I'm moving to Cuenca, Ecuador! - Interview

is easy to do to support people foreign people you know on the streets it's all because of you you know [Laughter] [Music] Ecuador I recognize some desirable destination for those seeking a better quality of life my name is Karen and my husband and I came to Cuenca Ecuador to find what is so appealing for people from the United States Canada and other parts of the world that want to live here in Cuenca Ecuador I had the opportunity to interview Rhys Ludlow a video content producer from California United States shares without his reasons for choosing Cuenca and his and his families prefer the retirement destination despite having research and visited other places around the world I invite you to join me in this captivating interview that provides a first perspective on finding your perfect place to call home [Music] if you watched my last video I told you about a person that I was wanting to meet and well here I am with Rhys Ludlow hi uh well just got here uh two days ago uh so far so good it's uh what I expected including the rain yes that is true and if you didn't watch my video last video I want to introduce who is Luke Lowe he has decided pretty much decided that you want to retire here 9.9 unless there's something that really we hate here but I don't think so far right that's your plan now the plan is to move here in two years the race Ludlow is a student of mine we make we met that way actually I really wanted to meet him because he has trouble to karetago Mexico the place where I was living he has traveled to manisales Colombia which was the other place that we were living a month ago and it's weird because not many people go to manisales all right right it's a it's an onion when I tell people about it nobody's ever heard of it but it is another beautiful beautiful place and uh similar in a lot of ways to uh to uh Cuenca yeah yeah it's true in a lot of ways my husband and I decided to see Cuenca Ecuador and then you send me an email I remember that you told me I watched your last video and I'm surprised that you're going to go and get Ecuador because that is the place that where I'm going to retire right right and that we were going to coming to visit to check it out and I said hey you want to you know meet up and and get together exactly so here we are we had a good time yesterday at that bar right which did that can be another reason of why you're here the environment the music probably right there's a lot of stuff there's a lot of stuff going on here you I guess you were looking for more places to retire in well where are you from I'm in the Sanford I live in the San Francisco Bay area and uh as a lot of people know it's really expensive there and came a point I started looking at hey you know I think I think I turned 55 and I said yeah you know retirement's coming around let's kind of do a little spreadsheet because I I'm gonna kind of guy and I was like ah you know we would either be out of money in 10 years or we'd have to work until we were you know 70s you know or until we died uh and I didn't like either of those options particularly so I thought well where else could I move and I started in the United States and you know where my wife and I are weather wimps we don't like too hot and humid and we don't like snow and so it left very little options really in the United States they're most of the places with nice weather in the United States Santa Barbara San Diego are really uh expensive yeah and uh I did find El Paso Texas to me the best place in the United States uh in terms of its pretty decent weather low crime rate affordable housing and so my pick in the United States would have been El Paso Texas okay okay let me tell you guys guess about to tell us he has travel to many places in the world trying to find his home actually right so that that is something that attracts me the most because it like okay among those places that were that you've visited that are also very famous for people who want to retire in the world despite seeing that you've decided to live in Cuenca so yeah how it how did it start well I started looking for places I guess the first criteria became for me places well there was a time I thought I wanted to maybe move to China but that's not a doable thing right now and I I did study samandra and I also discovered that that is a very very difficult language to learn so the first thing is we're looking for places with good weather so there's a handful of cities in the world that are called the city of Eternal spring and when you look up that uh kind of thing you find Medellin and you find Cuenca and a few other places around uh and so I started looking at that and uh the next thing on my list really was it had to be fairly affordable I mean the whole reason we're leaving is to extend you know not to have to worry so much about money when we retire uh and um so it had to be affordable it had to be easy to immigrate to you know there's some places it's just don't most impossible to get a visa to stay yeah most a lot of places are easier for retirees than they are for younger people so uh because you're not going to be working and taking John's I think is is the reason uh it had to have it had to be a nice place I mean I had to have uh in addition to good weather it I wanted a place that you know was nice to look at and had you know thing you know nice parks and things to do I like to go walking uh and places to see if you started to really see what you really enjoy about your like how you like to be in a place right right comfortable with what you like right right Healthcare I wanted good food access to good healthy foods uh I like good restaurants you know uh it wasn't you know none of these are deal breakers you can't have everything right so you have to kind of pick and choose but uh restaurants Good Health Care uh relatively safe safety is a weird one because I live near in the Bay Area California we have several hundred shootings on the freeways every year right so you know I mean it's not exactly safe there so safety is a is a strange topic because like for instance near where I live is Oakland California and there