It’s been feeling like we’ve had a cloud over us for some time now but as we’ve learned to take that big deep breath, we’ve now been seeing changes. Good, positive changes. Not every step forward is followed by a step back.
It helps that Tali, Max, Athena, and Jup are always ready to cuddle or make us laugh by being themselves. Tali will sit on our feet, Max will chase Tali, Jup makes this tiny “maih” squeak of a meow, and Athena has a habit of finding herself in any drawer left open. We sometimes don’t see her until it looks like a sock has become sentient.
Paperwork!!! and people being ….people :/
So some more progress has happened, we’ve got our building permits!!!! So from the start of finding an architect and planning the layout through multiple submissions, rule changes, fixing mistakes, bugging people to follow up on anything and everything until now, it only took…… 6 months.
It felt surreal to finally be holding it in our hands, and took a day at least before we really even realized it actually finally happened. We have the approved plan folder in our hands, with the permit inside, and it still feels a little like it’s not real. So now though we can move forward with the next part, actually contracting a construction crew and breaking ground! This is both nerve-wracking and very exciting. We’ve had a chance to meet with the dude from the crew and sort out some details, which has also put our minds at ease.
WE START NEXT WEEK!!!!
Yes. Next Monday construction begins. It’s been a month of surrealism.
We also finally (express delivery my arse, more on that later) received the (hopefully) final paperwork needed for Roger’s Amparo/Visa. So we immediately made copies and headed to Quito AGAIN to submit them. More waking up at 4:30am for the 5:30am bus. Multiple snooze-buttons later and taking time to make breakfast for the furballs and coffee for ourselves we managed to hop on the 6am bus instead.
Once finally at the office and after waiting in line (ET42, took this as a good sign) we got to go up to the booth and submit the paperwork. So a certain someone really must need a coffee with a half a bottle of whiskey in it (hold the coffee).
The person who’s job it is to accept our submissions into the file immediately asks “so what is this?” with a tone reminiscent of a driving instructor having a bad day. So we point out the email and the letter and say we’re here to submit the final paperwork, only to get, yep more questions without this person even looking at the documents. Flipping the pages while glaring in another direction does not reading make. They weren’t even trying to hide their disdain.
So basically the paperwork we needed was in Canada and we had to have it couriered down to Ecuador. Fine, ok. We got all that, got it translated, notarized, and legalized at the consulate in Toronto just as the email requested and it was shipped. This person demanded that we have info pertaining to Ecuador and foreign records don’t count. HAS TO BE Ecuadorian they say…… So we argued, they argued back. They were adamant it be from Ecuador.
It got to a point we had to drop the “lawyer” bomb on them. We discussed it with not just one but two different lawyers who basically told us the same thing: so long as it’s legit, notarized, and legalized by the Consulate in Toronto it’s fine. This wonderful section in THEIR OWN EMAIL was nice too:
en caso de estados de cuentas de entidades extranjeras, estas deberán ser certificadas por un funcionario del servicio exterior ecuatoriano del país donde haya sido emitido el documento o concurrente para ese país.
En Ingles:
In the case of statements of accounts of foreign entities, they must be certified by an official of the Ecuadorian foreign service of the country where the document has been issued or concurrent for that country.
So once again no one seems to know what they’re doing or understand their own rules. Or at least they’re good enough at playing dumb in order to make life hard for people for whatever their own reasons are we can’t fathom. As politely as we could between this and the “our lawyers told us…” mic drop much grumbling happened, a petty “they probably will deny it and you won’t get approved, oh but we’ll see” was passed along, and finally also demanding that we submit everything in a manilla envelope. The final straw. So we piled all of it into the one we brought our documents in, nicely torn open and feo (ugly) as all get out. More tut-tutting and grumbling happened, but they nonetheless stapled our email to the envelope, stamped and signed a copy acknowledging it was submitted while shaking their head the entire time. Then with much relief, we finally smiled and left.
We went in search of beer to celebrate, munched on fritada on the bus ride back north, had more beer in Otavalo and finally felt a bit more at ease, and eventually finally arrived home again and crashed.
Tali and her stitches
So we got Tali fixed. Do you think a young dog would know to leave a scab alone to heal? Hells no.
The day of her surgery we brought her home in a cab. She was so stoned.
Something Gone and Something New
It’s a huge physical sign of change, we’ve had the giant concrete washing block removed then replaced with a flat concrete floor, the water piping moved and new grifos (taps) installed. This is going to be a temporary brewing area until the brewery itself is finally built. It’s nice to have some protection from the rain.
We also couldn’t resist marking the concrete (neither did the cats, not sure who but one left a paw print). So we etched in a few sayings into the edge while it was wet.
Once we finish repainting the walls we’ll be putting the washer/dryer back in place, having a utility sink installed, and moving all the brewing gear in to get our picnic table back. Will be nice to be semi-civilized again.
Yes right now all the large brewing gear is stacked on the picnic table under a sheet. Classy.
Down in the Dirt
We are the proud owners of a beautiful shiny yellow wheelbarrow. It’s purdy.
Besides being a great excuse to listen to some very awesome tunes, we’ve begun digging a massive hole in our backyard where that bloody feo plastic sheet shed used to be.
THIS IS GOING TO BE THE NEW BREWERY 😀
‘Cause why the hell not.
