Expat Community > Ecuador

jpalaska
Joined 2010
Posts: 10

From Tundra to Tropics

14 years ago

Hello All,
My name is John Paul Godfrey, and I've been living in Alaska since 1968. I've had a wonderful life up here. I came up here as a VISTA volunteer (domestic Peace Corps). I lived in a small traditional Yupik Eskimo village in Bristol Bay. I slept on the floor of the Council house. It was a subsistence village so I participated in the hunting, fishing and trapping activities with my new families who taught me how to survive and contribute to their community without killing myself. I learned much of the Yupik language, even though it isn't a written language. Later I helped them get better housing, water/sewer, and electricity. The village had no store, except for a couple of people that sold pop, candy and cigarettes. I helped them develop their own business plan and get funding for their community cooperative store. It's still a successful business, after all these years.
My career in Alaska became community and small business development all over Alaska, both in the Native and 'white' worlds up here. I helped develop new ventures in retail, wholesale, fish processing, tourism, arts & crafts, mining, air taxis, construction, and technology transfer with inventors and innovators. I taught business and entrepreneurship courses as an adjunct at the University of Alaska. During the 90's and early 00's I taught 9 six week business courses in Entrepreneurship to over 300 excellent students in the Russian Far East cities of Komsomolsk, Magadan, and Khabarovsk. My students told me I was the best business teacher they ever had. And some of them were Russian 'mafia', so no one ever gave me any problems in those cities! I also lived in Denmark in the 70's and have visited Mexico and Venezuela.
Anyhow, that's just some of my background.
I'm 64, and thinking about retirement in Latin America. I'm not wealthy, but I have some $ saved and social security. I’ve done a lot of research on Costa Rica, but I’m also very interested in Ecuador.
I always do research and due diligence. I've read many Ecuador blogs so far. I’m working on a Pimsleur Spanish course (I took 4 years of Latin in school). I have no intention of buying any real estate in Ecuador after I sell my house up here. And I wouldn't want to live in a gated community with just expats. My plan is to visit Ecuador and Costa Rica next year, to start investigating if I would want to retire in either country. I will also visit Cartagena, Colombia on that trip. I have an old Alaskan friend who just moved there after 20 years in Venezuela.
So, other than continuing to read web sites and learn some Espanol, what do you suggest I do to prepare myself for my first visit to Ecuador next year? (one thing I'm thinking is to bring a couple litres of sun block and start using more the sauna I have in my house, to get used to HEAT.
I would really appreciate your comments and suggestions.
Thanks,
JP

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