca, in the south.

Quito is the capital, and its international airport is one of the busiest in South America.

The map at left, which is approximately 10 miles on a side, shows the area relevant to our house search around Quito.

Quito occupies a long, high mountain valley (22 miles long and 1-3 miles wide - think a 9 mile longer version of Manhattan), with the newer part of the city to the north and the older colonial capital to the south (first UNESCO Heritage Site in the world). They have traced human settlement here to 8000 BC and the historical center buildings themselves are built on the top of prior Inca buildings. When we were here for our Galapagos cruise, we spent all our time in the older section of the city; to date we haven't physically seen the newer part of the city.

To the east of Quito is a range of very high hills, and to the east of that a series of large valleys and smaller arroyos. This area is almost 1500 feet lower than Quito itself, and so with a height about the same as Santa Fe New Mexico, people are often more comfortable in Cumbayá or Tumbaco.

The new international airport is about fifteen miles outside Quito, but surprisingly is only a twenty-minute, 8-mile, $15 Uber ride from the center of Cumbayá.

The smaller map at right is about 1.5 miles wide and 1 mile tall- a relatively small area. The center of Old Cumbayá is Parque Cumbayá- a traditional Spanish square with a fountain in the middle, a church on one side, and small shops and restaurants along the other sides. Surrounding the park for a couple of short blocks are other shops and such crowded together- a great place to walk.

At either end of the main street that traverses Cumbayá northwest to southeast are the Scala Mall on the southeast, and the Paseo San Francisco on the northeast. The major street connecting them descends a good deal from Paseo San Francisco to Scala, while the streets that go through old Cumbayá down to the Scala area slope a bit less. The red line on the map is the Ruta Ecológica El Chaquiñán de Cumbayá, a 22-km walking, hikng, biking trail that begins just near Parque Cumbayá and continues through the valley rising and falling 500 feet in sections. It is perhaps the nicest way to get from Old Cumbayá to Scala Mall.

But most of the activity in Cumbayá is centered on this area; surrounding it in all directions are numerous communities- some gated, some not- that cater to a wide variety of styles and income levels.

If we zero in further, concentrating on the few blocks around the Paseo San Francisco Mall, you can see the house for the first time. I have marked one of the two roads from Cumbayá that one would take to go into Quito proper. It ascends rapidly up to a new tunnel that leads through the high hills and into the new part of the city.

Running south from an intersection right by the mall is the main street that descends rapidly at first and then levels out to end up going by Scala Mall a mile or two later. A taxi ride from Scala to San Francisco is just under $2. This is the first time I have seen taximeters go up by pennies, rather than nickels or dimes. (You can call an Uber for the same route, and sometimes they are even a little cheaper.)

You can see that we are right by the university, and so this area seems much like a college town, and at lunchtime the mall food court is thronged with young students, far outnumbering the older folks in the mall to actually shop. I have also marked the trailhead for El Chaquiñán, as the ecolological trail is known.

Finally, the gated community in which our house is located is just south of the mall itself. Some of the houses in the community are quite close to the mall, but ours is pretty much at the furthest point.

Finally, let's zero in on the gated community where the house we are buying is located.

Our gated community, Santa Lucia, is located just south of Paseo San Francisco; it was actuall developed before the mall was built. It is basically a circular road with houses around the outside and some in the center- along with a 1-acre park for kids and anyone else. The guardhouse is manned 24/7 with multiple guards (you have to get something for your $79 HOA fee) and is right behind the mall.

Now for the odd thing. As it turns out, the developer of this community decided that he would also live here, along with other members of his family. So he set aside the prime location at the place furthest from the mall and any major street and built three houses in the same style. Then he gated THAT part of the development. His family still lives in one of the houses, and his mother has a small cottage just over our patio wall. I am not sure who lives in the third house. But entry to this compound of three houses is restricted to the three owners involved.

It's a "gated community within a gated community"!

Anyway, I've marked the house we are hoping to buy on this last aerial view. It has views to the east and south, and the views it has to the north and west are such that you can't see the mall or either of the major streets. Yet the house is literally steps away from restaurants, groceries, the mall, and a zillion other shops. It is about five blocks from Parque Cumbayá and about six blocks from the beginning of the ecological trail.

If you would like to locate the house precisely on Google Maps, you don't have to try to duplicate the "zeroing-in" that I have done. All you need to do is to enter the "Google Plus" code into a Google search box in your browser and you will be put into the Maps app and automatically focused on the house. The "Google Plus" code is: QHX7+F7R Quito

Exterior

Finally, it's time to have a look at the house itself. When you come through the gate, there is a house on your left and on your right, and ours is straight ahead. It runs from the carport at the left of the left-hand picture below through the rest of the house as shown in the right hand image.

