The Year was 2008 . . .

Ever see those lists that tell you what the price was for an item in a particular year? Like, in 1970, a gallon of milk cost this much and this much would get you a loaf of bread?

An ex-pat told me that you could live very comfortably in Ecuador on about $30,ooo a year. Of course, he told me, it's costing him about $60,000 a year to live - but chalk that up to his house being over the top, the full-time hired help that he employs, and the fact that he smokes. At a pack a day, two bucks a pack, that can add up.

As for the $30,000 figure he threw out there, I'll let you be the judge.

A liter of milk in a bag costs sixty-two cents. If you want your milk in a carton, it will cost you about thirty cents more.

A loaf of bread will run you about $1.20. A gallon of regular gas costs $1.48 and a few hectares of rainforest. Super costs $2.19 a gallon and the same few hectares of rainforest.

You can buy a fixed lunch at a restaurant - which means you get a bowl of soup, a piece of chicken, some rice, salad, desert and a fruit juice - for anywhere from $1.25 to $3.00. A whole rotisserie chicken costs anywhere from $5.99 to $7.50. We hired a cook and she charges us $10 a day to cook us dinner, not including the cost of the food.

A six-pack of the national beer - Pilsener - costs $2.90. Lately though, I've taken to buying my beer in a 22-ounce bottle at the local convenience store. Depending on who is at the counter, I'll pay between seventy to ninety cents for a bottle. I've started buying the larger bottles because they are returnable. The 12-ouncers get thrown in the dump, or the street. Recycling is a foreign concept here.

Moving on with the essentials, an ice cream cone - 2 scoops - is fifty cents. A grilled banana is twenty-five cents. A bunch of bananas is about fifty cents. Ecuador is the number one exporter of bananas in the world by a long shot. I think you can buy a whole banana tree for around a buck.

Fruit, generally, is cheap. A bag of strawberries - about 30 - is a buck. Six apples for a buck. Five pears for a buck. A papaya for a buck. You can get a dozen eggs for a buck too.

I got my hair cut for a buck. Apparently, this is based on how many hairs need to be cut. Maya's haircut cost $1.50 and Rebecca paid $4. PoPo had her hair dyed for $17. But don't tell her that I told you.

A bottle of water is a quarter. A five-gallon jug of water is $2.50. We boil water from the tap at who knows what cost. Someone told Rebecca that it's not the water that has the bacteria, but the pipes that the water runs through. So, if we could dunk our heads right in the reservoir, we'd have no intestinal worries.

The propane tank of gas that we use to fire our stove to boil our water costs $2.50. The same tank also heats our water for showers and laundry. We've gone through about five tanks since May 15.

Internet costs $50 a month, we think. This is the price our landlord quoted us, but we haven't seen a bill yet. Electricity cost us about $20 a month. The phone was somewhere around $20 a month also. Haven't seen a bill for water.

We pay around $600 a month for a furnished apartment, but we have seen similar furnished apartments for less. I understand you can buy a pretty nice house for around $150,000. Security is extra.

A bus ride is twenty-five cents, and most cab rides are a buck. Renting a car is about $1,000 a month. We rented a car from our landlord for $30 a day - a bargain since that works out to $900 a month. Because Maya and Jonah ate crackers in the back seat, we had to pay to have the car cleaned - which ran $12 for a full detail.

Twenty-five roses costs a buck. Flowers are the second highest export product of Ecuador (behind bananas). In fact, I've heard that because flowers are so cheap, it is an insult to bring them to someone as a gift. That didn't stop me from buying Rebecca two dozen roses for our 8th wedding anniversary on July 2. She already knows I'm cheap so what did I have to lose?

Fish, especially sea bass and trout, which for some reason are in abundance here in the Andes, can be had on the cheap. Shrimp farms line the coast of Ecuador. So, ceviche is generally less than five bucks. I've seen it for less than $2, but intestinal worries have scared me off.

You can get a dish of something called chochos and tostados for seventy-five cents. Chochos are similar to a lima bean (except they are white) and tostados are roasted kernels of corn. They'll also throw in some onions and tomatoes. This dish is missing the tomatoes because Maya ate them all.


You can also get a bag of something called mote with a word that I forget for eighty cents. The bag has three small potatoes, a big pile of boiled kernels of corn, and a few pieces of pork. Yes, it is as fantastic as it sounds. Every night there's a woman who wheels her mote cart to the front of the convenience store where I buy my beer. I love her.

So, I think that about covers the cost of essentials.

As far as recreation goes, a zipline through the tree canopy costs $15. But that price is negotiable. You can rent a four-wheeler or dune buggy for $10 an hour. And you can drive on the street with it.

You can buy bootlegged DVDs for a buck. A movie in the theater is four bucks. I already mentioned in the essentials section that beer is cheap. Wine is cheap too. A bottle of a Chilean red is less than five bucks. We purchased a bottle of $3 rum that tasted every penny of its worth. I put it in the freezer for a few weeks and then it was alright as long as I had plenty of Coca-Cola in the glass. There are more expensive options for liquor.

We had a suitcase repaired for $4. The cost to repair a bedroom door after you've kicked it in to free your child is $61. That was kind of nice. I'm sure that in the states, the contractor would not even have considered repairing the door.

Which reminds me, the other day Maya, Jonah and I spent about an hour watching a man repair the bricks in a parking lot. We watched him smooth sand into the work area, fit each brick into place, hammer each brick down with a mallet, and make sure it was all level by placing a 2x4 over the top.

I've seen guys here smooth concrete with a 2x4 as well. It's funny, because they don't build here using wood. All the structures are concrete. Many of Rebecca's clients at home are construction workers, and she has mentioned that they all mention how amazed they are at the flimsiness of U.S. construction. But, even in a country that builds with concrete, the 2x4 has a place. Whoever invented the 2x4 must be rich.