Hey! I'm back. Sure, it's been a few years, but what with the pandemic and all, is anybody really surprised?
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Sunset somewhere over Mexico
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You'll never guess, but we're back in Ecuador, just for a visit. It was time to flee the winter in Eastern Canada and we had to renew our Ecuadorian ID cards, so back we came to Cuenca. We thought we were pretty smart, we hired someone who knows the system to help us get new cedulas, had all of our paperwork in order and had (hopefully) booked enough time to get it all done.
The first step was to have our visas transferred from our old passports into the new "electronic" visas, then get our marriage registered in the Registro Civil. (This, despite the fact that our cedulas clearly indicate that we are, indeed, married to each other. Classic government bureaucracy.) Then, after those two hurdles, we'd be ready to renew our cedulas. Sounds pretty staight forward, right?
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The New Cathedral from Terra Restaurant
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Alas, no. As Ron is the primary visa holder the agency in Azogues wanted to see him first. He and our fixer dutifully went out there and after a brief wait they were told that they wouldn't be tranferring the visa, as we'd been out of the country for too long. When we left in 2019, permanent residents could be out of the country for up to 5 years. What we didn't know, is that in 2021, the rules changed and that term was cut down to only two years. We were a year too late.
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Full moon over the city
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We really weren't that surprised. Disappointed, to be sure, as it was nice to have the possibility of moving back here should the need arise. The universe had already given us several indications over the past several years that our time here might be done, but the nudges were subtle, or we were just being thick.
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Sunrise over Ecuador
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You'll hear a lot of negative things about the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Azogues office, They are intractable when it comes to the rules. I've found my dealings with them to be incredibly frustrating, mostly because they kept telling us "no". That's on us, really, not on them. Just be forewarned. Many people opt to use the Quito office, to avoid their incredibly narrow interpretation of the rules. All that being said, they did us a solid. They didn't cancel our visas and kick us out of the country. That means that, technically, we're still residents, but it's a very narrow technicality. We have two ways to remediate the situation. Apply for residency all over again starting from scratch, or let our residency go. Because of the new 2 year out of country rule, we've decided to take the second option.
Anyhow, this leaves us with some free time on our hands, so we've decided to run off to Columbia for the end of our trip. So, here we come, Bogota and Medellin! I guess we're making lemonade.