In the left-hand picture you can see the carport. If you follow the walkway from the carport along the back of the house to the kitchen door, you will first pass a small, separate building that contains the maid's quarters (which is basically a simple room and a bathroom, the room just big enough for a twin bed, wardrobe, table and whatnot) and the laundry laundry room. There is a washer and dryer there now, but also a clothesline for outdoor drying. You can see a view of this building from the back door that leads into the kitchen here. Between this building and the kitchen door, there is also a free-standing brick utility sink- ideal for washing those bulky items or pets that might not fit in the washing machine.

Also in the left-hand picture you can see a corner window first-floor front; this is the window for Living Room A. Back behind it is the window for Living Room B. On the second floor, the window is for Small Bedroom 1. And the very small window on the second floor is the window for the Small Bedroom 2 Bath.

Looking at the right-hand image, you see the front door, of course, and to the right the Dining Room window. The window adjacent to the potted plants is the window for Living Room C. On the second floor, above the front door, are the windows for Small Bedroom 2. Just to the right is the front window for what we will call the Landing- a room at the top of the stairs of of which the three bedrooms branch. To the right of that are some of the windows for the Master Bedroom.

First Floor

Let's head up the steps and into the wood front door.

When you enter the front door, you are in the entry hall. To your left, at the front of the house is an area that we'll call Living Room A. The house has three small public areas, each like a small living room, and this one is at the left front of the house on the first floor. It has a working fireplace.

If you look diagonally towards the back corner of the house near the carport, you will see the area we'll call Living Room B- shown at left. It is another separated sitting area, and you will notice that you must go up two steps to get to it. Incidentally, all the floors on the ground level are inlaid marble while upstairs they are all real wood planks.

If you are still in the entry hall, there are also two steps up right in front of you leading up to the transverse corrior of the house, which we'll see in a moment. Diagonally to your right is an opening with railings that looks down towards the basement level - an indoor skylight. Finally, to your immediate right and up two steps, you will see the Dining Room. It is also at the front of the house.

So, as you see, the first floor of the house is on two levels, with the entry and Living Room A being two steps down from everything else.

Let's now cross the corner of Living Room A and go up the two steps to Living Room B. When we get there let's turn with our back towards the window and look down the transverse corridor of the house.

The Transverse Corridor

There are two ways to get from one end of the house to the other on the ground floor. One is to go up two steps to either Living Room B (or actually the two steps right in front of you which also lead up to the transverse corridor) and then walk down the corridor, or you can turn right, go up two steps to the dining room, and then pass through the dining room to the other living space at the other end of the house.

The picture at left looks from Living Room B down this corridor. (That's the owner of the house talking to Patty, our Realtor, Greg is partway down the corridor, and one of the listing agents pointing out the "social bath" (we call it we would call it a powder room or half-bath) that is behind the curved wall behind the owner and Patty. If you go around the end of that wall near the window, you will find a typical half-bath with an actual door. A nice touch to shield the powder room door from view.

Behind the listing agent are the steps leading down to Living Area A, and just to Greg's right are the steps down to the foyer. You can't see them clearly here, but just ahead of Greg on his left is the circular staircase up to the second level and down to the basement. And ahead of him to his right is the open space that looks down into the basement area.

As you have no doubt realized, this makes the marble floor ahead of Greg a sort of "bridge" over part of the basement- really an interesting touch. When I proceed down the corridor and get to a position between the stairway and the overlook, I can look right across that opening towards the dining room.

At that same spot, if I look to my left, I am looking out a curved window that looks out to the back of the house. You can just see the curved stairs going down to the basement, and the curved stairs going up to the second floor, are to my left. You can see all of that here.

When you get to the other end of the house, you find yourself in a third living area- this one the largest of the three. It is situated, as you can see, at the right front corner of the house. (The builder seems to have been fond of corner windows, and they are certainly a nice touch.) At the point where I am standing, the dining room is just out of the picture to the right, and the opening to the kitchen behind me and to my left.

I have two more pictures that I took from this spot, and they are below:

This is another view of this third living area. You can see better in this picture how light and bright the house is, what with all the expanses of plate glass.

From the third living area, we look back across the house through the beautiful arched door from the Kitchen to the Dining Room. You can see Living Room A at the far end.

As we move through the entryway from the Dining Room and Living Room C into the kitchen, there is a door immediately on your right that leads out and down some steps to the walled garden area- a private space inacessible except through the house itself.

