Tag: Expats

Prices for Screenwriting Expats in Quito, Ecuador.

Posted by J Roland Kelly – August 6, 2008

I’ve had enough time to wonder around Quito and get a grasp of the cost of living. I reside in the historic center of Quito (Old Town, El Centro) on what turns out to be an inexpensive working class street.

All of the Old Town is an Unesco World Heritage Site, and a great place to be alive.

If I hang out in gringo bars of the Mariscal Sucre, the traveler’s ghetto or “gringolandia” as some locals call it, it costs gringo dollars (American dive bar prices) but if I stay away from touristy or major hubs the everyday working class prices are as follows:

Hotel Room – $165 per month. See my Quito for Expats post for pictures of my room.

Large beer from bodega – .80 cents. The national beer is called “Pilsner,” guess what kind of beer it is.

Internet – free with room but faster at Internet café .70 cents per hour. It’s high-speed.

Lunch & Dinner – $1.50 a piece. Nothing scary, I promise. They know bananas, and fruit juices. Order what ever you want or you can get the set menu for lunch or dinner, it’s like their special, or a lunch or dinner of the day sort of thing. Multicourse and good.

Laundry – $1 a kilo for someone else to do it.

Public Bus – .20 cents, years ago when I was in Quito it was full of pickpockets. I don’t know about now, they’ve cleaned up the city.

Taxi – $4 bucks from the old town to the new town, almost as far as you would want to go, not including the airport which cost $8.
 
Things like shampoo – if imported same price, maybe not San Francisco, California bodega prices, but certainly supercenter or target prices.

5 liter bottle of mineral water – $1.10

3 liter bottle of coca cola zero – $1.50

Bootlegged DVD – $1 Bootlegged DVDs are everywhere.

Private Spanish tutor – $4 bucks per hour

Touring churches and museums – approximately $1-3 depending.

Salsa Club with live music – all different of course, but one I like in the Mariscal Sucre is $6 bucks and includes one drink, $2.50 a drink after the first one, Salsa lessons from women who know how to wear high-heels free.

I guess I should say the National Currency of Ecuador is the United States Dollar. They no longer have their own currency, inflation was at 60% and in the year 2000 they decided to abandon their currency for the US Greenback.

This is good for Americans because while the US dollar is losing strength in the rest of the world, Ecuador is pegged to us, that, and you don’t have to change money at the airport.

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Have Screenplay High Concept Will Travel: Quito, Ecuador for Screenwriting Expats – $300 per Month

Posted by J Roland Kelly – August 2, 2008

Writing Screenplays in Quito, Ecuador
California might be the entertainment capital of the world, but why must you choose to hole yourself up to write your first selling on spec screenplay there?

Los Angeles is way too expensive, and dirty for just sitting around.

You might have access to other screenwriters, but even that is part of the problem.

If you are an un-showered, unsuccessful screenwriter in LA sitting around in an apartment, you are just another an un-showered, unsuccessful screenwriter in LA sitting around in an apartment.

 

You’re probably burning through money (if you are trying to write full time), and good luck with the ladies.

 

Why learn your craft there?

 

Someone suggested to me (hey, Tim) that this is the reason that writers are so nervy; even if a writer becomes fairly successful, they’ve had so many years of rejection that they can’t take pride in their decent success and are always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

 

Don’t live like that.

 

Come to Quito, sweetheart.

 

While you are writing, or learning to write, or reading books about how to write, there’s no reason you can’t be living in a new and all-out positive atmosphere.

 

You might even find the inspiration necessary to finish your project. Even that.

 

You can probably live a couple of months on what you pay for one month’s rent in Los Angeles.

 

The buy-in is the plane ticket. LA and Quito are not that far apart just one connection. My ticket was $550 from San Francisco. After that it’s ten dollars a day if you just sit around and write.

 

Here are some pictures of my $165 dollar a month hotel room in old historic section of Quito (Old Town, El Centro).

View from the balcony.

From the lobby.

I’m not saying it’s the best room for the cash, it was sort of the first one. I liked the view, the balcony, the section of town, I stayed for one night, checked around a little and then threw down for the month.

 

I think it’s a perfect writing cell, and I’ve always wanted to live in a hotel.

 

I figure it’s possible to live on $300 a month if you don’t do touristy things and drink in bars, etc.

 

Of course I will do all of those things, I’m just saying $300 bucks is the base price if you were super commented to only writing while you were here.

 

I will try and compile a Quito price sheet for the next post.

- J Roland Kelly

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