Adventures in Quito

We recently planned a trip to Quito to bring our friend A. Lassiter (writer of the Monkey Reserve guest post) back to the airport so that she could return home. We had a wonderful, yet squished ride from Puyo to Quito on Saturday with 3 adults, 4 children, and 1 baby in a car seat crammed into our Toyota Hilux, which really only seats 5 adults. Sunday morning, A.L. and I headed to the airport at 4:09 AM. Our (the Hollingsworth's) plan was to enjoy the morning meetings with our friends in Quito then return to Puyo in the afternoon.

During a break between the meetings, we began talking about our visa paperwork. The conclusion of the discussion was that Alesha and I agreed to remain in Quito to process some needed documents. You must understand that processing these same documents from Puyo may take between 2 - 6 weeks, whereas in Quito, the capitol, we could have them processed the same day. Since our visas expire at the end of August, giving us just 4 more weeks, we decided to bite the extra expense (downtime from work) and get our documentation done.

I spent all day on Monday running between the office of our visa lawyer, to the notary, to arranging appointments with others whom I needed a signature from, and by the end of the day I had finished none of the two things that I set out to do: 1) notarize a rent contract that shows I have a dwelling place; 2) register Noah as an Ecuadorian citizen.

So we decided to stay yet another day. Since I was unable to accomplish the two items on my list from Monday, I decided to aim for 3 items on Tuesday! In the morning, I met with the needed persons, obtained my notarized documents (through much standing around and waiting on my part), talked with the visa lawyer, and I still had time to bring home some lunch for the family! We had a semi-relaxed lunch, packed up the truck and headed out to the American Embassy to get info about obtaining a birth certificate and passport for Noah, and then to the Ecuadorian Civil Registry office where I *almost* had all of the needed paperwork - in fact, I did have everything that they needed, except they wanted the only original copy of our marriage license, but I could not give it to them because I needed it to change our visas...bummer.

Though I was not able to "finish" the other two items, I now know what I need to do about them. I have someone working to get a legal copy of the marriage license, and we are making an appointment for the American Embassy to process Noah's documents. I was so happy by the end of the day, that we stopped at one of our favorite parks in Quito, La Carolina, to play around for a while before heading back to Puyo.

So we are back here waiting to hear back from the visa lawyer about our visa status.

Enjoy!
Taylor

P.S. - For anyone who thinks that the hassle of a process is any easier in the U.S., I suggest that you talk with a non-US citizen to see what they had to go through to get to live in the States long-term.