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Tuesday, June 20th, we arrived in San Clemente after a pleasant drive from Canoa. We met Tom and Lynn Saunders at their office (Ecuador Beachfront Properties), and Tom invited us to share a delicious lunch of homemade "vichy", a wonderful seafood stew.
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Entering the Saunders "compound", the office and their home are on the right, workshop on the left, and in front on the beach is the swimming pool - flanked on both sides by the condo buildings.
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From the beachside, you can see the twin buildings of their condo project.
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Inside a unit in Ensenada del Pacifico, you enter into a huge kitchen, complete with beautiful cabinets and granite countertops.
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Looking from the kitchen towards the ocean is the spacious living area.
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Everywhere we go in Ecuador, we meet such wonderful people! Upon arriving at our lodging for the next 3 days, we met Jody & Wayne, the owners of "Casa Aventura". Within minutes, they make you feel as if you're staying at a friend's home whom you've known for years!
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And what a beautiful home it is... our room was upstairs in the "penthouse"! So comfortable!!
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That evening, we walked to a great nearby restaurant, Ceibo y Bambu, where our host, Vicente, and his wife (a chef from Barcelona) served us a wonderful dinner, cooked on a real fireplace-type grill. (Charcoal burning pizza oven on the side.)
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Doug's fish (dorado) was cooked on the grill before our eyes. And this is actually the first time we've had papas (potatoes) since we've been in Ecuador! Normally, it's rice, patacones, and ensalada. But YUM!!
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On Wednesday, we walked around this small fishing village - such a friendly little town. The beach is quite different here - at high tide, the water comes most of the way up to the rock seawall, leaving not much actual beach.
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However, there are small "cove type" areas - like this one in front of the fishermen's spot (where they bring their boats ashore and unload their catch).
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The next day, Lynn Saunders picked us up and showed us several potential properties. We headed south to the adjoining town of San Jacinto - most towns seem to have a statue of some sort in the middle of town - here it is a "ballena" (a whale).
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One of the homes we saw was here in San Jacinto, about 2 blocks from the beach, with a terrific oceanview and breeze from the second floor balcony! Like many Ecuadorian properties, it needed some work, but could be a great place to live!
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