are parts of Oakland if you just look statistically is is a very dangerous place but there are parts of Oakland that are really nice and you'd be totally safe in so really sometimes you really have to get under the hood on safety to see what parts they're talking about uh and I think that's true in Mexico City there are very safe places and there are places that are really not safe that is true that is very true and those are the places that well that is something that I want to mention that not many people I I've seen that not many people in the United States believe this if you go to a Latin American country are you not why are you doing that you do you see that how dangerous it is did you get that kind of you know there's a country full of people that live here and they got there there's doctors and lawyers and engineers and everything that you'd have everything in every place there are children so you know you know it can only be so dangerous I mean There Are Places I mean I wouldn't have wanted to be in Medellin you know during the Pablo Esco of our time right but you know today it's a fairly safe City in the right places yeah after China how where what else where else you started to travel uh well actually before that even when I was a when I was 13 my parents my grandparents had retired in Spain and maybe that's why I'm open to this because I'm the whole expat thing is not really new to me my grandparents retired moved to Spain and I lived with them for a year on the coastal the southern coast of Spain so it's maybe do you think that it has to do that you felt more comfortable with the Spanish language because you were exposed to Spanish language I was exposed I couldn't say I remembered a whole lot of it um uh but when but it is one thing that like for instance Portugal is a very popular destination and before it's beautiful I'd love to visit sometime but when I thought about it it's like okay like I'm I'm knee-deep into spent learning Spanish and do I really want to start with Portuguese and Portuguese is only useful in Portugal and Brazil right so that's really only useful whereas if you do learn Spanish there's so many places you can go it opens up a whole world and you know the the idea that a place spoke Spanish was more appealing than a place that didn't speak Spanish yeah yeah it makes sense so one of the places on our list became Malaysia because in Malaysia they speak English uh which a lot of people don't know and my uh my wife is very busy working still and has no time to learn Spanish right now or any language and so when we move you know I thought it would be an easy Trend it would be an easy transition but it's really hot in Malaysia so uh and it's kind of expensive to get in there and get in there yeah you have to I think you have to put like 30 000 a person don't quote me on the price it's in a bank account and leave it there for the whole time yeah yeah so uh the whole time you are visiting yeah it's sort of like an admission fee or a you know or yeah yeah and what about the cost of Life compared to to uh it's probably less expensive actually than even the Quaker I don't I haven't done a full comparison because just hearing the heat and humidity there we just thought you know unless we get out like before Sun up uh we can't we're going to be inside and air conditioning all day and it just didn't seem appealing the food though is really appealing to me it's all this mix of Asian and Indian and it seems great yeah and also it's really far away in another time zone and you know yeah another fact already totally different cultures definitely is something that you are not used to do all the time right they do speak a little Mandarin there it's not about a third of the people speak Mandarin which I you would I could practice my Mandarin I think you were you told me that you went to a town in China and you spent how many years I spent uh eight weeks there uh six in classes 40 hours a week or 20 hours a week and then 20 hours a week of homework and it was it was an intensive program uh in and not probably the best place to learn Chinese it was in GUI then but a beautiful place uh yeah so I did that and then my wife joined me and we traveled around I really wanted to give it a try to China yeah it was interesting I love the Chinese culture i Chinese food I realized that you also love International music from I don't know what what is your favorite music well I listen probably most of these days to Taiwanese pop music and uh seeing what I also like Mainland Chinese pop music which is a totally different thing and I like some Thai music Thai has a whole a whole different style of music which I think is fantastic just whatever is interesting okay and we mentioned this because music is apart important of the place of where you are going to live right and I think that was a main factor in probably not the main factor but it was a factor into your decision to choose a country or am I wrong right no no I wanted a place where I could go out and see some bands or some live live entertainment uh you know basically what I realized after a while but all the things I want restaurants and entertainment and all these kinds of things I figured I needed a place that was about 400 000 people I just it seems like that's the sweet spot after 400 000 people you start to get enough you know where you have theaters and people playing music and and things going on oh makes sense okay and my father was a ballet dancer uh and I was raised with that so like at least once a year I have to go see a ballet because it's just yeah otherwise I I don't know it's just something I have to do yeah I have to do it how many cities in Latin America did you visit how many places that were potential places to live to live in Latin America uh we went to Medellin uh Rio negro which is kind of right outside Medellin uh we went to Armenia Colombia Pereira and monizales so then uh in in Mexico I've been you know I've been to uh Los Cabos which I don't sort of consider real Mexico it's sort of Gringo Mexico sorry people and then beautiful vacation for Mexicans yeah and we went to Mexico City loved Mexico City except it's very