This property was family land. It has been in the same hands for over 100 years
and has not been extensively developed or farmed, just some goats, 7 donkeys and
a bunch of cows and bulls running freely over the 76 hectares of mountain.
In October last year, we purchased this property from its Ecuadorian owners, an
elderly couple for whom this large property had just become too much. They wanted
to build a comfortable home for themselves in Loja for their retirement, so I understood.
The purchasing process was reasonably straightforward. In Ecuador, native Ecuadorian
and foreigners have equal rights to property. We organised a survey of the property
as the vendors did not have any accurate map and we wanted to make sure that we
knew what we were buying.
The survey company from Loja sent us 2 engineers with quality GPS equipment and
we split into 2 teams, one following the boundary clockwise and the other, going
the other way, anti-clockwise. We met at the top of the property 4 hours later.
It was an enjoyable but physically hard expedition as boundaries are usually placed
in hard to reach areas such as deep trenches and gullies. In a mountainous environment,
a boundary would typically be in the middle of steep water gully and that is where
we need to go.
Each surveyor was accompanied by one or two members of the family selling the land
to tell where the boundary was. Below, is a photo of Juan, who happened to speak
perfect English, conversing with Marco, one of the owners' son. Marco and Jacqueline
live in Taxiche and have spent a few years in Belgium. They speak fluent French.
With an English speaking surveyor and my new French speaking Ecuadorian friend,
I was in good hands.
After several visits of the property with the owners, talks with the neighbours
who without exception talked highly of this property, and with a good dose of intuition
(and also an encouraging dousing session) it became obvious that this property was
truly exceptional.
Rene Coral dousing the river front area of the property
Pierre with future neighbour in October 2008
The land has many flat areas suitable for building, an impressive network of walking
trails, springs and waterfalls, 1.5 kilometres of river frontage, 2 plantations,
2 houses (albeit very basic), many beautiful forests, spectacular views and much
more.
Today, what was a block of family land has become a fascinating project to create
a complete, liveable, sustainable neighbourhood for 15 families, a place for the
residents to integrate as much as they wish with the local villages and towns, a
place to live surrounded by pristine nature on the edge of a national reserve, The
Podocarpus.
We refer to this project as
"The Cutanapamba project"