Who would have thought we would end up in a cottage when settling in Quito?  situated in the backyard of  Señora Sari (Sara) Torres’ property.  She is “old money” in this society, her home being in this community for more than 35 years. It must have looked very different in times past, now it is a gated community. One passes through a well manned gate into the area, and inside it is somewhat of an oasis, with own clubhouse, little church, playgrounds and tennis courts all covering an area of 20 – 25 acres right on the escarpment towards one of the valleys around Quito . It is a mix of huge villas and reconstructed homes turned into apartments, mainly occupied by old money and diplomats; it is hard to get a real impression of the homes when walking the quiet lanes, all are behind high walls with elaborate huge wooden or metal gates. Behind the gates German Sheppard’s and other nasty snarling, barking, drooling dogs. Our yard has two beagles, named Ariana and Gaston, barking yes, but not much bigger than you could step on them should they get to frisky.
Sari is the Matriarch of this homestead, she lives with her daughter in one half of the main house, and in the other are her son, daughter-in-law and two 4 – 6 year old sons. Our cottage was built for her other son, but he moved to Guayaquil, the main port (I think) of Ecuador about 270km south west of here. So our present home is rented, but solely to teachers from Academia Cotopaxi.
We had pizza and a couple of bottles of excellent Chilean wine the other night in Sari’s home and got much of her life story. She is married, second marriage, to a Norwegian, he is in Stavanger in Norway working in oil of course, she is here, something about problems with his daughter. But he apparently visits quite often so she expects he and I can have some discussions about our brotherly nationalities. Could be, at least we all know that the Norwegian Vikings were very nasty specimens while the Danish were real nice and cuddly.

It has been a very soft landing, much due to the fact that we were shown this place the day after arriving and on the fourth day moved into a fully furnished (although not very comfortable furniture) house including everything in the kitchen, just unpack the suitcases and hang in the closets and put in the drawers. Even the internet was operational same day we moved in, and TV was set up a couple of days later. A maid was arranged for a weekly cleaning and washing of clothes.

Will we stay here? probably not the whole time in Quito. It’s calm and quiet here and only a slightly breathtaking uphill walk of 15 min. to Sherry’s work, but one of the things we envisioned when moving here was living with a view.
With Quito placed in a valley (or sort of several valleys), the city is 8km wide and 50km long surrounded by mountains and with a least 3 volcanoes within visibility (on clear days), the views are often, in addition to the thin air, quite simply breathtaking.
The problem could be availability though, together with a number of other new teachers and families we spend the first 4 days in Quito looking at apartments, we saw 20+ places, nothing that just said “this is it”. But we will find it under the criteria close enough to the school for walking, big enough for us and guests, safe area, and of course THE View, like that one: