Just below is a dimensional drawing of the initial land that we purchased in Villaflor. It is made up of two separate lots because of the intersecting road, sold together, and referred to as lots A and B in the Financials section of this website. About half of the larger lot is covered in endemic mountain woodland, which is made up of small trees and shrubs tightly intertwined. 

A sizable section of that forest has been designated by the State as an important archeological site with cultural significance; the red-lined areas on the map. This basically means that evidence has been found in the area to suggest activity by the Inca civilization (1463 – 1533 CE) or earlier people. We officially own the land, and are allowed to develop on it, but access must be provided should research or excavation be deemed necessary by any State funded research group. This archeological site actually covers much of the mountain and, only slightly intersects with our lot. Also, because we had zero intentions of disturbing the natural forest habitat, the protected status was a non-issue for us.

The issue we were more concerned with, as you may have already guessed from the picture, is the area of about 490 m² jutting into the side our land. It is not labeled accordingly, but this small piece of land actually has a separate owner than the rest of the land that surrounds it. So, we turned our attention into contacting the family that owns this small parcel. Unfortunately, our initial attempts of contact were met with weariness and slight hostility, which is not a completely unexpected reaction when attempting to discuss this type matter in the rural areas of Ecuador. We decided it best to leave that matter for the time and concentrate on other important areas.

The next task was to obtain a source of water and electricity for the property. Thankfully, the electric part was self-evident, as a power pole was located just shortly off of the property feeding another small home. And, from discussions with the previous owner of our land, we knew water was available from several underground aquifers, including on our own land, should we desire to dig for it. However, to broaden our options for the future, we decided to explore purchasing water rights from an already established water reservoir that was built on the neighboring property. I have marked the water and electricity locations on one of the photos below.

This ended up being a very fortuitous decision, as it got us in contact with a gentleman named Victor Orellana. He owned the neighboring property with water and, just about all the other land that bordered our own, including the home with the nearest power pole. We were able to easily negotiate a price for permanent water rights on his reservoir, and, because our attempt to buy the small parcel mostly encompassed by our land was going poorly, we continued conversations with Victor about extending our land on the other side. This turned into another very easy negotiation, ending with us securing 10 additional meters of width to our land, referred to as lots C and D in Financials and marked in the photos below in orange. This would help negate any impact the small parcel may cause should we be unable to obtain it.

And a good purchase decision that ended up being. After almost a year of communication with the family of the small parcel, our relationship improved greatly. But, we were unable to come to an acceptable price for the land. Andrea and I felt enough time had been devoted to the attempt and we had more than sufficient space to build a home. So, we moved on and began the next step, finding an architect and designing the home.