polluted and the cost of living is getting actually not too inexpensive I mean the food the rest the restaurant prices were pretty good for the quality we could go really get really nice things we could never afford in the Bay Area or we could afford but we wouldn't want to and uh and it was really quite affordable because we've seen in Mexico City it's really I wide because you can get some street tacos for very cheap amount of money right and you can go as expensive as you want but as you said as well the food is beautiful it's International you can get everything you want right you can get really cheap at the street tacos too which is great yeah and we had we also had a good selection of um you know we I eat mostly vegetarian not not exclusively but and we were able to go get these beautiful pink uh vegetarian vegan tacos at the pizza I think it's called a restaurant in La condesa I think or Roman Norte one of those places oh interesting enough all the vegan restaurants in Mexico City just about all of them are in Roma Norte and La condesa yeah [Laughter] so okay and any other place uh so yeah so we went there and then of course we went to partly because of Karen we went I'm the guilty here we went to uh correctolo uh and uh the downtown Accredo is beautiful and I think it's at that point or maybe before we realized that you know there is a binary Choice with places and weather and stuff uh queretaro is has a lot of sun uh but it's a pretty dry place it's uh and I think in the future could have water issues if I mean I think it does already uh so that's what that was a concern to me and uh the Centro is beautiful but the rest of it is kind of urban sprawl a lot of Mall strip malls and you really need a car and I'm hoping not to drive in retirement I would I think I want to give that up I don't know I've never not driven so I don't know yeah that is true if you want to go to the area the nice area right you really need a or at least a taxi that is going to charge you around five dollars six dollars probably meaning added during the day right and it's about 20 minutes even without traffic yeah and that's not enjoyable I I would never go to Hurricane because I was lazy I would prefer just walk around the historic Center but definitely it's a character would be a I mean I think it's a great place to spend some time it's yeah definitely a beautiful place so um so we went there and I spent and then a friend of mine at all a good an old friend of mine uh who I've known for years and years was living in San Miguel de Andy so we took a very quick cab ride met him for I think I was in San Miguel for three hours so I'm not qualified to say anything about it but it was beautiful yeah but what is interesting to me is that we've been more or less in the same places yeah actually that's right you were in Thailand visited just two weeks my husband and I are traveling and trying to live in the place for at least one month just to see how the vibe is and we went to manisales Colombia and right now we are here in Cuenca Ecuador so I really want to hear your the main difference of why you might well why Ecuador is the winner between Colombia and um yeah okay well one of the main things uh Quaker has very few places have is lots of walkable area they have four rivers that run through the city on either side of the rivers are these uh manic really well maintained Pathways uh and you can just walk for Miles along the river occasionally you have to cross the street but you know you or sometimes it goes under the street but I mean there's lots of walking paths but it's all it's all within the city it's uh and then they do have a couple of larger parks that are beautiful I probably I think I've watched every English language video about Cuenca that has been made in the past seven years and probably and a good handful of Spanish language ones so I haven't seen the the big parks personally with my own eyes yet uh but there's lots of parks here uh and the weather from what I understand uh the weather there's usually Sun some part of the day and almost always rain also some part of the day so it's not like you have like constant rain although I've heard from some people that that's their perception of it but yeah it's like you said you can get all the kinds of weathers in the morning it can be nice then it's windy then it's rainy but the rain ends at some point it's not like it's always raining this morning it was beautiful we took a long long walk and no problem and then suddenly this blew in and we just uh you you just missed the thunder and lightning yeah actually it was we had an idea of walking around Cuenca we're not around along One River at least but look at the weather didn't leave us no so here we are on the patio of my Airbnb one of the reasons of why I wanted to visit Cuenca was actually because of the nature right I've heard that there are hot springs around or yeah very new Cuenca outside Cuenca and I also heard that there's a national park in about 30 minutes right kashas national park right out there supposed to be beautiful what 150 something don't quote me on that amount but more over 100 species of birds live there and uh there's Lakes uh and there's all kinds of there's little Villages around there's lots of stuff to do around here there's a giant waterfall not too far from here uh so there's lots of things to do for nature uh there's like tons of great restaurants uh and uh some vegan options do the only thing I think it's a little might be a little lacking on which is a problem for me is Asian food they have some but not a lot and um yeah okay go good I do I do I do cook Chinese food myself so that's a good thing yeah so one of the greatest one of the bravest things I ever did was cook uh Szechuan food for my teachers at my Chinese school so that's a pretty ballsy move oh wow yeah is it spicy it's a spicy it's it's a southern uh Southwestern uh spicy uh Chinese cuisine very spicy from what I prepared yeah yeah okay after knowing that you are very good at spiciness and you like that and what what happened with the restaurants well yeah they're not big on spice in these areas so both in Colombia and Ecuador