My Nomad Diary: Week 23

Week 23: The week everything changed: Settling In, Finding Home, and Taking the Next Step

Favourite places this week:

Crossing the river in Cuenca — The city of Cuenca

Happy Monday! First working day of the week and it’s time to get settled in:

Find a co-working space
Find places to walk and run in the city
Do some grocery shopping
Get a local sim card

I thought I’d find all of this exhausting but I’ve become so efficient at it all now, it only takes me a day to get settled in. It made me realise how moving to another city really isn’t all that wild, when you think about the amount of pressure people put on it:

“We have so much stuff to move” – I live out of a suitcase
“Setting up banking” – I use Revolut, it works everywhere
“Utility bills” – I rent through Airbnb, it’s all taken care of
“Setting up my phone” – I buy a pay as you go sim card from the local network, $12 for unlimited data for a month. E-Sims are the biggest con since some douche canoe invented the horoscope.

Granted, when the time comes and I settle down permanently, I will have to deal with visas and probably get a local bank account, but other than that… this stuff is easy peasy! People just make it complicated by hording loads of shit they don’t need.

It’s Tuesday and something dawned on me today. I’ve been carrying around a lot of anxiety these past six months, but I think it’s been buried by the constant dopamine boost of exploring new places.
Yet, every time I was a little tired and a little run down, the doom set in. And today, I realised what it was.

Just under six months ago I gave it all up, living in my hometown was making me so depressed and I needed to get out.

But travelling is one thing, finding somewhere to belong again, is… well, it’s really hard. All of the things you don’t think about that can go wrong:

Securing an income
Obtaining a visa for long-term
Opening a bank account
Getting permits
Health insurance
And of course, bringing my dog along for the ride

It goes on and on. But today, I was overcome with a wave of relief and it’s a culmination of months and months of hard work. I’ve now found three cities I would be very happy living in longer-term (Bucaramanga CO, Merida MX and here, Cuenca EC). And for super long-term; Colombia’s and Ecuador’s nomad visas are super easy to obtain and last for two years.
Mexico’s can last for four, but I just can’t meet the financial requirements right now.

Wednesday and today I’m heading into work as normal and calling it a day at lunch as I’m heading out on a walking tour of the city for the afternoon. It turned out to be one of the best walking tours I’ve been on, the chap leading the tour knew loads of people in the city, had access to lots of hidden buildings and we finished up with a beer and food. Happy days!

Thursday and I’m up early for a call with my client to show the first draft of their website – all great! I even had some great feedback about how I’d managed the project and he was really impressed about how the distance and time zones have had no ill effect on the project.
After my call, I had a full day of work at the co-working space down the road and that was that! Oh, and had a new project signed off today, result!!

Friday and I’m pooped today. Nothing exciting I’m afraid, took the day off and watched movies all day. Perfection.

Feeling fresh on Saturday and I’m headed out to explore the city a bit more. I know I say it all the time but this city has exceeded my wildest expectations, I absolutely adore it.

As the evening came and I reflected back on my Tuesday thoughts. It’s time to commit and get myself a visa. So I’ve put in my application for an e-residency in Estonia and in a month or two I’m going to start the application process for a temporary residency visa either in Colombia or Ecuador. On the premise this all goes to plan, this is a big weight off my shoulders, it’s been quite nerve-wracking to think about but I realised today that none of this is permanent, or, it doesn’t need to be, if it doesn’t work out there’s always a plan b or a plan c. But for now, Plan A is to get temporary residency somewhere in LATAM and I’ve finally made my first step. Wish me luck!

Sunday and today I’m having a lazy day, there’s a really nice French café in town here called Majoni, headed there as it’s my new local.
Had some French toast, a coffee and practiced some Spanish, lovely.
Went for a walk to see some parks and then went to the shopping mall for some retail therapy.

I walked past a couple of the main parks in the city today and they were packed with people having picnics, playing sports, walking their dogs, you name it. it reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend about six months ago, where I said how lovely life was in Spain because people were always outside to which the response was “yeah but you’ve got to remember the weather there”. To which I agreed.
But today, as I walked through the park, it was 15C (cold by local standards), overcast and it was about to chuck it down any minute.
The park was heaving.
It’s one of the key things that I love about hispanic life, they just want to be outside all the time and they’re such social people.
I’ve been alone now for six months and I don’t think a day has passed where I’ve been lonely, yet when I was at home surrounded by friends and family I was crippingly lonely, day in, day out.

And that’s all for this week – and, it may seem like just another normal week in the bank but, this has been the most fruitful week I’ve had on the road so far: