The unofficial web page of the greater Cuenca expat community

Nards Barley wrote:

I think talking about crime in Ecuador is a perfectly reasonable thing even if some non-expat "experts"  get unhinged about it or try to marginalize the topic.

Agree 100%.

BobH wrote:

Nards Barley wrote:

I think talking about crime in Ecuador is a perfectly reasonable thing even if some non-expat "experts"  get unhinged about it or try to marginalize the topic.

Agree 100%.

I agree as well.

Politics and policies also have a substantial impact on expats too, but those discussions are not allowed here either.

I turn up some pretty interesting international news on Ecuador from time to time, but some of it could be construed as political which would make many news articles a candidate for deletion. So I don't post them.

However we could liven things up a bit at Reddit /Ecuador/, where news articles, policies, and politics can be freely exchanged. That sub needs livening up anyway.

http://www.reddit.com/r/ecuador/

Nards Barley wrote:

A friend of mine called me earlier today to tell a couple of his friends-- an expat couple (one of whom is in his 80s) -- who recently moved to Vilcabama, were robbed and kidnapped last night at their home.  Details are still sketchy since he was informed by email.  Supposedly they were traveling with an Ecuadorian from Loja who still may being held while the expats are safe back in Vilcabamba.

P.S.
I think talking about crime in Ecuador is a perfectly reasonable thing even if some non-expat "experts"  get unhinged about it or try to marginalize the topic.

Be careful, my friend, and tread softly. Once Gladys Kravitz gets annoyed by talk of crime, she quickly alerts Armand, the moderator, who told me that discussing crime statistics is "off-topic" on a thread where the OP asked about crime statistics. From there it is straight downhill, and you'll see a post by Julien, the "founder of Expat.com" who will inform you the thread is "closed for analysis" If you don't want to get Hugo Chavezed, you best mind you P's and Q's.

The FBook group "Ecuador Expats" has a lot of facts about this case.

the wayfaring stranger wrote:

Nards Barley wrote:

A friend of mine called me earlier today to tell a couple of his friends-- an expat couple (one of whom is in his 80s) -- who recently moved to Vilcabama, were robbed and kidnapped last night at their home.  Details are still sketchy since he was informed by email.  Supposedly they were traveling with an Ecuadorian from Loja who still may being held while the expats are safe back in Vilcabamba.

P.S.
I think talking about crime in Ecuador is a perfectly reasonable thing even if some non-expat "experts"  get unhinged about it or try to marginalize the topic.

Be careful, my friend, and tread softly. Once Gladys Kravitz gets annoyed by talk of crime, she quickly alerts Armand, the moderator, who told me that discussing crime statistics is "off-topic" on a thread where the OP asked about crime statistics. From there it is straight downhill, and you'll see a post by Julien, the "founder of Expat.com" who will inform you the thread is "closed for analysis" If you don't want to get Hugo Chavezed, you best mind you P's and Q's.

WOW Nards, you might want to move said topic to another thread rather than endanger your most popular, award seeking thread with the paralysis of analysis.

Any update on said incident?

aterosin wrote:

The FBook group "Ecuador Expats" has a lot of facts about this case.

Care to share with the unsociable non-FB crowd?

mugtech wrote:

aterosin wrote:

The FBook group "Ecuador Expats" has a lot of facts about this case.

Care to share with the unsociable non-FB crowd?

Most of what is on Facebook at this point is, not surprisingly, speculation. The first post quoted an email message:

Just read an email from a friend that reads like this:
My friends Sheri and Don who just moved to Vilcabamba were robbed and kidnapped at gun point last night. Sheri and there friend doctor Adrian were driven here to Cuenca at gun point. She was taped up and left locked in a storage. She made noise and was found by a worker. She is on her way back to Vilca. Adrian is still missing.
Does anyone know anything about this...????????

A later report is that four people have been arrested, but there has been no further word (that I know of) of the missing person.

Here's a report of another kidnapping of Americans in Vilca a few months ago. The victims are not happy with the handling of the case:
http://www.microsofttranslator.com/bv.a … -R6_mNeK5y

I thought actual Crime-Talk was a no-no.

mugtech wrote:

WOW Nards, you might want to move said topic to another thread rather than endanger your most popular, award seeking thread with the paralysis of analysis.

LOL. I suspect one of these days I will wake to read the message "thread closed for analysis".

P.S.
Nothing new to report. There was no communcation with them yesterday and they can´t be reached since their cellphones and computers were stolen. One of my friends who knows them is taking a shuttle to Vilcabamba today to find out what is going on. Undoubtedly Facebook will have more current information than my page, but I will post more when I hear something.

Nards,
The up date I heard this morning was that:
The woman was kid napped and transported to Cuenca, where she was bound and locked in a storage facility. A security guard heard some commotion, and the police were notified. She was released by them. She sustained an injury to one arm. 4 suspects have been jailed. They were demanding $ 400.000 for her release, or she would have been added to the " Missing Person's" list. Of the 4 suspects jailed, one was a N. American woman. The ransom note was found on one of the male suspects taken into custody.

ZenSPIKE wrote:

Nards,
The up date I heard this morning was that:
The woman was kid napped and transported to Cuenca, where she was bound and locked in a storage facility. A security guard heard some commotion, and the police were notified. She was released by them. She sustained an injury to one arm. 4 suspects have been jailed. They were demanding $ 400.000 for her release, or she would have been added to the " Missing Person's" list. Of the 4 suspects jailed, one was a N. American woman. The ransom note was found on one of the male suspects taken into custody.

The part that had confused me me was why would they transport them from Vilcabamba to Cuenca, assuming the assaltants were from that area?  My friend speculated that the kidnappers were somehow connected to the movers who helped transport this couple and their belongings to Vilcabamba.  The doctor who was referenced on the Facebook page was based out of Cuenca and I still haven´t heard what happened to him after they locked up the gringa in the storage shed.

Yeah, sketchy info at this time. It's plausible the police are playing it close to the vest, as it's probably an on going investigation.
The one good thing to take away from this tragic event is, it seems the police were very efficient in solving this crime in a very timely fashion.  There is a specialized team that strictly deals with kidnappings. Sounds like they are very well organized. Kudos to them !!!

Just noticed this article from the El Tiempo newspaper.

Cuatro presuntos secuestradores, entre ellos una mujer de nacionalidad estadounidense están en prisión. Se los investiga por el supuesto delito de secuestro cometido en Vilcabamba, provincia de Loja.

Four presumed kidnappers, including one woman of U.S. nationality are in prison.  They are investigated for the the supposed crime of kidnapping committed in Vilcabama.

I am going to read it see what details are of interst.

So according to the article, the suspects were headed to the border but due to the roads being blocked by police headed to Cuenca where two of the kidnappers lived and locked up the victim in their storage unit of their apartment located on Solano y 27 de Febrero..

Here is one of the photos from the article mentioned above. It is a picture of the apartment building where two of the kidnappers lived. It was recently builit and is called the Rosenthal apartment building.  The kidnappers obviously were formed a part of the Cuencás middle class. I had looked at couple of the apartments in this builiding at one time.

It just dawned on me that my friend had probably botched the facts from the email he first received.  The person referred to by my friend as "Adrian" was supposedly a doctor who had traveled back with them to Vilcabama. Now I realize "Adrian"  who is mentioned in the article as one of the kidnappers was probably the translator/helper who was with them and was the one who organized the kidnapping.

I guess they left the hustband in Vilcabamba so that he would be available to pay the ransom at a later date.

The value of having expat friends who can bring you stuff back from the United States goes up September 7th when you are subject to an additional $42 for stuff you order through Club Correos and will only be able to place 5 orders per year.  There will be some exceptions like books apparently.

I am still trying to make friends with Said from the Said blog since he goes back to the states regularly. Call me Said. Lets do coffeee sometime...........

We'll be coming down in mid Oct for a month....we travel light but we might have some room...No sewing machines or Cuisinarts tho. LOL!

aterosin wrote:

We'll be coming down in mid Oct for a month....we travel light but we might have some room...No sewing machines or Cuisinarts tho. LOL!

I was hoping you would ask, although you may regret posting it on my widely read page.   I promise I will keep it willl be light and easy to carry.  I will touch base about it in September via pm.

excellent idea. Lentils right?

An update on that kidnapping story. 

The victims are okay. They were roughed up some and the wife broke her foot when they slammed the door on it.  She was locked up in the storage unit at the Rosenthal building for 12 hours The ringleader Adrian apparently introduced himself initially as a cardiologist who had practiced in the United States.  He befriended them and even took the gringa and her two grandchildren on an excursion to the Amazons. Adrian had been staying in their house in Vilcabama for 5 days (I guess on their persmission) and had his cohorts meet him there pending the arrival of the gringos from Cuenca.

aterosin wrote:

excellent idea. Lentils right?

No, sometlhing more prized like a pair of jeans or a Nerf football............