where people don't tend to like their food spicy at least in the highlands area and they do have a hot sauce that comes with everything called Ahi but it's kind of more sweet than spicy it's just a little spicy but what we found is uh you can ask them for at least I mean I've been here I've had three meals out and you can ask for a a hot sauce they will bring you a hot sauce that has actually not tame it's actually pretty spicy it's a lot like Tabasco yeah but it's spicier that is true one thing that surprised me about Cuenca Ecuador is that when I saw that salsa that you're talking about yeah I tried it and I was oh this this is spicy yeah which it doesn't happen in manisales Colombia because they say it's spicy they also can bring you something yeah but it's not spicy it's just like a nice salsa to put on your head well part of the difference might be I don't know if this is true but part of it this might be in Manassas there are really not a lot of uh expats there it's not an expat destination no at all uh and uh Cuenca is quite an expect destination that actually kind of leads into something you want to talk about is you know the the whole expat Community here uh Cuenca has been listed like by lots of magazines and stuff is like one of the best places to retire uh and and consequently there's a lot of expats here I don't know how many thousands but thousands and um but still it's only about two percent of the population so it's not like Mexico City where I think people are starting to resent uh the uh expats who come in and drive up the prices and all that kind of stuff it's still only a small very small percentage of the population and actually I would say that queretaro has more expert population now than yeah I I kind of feel it because I can see it in Kirito it's easy to to spot people foreign people you know on the states it's all because of you you know [Laughter] thank you one thing that good about character is that the city still conserves that it's a foreign local community because Mexicans also prepare character as a good destination so you can have the traditional Mexican restaurant and everything so traditional I met with my sister-in-law's sister-in-law in her Kia which is the rich suburb of queretaro and we went out for dinner and I said where do you want to go and she took us to a Chili's restaurant the American chain I didn't argue you know I was like okay but why why do you think she did that I don't know maybe she thought that that's what we would like or maybe she likes it apparently it sounds like they go there all the time they knew it was okay I wasn't gonna say that because that's something that like like I don't know like probably higher class Society in Mexico think they have to do not all of them and then then they go to those change which I mean it's sorry chilies don't sue me yeah but they were taking you to one of their favorite places so whatever it was fun which was mostly about the conversation yeah exactly so raise what kind of Community are you hoping hoping to build and we're looking before deciding that deciding that you were going to live there um well one of one of the things that Quake offers is there's a because there's a lot of expats here for my wife who doesn't speak Spanish it's a soft it's kind of a soft landing spot the she could get by probably without much Spanish here uh but uh so that's a good thing and also my father my father is having some memory issues and we're bringing him with us here and so we wanted to be in a place that had enough people that spoke English that we could get caregivers who spoke English because he'll at first anyway he'll live with us uh and we may need there Comes A Time he'll need some help and I don't want him to be that to be in Spanish I want him to be comfortable in English and then at some point if he ever needs to be in a in a facility um I want there to be facilities where he speaks uh Spanish and we're still on the hunt for or where they speak English and I'm we're still on the hunt for that but I think it exists here that there are facilities with English-speaking caregivers existing yeah but I like that I can have some English-speaking friends because uh I think at my age no matter how much I study I will never be able to fully express myself in Spanish the way I can in English uh I can I hope to be able to completely get around on the very thing but I want to talk about you know deeper philosophical issues it might be helpful to have some English-speaking friends um it is so um so it's good there's some expats here that I could make friends with but I do want to make a conscious effort to immerse myself into uh Spanish speaking Society I plan to take some classes in Spanish I kind of get a I want to get a I'll have more time when I'm retired to work out I'm going to get a personal trainer and to speak Spanish okay talking about that well you already speak s so you probably ordering asking for a taxi whether what do you think are the language barriers that you're going to face okay and how are you planning to well you already are saying what are you going to do but yeah what are the language barriers that you think it's they can be a problem we will see because I you know I I can get around I sufficient in Spanish Karen tells me I'm intermediate I don't I've forgotten at all I have been for several years taking classes with an Ecuadorian teacher who I met on italki and I think you've talked about italki uh and uh and then I saw Karen's videos about carretero and I was very interested in retro and his parents carried off her Spanish classes which are a screaming deal uh I think very good value you get to speak with three different teachers at different levels one speaks no English uh and uh you're in a group setting with other people so you can bounce ideas there's little competitive games and and it's like almost three hours a week I think almost three hours a week yeah it depends on if you choose the if you don't have time you can just study on Saturdays and it's one hour almost two hours on Saturdays which is also cool because it's your free day right right but you know so the the three hours it sounds like