Over the past few months I have written about many of the practical reasons that motivate ordinary people to pack their bags and take off for a life overseas. Let us now take a look at first-hand reports.
This author is of North American origin and is now living abroad in Ecuador.
"Distributed seemingly at random around the plaza are "ambulantes", small carts selling anticuchos (marinated chicken hearts skewered on bamboo stakes and roasted over charcoal fires), cigarettes and candy, hot Andean cocktails consisting of pure cane liquor flavored with cinnamon and unknown Indian spices, and raspadillas, the local version of the venerable snow cone. The shaved ice treats are unique in our experience in that every morning before dawn incredibly strong-legged and lunged Indians literally run up twisting trails two hours to the edge of the icecap, to hack cooler-sized blocks of ice from the face of the glacier, wrap them in woven carryall blankets, and run back down to the square to provide the raspadilla-vendors their raw material for the day. Ice, inviolate since the ancient days of the last ice age, frozen before the first drop of acid rain or choking smoke from the first internal combustion engine sullied the atmosphere of the planet, is shaved from these blocks and flavored with sticky syrups of myriad flavors and colors."
This was extracted from his article Semana Santa in the Sierra.
If that mouth-watering description doesn't tempt you to book a seat on the next plane, then maybe living abroad is not for you.
I am certain that any readers who know the author will join me in sending their best wishes for his new venture overseas.