IPA first brew test! (Happily named Hapi Tali)
Aromatic and floral with just the right amount of bitterness, and refreshing as hell. Next time we make this it’s going to be a 5 gallon batch. 1 gallon snack size just did not last long enough.
Basically the concept was simple: what did we want to drink?
Something bloody hoppy that’s what. So that’s what we did.
Ginger beer
One thing is lacking here that stands out in our minds: Ginger Beer. Roger loves the stuff but finding it is damn near impossible. So we cooked up some of our own. Finding ginger root is one thing, pronouncing it in Spanish is another when asking for it at the mercado. Jengibre. Hen-hee-bray. Say it five times fast I dare you.
Turned out alright so far in test batches but nothing like good old Grace’s, or that ridiculously amazing stuff we used to get in Kensington Market at Thomas Lavers Deli. But not too shabby for early attempts.
Dark Lager (Ahem, excuse me, it’s “Darth Lager”)
The staple of the our brewing repertoire, it’s a wee bit different with the available ingredients down here. It’s not even dark. No joke it’s like a light brown ale colour. The original back in Canada was like a black hole.
Still damn tasty though. We’ve tried several test batches mixing up the malts a bit and Malena even did a 1 gallon on her own to get more familiar with the brewing process (and to see how badly Roger writes instructions). So far so good. Can’t wait until the beer cellar under the future brewery is finished and we can ferment at something less than hotashell.
That being said, we’ll be renaming this variation something more suitable, just not sure what yet.
Canucking
So not long ago over Easter weekend Cotacachi had a festival. With tents and food and all manner of cool things happening. One of those tents was La Fortaleza Cerveceria out of Otavalo. We got to meet the owners/head brewers and picked up a few nice big cups of some damn fine beer over the weekend. Even took home a mix pack of bottles.
We walked around town with these honkers in our hands, even past the police. No problem.
Later on Saturday night there was a free concert and we decided to enjoy more massive beers sitting down comfortably. Everyone was either sitting on the very limited amount of grass, against a rather uncomfortable fence, or standing.
So out came the folding chairs. Yes. Roger ran home and brought them out. Those ubiquitous sights at any event or camping trip in Canada. If only their cup holders were bigger.
We did get some funny looks.
We don’t know why, but someone left their empty tank out on the street during Easter. It was just kinda funny that this was right at the corner of Parque Matriz with tons of people milling about.
Now about certain Easter traditions….
FANESCA! It’s an Ecuadorian Easter fish stew/soup/gloriousness and if you’ve never had it before plan on getting some next year. Mark it in your calendar right now. It’s got an ingredient list as long as Michael Jordan’s arms and takes most of your lifetime to prepare but if done right is absolutely delicious.
We had some here in town. Totally worth it.
There’s also a huge amount of street food at these festivals and we are loving it. Like with the election, entire streets were blocked off to vehicle traffic in favour of tents, many of which were serving fish dishes (Easter y’all) of all kinds. We gorged ourselves on a fried fish platter and it was amazing. Chatted with the family sitting at the table with us with barely any elbow room to speak of and it was a blast.
Tali making friends
Tali is a pretty aggressively playful pup and is only now getting familiar with her own strength. She loves other dogs and wants to play with all of them. What she’s had to learn the hard way is that many street dogs (she’s had her shots) are very skittish and take time to get used to a new face. So her habit of immediately lunging her nose forward and trying to tackle another dog to play doesn’t always go over so well. Sometimes it goes over just fine. She’s made friends with just about every dog in the neighbourhood, stray or ones owned by our neighbours. We’ve started naming them to keep track of them all. Sure they don’t mind the treats either.
Sloppy, Floppy, Little Floppy, Ninja, Poor Roof Guy, Floppidy, Beige, Iswallowyoursoul, and possibly her absolutely bestest bud in the entire town, a grizzled but smiley grey pooch we’ve started calling Gandalf. They happily wrestle like mad when he’s doing ok. When he’s hungry he generally focuses on the treats in Roger’s pocket more than playing but he’s a gentle soul we’ve put food out for when we catch him in our area. There’s plenty more dogs around but we haven’t gotten that far along in naming yet.
5-day late express
So as previously mentioned above, we were supposed to have received our rather important paperwork on a particular Monday. Plans were made, days arranged, logistics dealt with.
It didn’t arrive until the Friday.
When Fedex is delivering something outside their normal delivery areas they contract local companies to do the job, what they call ODA Agents (Out of Delivery Area). In this case it was one called Urbano Express (my arse).
Many phone calls in between, many phone calls hung up on, many phone calls not even answered. No one bothered to tell us or even Fedex for that matter that the company only delivers on Fridays (once again, express my arse). They’d received it the previous week and it just sat in their office that entire time. So the next time we’re shipping anything from Canada that is time sensitive we’re coming up with a different plan.
Remember that movie….Arachnobaby, no wait…. Archiepheonix, wait….
So we have giant spiders in our backyard being uprooted by the removal of the shed, and eventually the construction. Seriously, they’re friggin’ huge. Discovered them when tearing down that shed. They had even taken down small birds. Badass buggers.
So that’s it for now. A big hole, paperwork for multiple things are resolved, demolition and construction imminent, bird killing monster spiders, new concrete, and a soon-to-be-brewery. Times they be a changing.
So long and thanks for all the fried Easter fish.