Although I have considered doing secret product advertising in an effort to monetize my web page, this is not the case here.  Someone gave me one of these generic sleeping pills. I think they said it was $10 for a box of 10. You do not need a subscription.  It seemed to do the job last night when I tried.  The box says you can form a dependency taking these things, so don´t say I didn´t warn you.



.

Here's what Wikipedia says about it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zopiclone

Apparently it is not much used in the US, but it's related to Ambien, which is. I'm currently using Ambien (per my doctor's orders), and I'm a bit concerned that I might be growing dependent on it.

Works great, though.

BobH wrote:

Here's what Wikipedia says about it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zopiclone

Apparently it is not much used in the US, but it's related to Ambien, which is. I'm currently using Ambien (per my doctor's orders), and I'm a bit concerned that I might be growing dependent on it.

Works great, though.

I think I heard Ambien is not sold here, so Zopiclone is the substitute I guess. Any idea what the retail cost of Ambien is the United State?

Nards Barley wrote:

I think I heard Ambien is not sold here, so Zopiclone is the substitute I guess. Any idea what the retail cost of Ambien is the United State?

I'm taking the generic version of Ambien (zolpidem tartrate), which cost me something like twelve or thirteen bucks at Costco for thirty tablets (a prescription is required, so the comparison is not exact). My daughter tells me that I could get about ten bucks a tab selling them on the street.

Thus far, I have resisted the temptation.

I lost the laptop adapter. Would you pls tell me where is the eletronic market in Cuenca? I need to buy one. Thanks.

Nards,
That is the building I told you my friends live in that I referred to in my PM to you. They live in the back section of it, and watched the whole thing go down. As I mentioned, I could see 3 military helicopters circling the area for what seemed a very long time from my terrace. I had no idea then what was going on. Only later in the week when we met for dinner did I hear their re counting of the events.
Score one for the Good Guy's !!

I bought one adapter at a store in old town, Cuenca. $20, come from China, it's ok.
Cuenca is nice, but I cant believe there are so many cars and buses run in the old town. The air pollution is a big problem. I think the bus' engine is not qualified. How do you think it?

netbean wrote:

I bought one adapter at a store in old town, Cuenca. $20, come from China, it's ok.
Cuenca is nice, but I cant believe there are so many cars and buses run in the old town. The air pollution is a big problem. I think the bus' engine is not qualified. How do you think it?

Hello netbean. Welcome to Cuenca´s top webpage. Glad you found an adpater.  There are a lot of buses and cars here. Hopefully the new tranvia that they are building will help reduce some of that, although I doubt it.   They are thinking of replacing buses with natural gas engines but we will see.

Maybe take a  look at Challuabamba which is about 15 minutes east.  Maybe less traffic and still good internet. Better weather too.

Thanks your recommendation. I will visit Challuabamba tomorrow. Maybe I have see this village from air when fly from Quito to Cuenca.

As the gasoline is so cheap, everyone loves driving car in Ecuador.

I would like know if the JEP safe and reliable for one year saving? As the interest rate is 9% i read from the web site. Thanks.

Sorry, i just found some info from this forum.

I am interested in moving to Banos and I would like to know about expat groups in or around that area.  I would also be intereste in sppanish lesson schools in the area as well.  We have 2 dogs a Lab an a small mixed breed so I would be interested in a Vet as well someone who could help us at the Quito airport to help us through customs.

Looking forward to some information.

Thanks,
Anne Kilcline

netbean wrote:

I would like know if the JEP safe and reliable for one year saving? As the interest rate is 9% i read from the web site. Thanks.

Sorry, i just found some info from this forum.

Unlike some bloggers did with Coopera, I wouldn´t go out on a limb and call a financial institution "safe", since hell if I know.  However,  if I was trying to maximize my rate of return on a  deposit, JEP would probably be my first choice since I know they insure accounts up to near $30,000 reportedly, and they are all over the place.

thanks for your advice.

For reasons I cannot disclose, I attended a function outside Cuenca city limits recently attended by the recently elected mayor of Cuenca (the guy in the red coat symbolizing his solidarity with Marxists everywhere),



Here is the mayor getting his freak on:



I should mention that I shook hands with the mayor and introduced myself as Nards Barley. I was hoping for some faint sign of recognition like a nod of the head, a twinkle in the eye, or a wry smile, but all I got was a blank stare.

he's obviously out of the loop.

aterosin wrote:

he's obviously out of the loop.

Sometimes it is best to not be too famous.

Maybe if Nards introduced himself as Mugtech he would have gotten more of a response?