This view looks from the patio door down onto the patio itself. There is the obligator outdoor cooking arrangement, and you can see one of the four or five fruit trees that are planted in the garden, which runs along the side of the house out of the picture to the right.

I have come down onto the patio, and am looking back at the door to the kitchen. The kitchen also has expansive windows at this end, and most of them can be opened.

The kitchen was one of the nicest things about the house. Fully-equipped, with more counter space that I imagined, it runs all along the back of the house, from the door that comes up from the carport (and which passes the maid's quarters and the laundry room) to the door at the other end that leads out to the patio and garden.

This view looks from the patio door across the kitchen to the door from the carport. The kitchen is huge, and it was totally remodeled in January of this year! All the cabinetry is custom-made, and has every storage option known to man. The only thing it doesn't have is a dishwasher, but space was conveniently left for one.

This view looks from a point beyond the island in the left-hand picture back towards the patio window. As you can see, there is an eat-in breakfast area. Everyone is looking at the built-in pantry with neat slide-out drawers. (I don't think I have ever seen actual drawers in a corner!)

The Basement

Next, we went back to the stairs in the middle of the house and went down to the basement. This area was the only odd area of the house, for apparently the owners never used it for much other than storage. There are two big rooms, then the stairs up to the main floor, then a smaller room underneath Living Area C. There is another half-bath down here just behind the photographer in the picture on the right. You can see the light coming from the interior skylight just on the right side of the same photo.

The Second Floor

All the bedrooms were on the second floor. There was a master suite with a fireplace and two good-sized second bedrooms, each with its own bath. In the middle of the second floor, there is an area (notice the solid wood planking on the second floor) suitable for an office or common area, maybe ten feet wide, that runs from the front of the house to the back across the second floor.

The stairs up to the second floor put you into the second floor common area; each of the bedrooms open off this area, which has windows on the front and back of the house. In the picture at left, Greg is looking out the windows at the front of the house; the dining room is directly below him.

To the left in that picture, you can see the doorway to the Master Suite, and out of the picture to the right are the doorways to the two second bedrooms.

At the other end of this room, behind me, there are windows, as I said, but there is also a door out to the second floor terrace. The terrace has a view to the south.

Let's have a look at the master suite.

The master bedroom suite is located at the south end of the house. The bedroom itself, shown at left, is at the front of the house, and the closets and master bath are behind it. In the picture I took at left, there is a working fireplace behind me as well as a little sitting area at the front of the house near the windows.

From the windows of the master bedroom, you can look across to the developer's house in this compound, and you can also look northwestward at the mountains that lie between Cumbayá and Quito. The view is pretty amazing. Having another house close by is not the liability I thought it might have been.

The arrangement of the master bedroom closets and the master bath is interesting.

Near the door to the entrance to the bedroom, you look down what appears to be a long hall of closets with a room at the end. The mirror at the end of the "hall of closets" gives this impression. The closets are all quite deep- not just shelves.

Halfway down the closet hall on the right is the master bath. It has about as many windows as you can have without being an exhibitionist. There's a double vanity, jacuzzi tub and, behind me, a large glass shower and commode.

To complete our tour of the house, let's take a look at the two other bedrooms. These two bedrooms are both longer than they are wide, but they aren't side by side but rather perpendicular to each other.

The large windows in the front bedroom are right over the front door, making the view from this bedroom looking northwest. But there is also the side corner window that has a view to the northeast, looking past the gate of this little compound, across the community park, and northeast in the general direction of the airport.

Of course this bedroom had a full bath. The owner had two twin beds set up in this room, but with only one queen-size bed there would be plenty of room for a sitting area.

The other bedroom had its long dimension parallel with the long dimension of the house, and it was situated at the back, near the carport.

The owners are downsizing, and perhaps that is why this bedroom was not set up. The view from the main window looks across the roof of the carport towards the southeast.

But from the corner window, the view is out past the front gate of the compound and to the community park- a view similar to that of the front bedroom.

Of course, this bedroom also had a full bath, with the high windows looking out at the vegetation at the back of the house.

I should have done an actual house tour by taking a long movie, but for some reason I did not. Our Realtor, Patty, however, did take a couple of movies with her phone. I am going to include them here, even though they are basically numerous small "cuts" seemingly stitched together. They are a little hard to follow, but perhaps they will add to the still pictures that we took.

If I find that Fred or Greg have additional pictures, I will add them later.

You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	May 18 - June 10, 2022: A Trip to Fort Lauderdale
	April 29 - May 6, 2022: A Househunting Trip to Ecuador
	Return to the Index for 2022