a lot and it is a lot and I did I was taking it and then I got really busy and I had to stop but I'm going back because I really do think that immersing yourself and and you know pushing yourself to do those you know three hours and you know and it's okay it's a safe environment to to mess up and uh it I think if I am working with my Ecuadorian teacher to get my Ecuadorian slang or whatever and uh and with Karen together yeah pardon oh pronunciation yeah it's a little different yeah um people go you sound kind of Equatorial but kind of Mexican sorry but the good thing about Spanish is no matter what dialect you speak people will understand you anywhere from what I understand if you think about television a lot of the TV programs are made in Colombia and Mexico and uh they're exported throughout the world so yeah one thing I would like to mention as well is that you already mentioned it that is a good way to to study um relevant topics or debate learn to debate but one thing that I focus on as well is try to give you the world connections or the main words that you're going to use in any country right because at the end we speak Spanish right I definitely recommend uh Karen's classes I think it's really great value it's really great instruction uh I think methodology is good one of the things that's interesting she engages you in a topic uh so like for instance you covered a couple of topics and then when I was in Mexico City it's like hey I know what I know the cultural connection back there because we studied you know this Mexican part of history in her her class and and while you're learning the Spanish you're also learning about the culture of Mexico particularly oh thank you very much I'm very happy you enjoyed the courses and I hope to see you again yes stories in about two years in two years when you are here in Cuenca how do you plan to adjust to your new life what is that that excited excites you the most about living here in Cuenca uh well to be honest part of it you know um I have never been retired before so I'll be retired for the first time and part it's it's a chance to like kind of reinvent yourself what what am I going to do now that I'm not doing what I did in fact I was thinking about starting a YouTube channel about my experiences of choosing a place to move and all the things we talked about here and then I decided you know what I've been producing videos for my whole life that is true that's something that you don't want yeah yeah I don't want to work I decided I'm not going to do that at least I'm not gonna you know not something that I want to do every week if I if I want to put out a video on YouTube maybe I will but you know I don't want somebody expecting me to put something around oh no so I've decided I'm retiring and I and then I have to choose what I want to do and I don't know what that is yet but I'm looking forward to exploring it I want to see what opportunities my wife needs to learn Spanish we're gonna she's gonna work on that and I will continue to to learn more I'm sure as I as I get here and integrate with people and learn expressions and customs and I do hope to get healthier because I'll have more time and there's these beautiful River walks and uh one other another reason we're coming actually there's some great swimming pools here we swim and I saw some facilities for that uh it's a real City uh um so there's just everything that you would need yeah just just spending a beautiful life in in Cuenca and doing the daily activities that you do right oh the fruits and vegetables here is one thing I don't think we talked about because Ecuador is a very small place and they have uh they have so many different growing climate regions they have you have the ocean the coastal regions you have marshlands you have steps in all different elevations they grow an incredible amount of produce here and because of the sun and the volcanic soil it's just a combination that makes great food here in this little area and the whole country is about the size of Colorado so uh and there's it's all there's a law against having anything being genetically modified um so I'm eager to like try out these ingredients and test them it's all locally grown because it's all like I say it's the whole country is the size of Colorado so anything you eat that isn't imported yeah is locally grown because I've seen a lot of many different fruits that I don't know coming from Mexico Mexico you know you think of Mexico and you think oh there's a huge variety of fruits and vegetables but then then you go to Colombia or and then you come here I thought I had seen everything in Colombia and then I arrived here and then we won the weird ones like the one that you showed me right right it's a Naran here now and here yeah we don't even know what it is yet the one I have is not sweet uh and I'm not sure I don't think it's I don't know if it's supposed to be or not so somebody could tell us yeah well thank you very much for having this interview with me I I am sure that it's going to help this interview is going to help a lot of people who are planning to retire in Latin America to give you an idea of where you can find the things that you like and that you plan to do in that country one other thing if people are interested in coming to Quaker check out there's all kinds of Cuenca Facebook groups and there's people there more than willing to ask answer your questions and take them all with a grain of salt ask a couple of people because everybody has different opinions so thank you very much guys and see you in the next video adios

Channel: La Karencita

Views: 6,309

Keywords: best places to retire, where to retire, best places to retire in the world, living abroad, retire abroad, retire in cuenca, cuenca, ecuador, expat living in cuenca, american living in ecuador, cost of living, retire in ecuador pros and cons, retirement planning, cuenca ecuador 2023, cuenca ecuador, living in ecuador, cuenca ecuador expat life, expat life in ecuador, life in ecuador, living in cuenca ecuador, cuenca ecuador retirement, expats in ecuador

Id: CiYAR1h7t2E

Length: 32min 58sec (1978 seconds)

Published: Thu May 04 2023