I am very excited to be in Ecuador! It was a very interesting first couple of days! But the main reason for this post is to tell you a story about "pounding the pavement". We arrived 2 days ago and were not impressed with where we were staying. So we had a taxi drop us off at what we thought was the Salinas malecon, but ended up being the Chippipe malecon (I'm sure that spellings are incorrect here). We literally pounded the pavement and went into every condo lobby here. We actually found 2 condos for rent in 2 separate locations, ready to move in immediately. We ended up chosing the one that we liked the best and moved in last night! It's a beautiful condo right on the beach with a breathtaking view. By the way, we do not speak any spanish. The moral of this story is: you can do something like this, don't be scared! :)