THREE WHOLE YEARS

 YEP----- today marks exactly three years ago we ventured beyond the safe confines of our home in Tucson and risked starting our new life in the foreign country of Ecuador. Looking back I can now wonder " Why did we not do this sooner. " I could not be happier. I could not have, at the time, foreseen the positive changes that awaited us in this beautiful, friendly , welcoming country.
Now , I must digress into why I have not been blogging for awhile.
Last summer, we had a wonderful experience of travelling to a near-by beach resort with our new found friends, an Ecuadorian family. We planned a week long stay on the beach about a 4 hour bus ride from Cuenca. Upon arrival at the bus terminal in Machala I was rudely introduced to the seamy side of life here.
As we exited the bus and rounded up our suitcases, I became uncomfortable wearing my jacket as it was very humid and hot. I removed my back pack and stripped off my jacket and placed it in my back pack. I then placed my back pack on top of all our suitcases. There were 4 of us standing around, "guarding " our belongings. Just then a man said" Are these your keys" pointing to a set on the ground. As we all shifted our attention to the keys, his accomplice reached in and took my back pack. I lost my high end binoculars, my expensive camera with extra zoom lens, my e-book for downloading books to read, and to me, my valuable bird books with all my notes about bird sightings. I was devastated to say the least.However, since we were just beginning our trip and not wanting to spoil anyone's vacation, I sucked it up and bravely went on. It wasn't until I returned home did I really acknowledge my loss and feel the pain.
I am over it now.  I have replaced my binoculars and camera and have usurped Sharyl's e-book as mine. The loss of my irreplaceable bird books is still a painful reminder of this shocking and devastating event.
That is the big reason for this long hiatus from new posts. I was for a long time not able to take any pictures to illustrate any of my posts until I replaced my camera. I needed my binoculars first.
So that sad story is now well in the past. I do not harbor any hard feeling about Ecuador because of this difficult situation. It could have happened anywhere, and has. Now I just want to celebrate my new and continuing life in Ecuador. Stay tuned---