Hello friends. I’m new to GringoPost – I shared this very unexpectedly happy story in various “Moving to Ecuador” facebook groups, but I was told the GringoPost community would like this too.
Please take a look at the included picture! On the right is Ulises Acosta (who has told me to tell you all he’s much better looking in person than in pictures), and on the left is María Eduarda Ludeña Piedra. Both are Lojanos, as in, they are from Loja, and yes, they are very good looking.
I’m in the middle. we are partly finished with some succulent pastries and coffee, my treat. My husband is taking the picture. After this, I also forced Ulises to let me buy him a few pieces of bread and a pound of golden raisins (his grocery run for the day).
Why?
Earlier in the morning, Ulises met me at the Civil Registry office and helped me get my cedula. A week prior, he helped me get my visa!
Well, what’s the big deal about that?
You see, I reached out to Ulises about three weeks ago – devastated and scared. I wasn’t a mess exactly, but I was pretty shaky. My husband and I had spent a sum total of $1,200 on a highly digitally visible, highly self-promotional visa facilitator, for our Professional and Professional Dependent visas, respectively. I won’t go into what happened exactly, because it takes the focus off the good people of this story, but essentially very avoidable and time-sensitive mistakes were made involving documentation – and it was possible that our visas were not going to be salvageable. I reached out to Ulises with 8 days to go in the revision process (for those who don’t know, if your visa application has errors, the ministry gives you 10 business days to correct them before your application is rejected).
Ulises reviewed my application and immediately identified the problems – I was like, “we’re dead, aren’t we,” (in Spanish it’s “estamos fregados”) and he said, “no, you’re not.” But we had very little time to take a lot of steps to correct the situation. Ulises took all my calls and anxious Whatsapp messages and met with me virtually multiple times. He put me in touch with Maria Eduarda, who worked over the weekend to re-translate and notarize our sensitive documents. Then of course, he also accompanied me to my cedula appointment.
Did I mention he didn’t charge me?
I asked him why, when we finally met up in person for my cedula. “you have a visa business, your time is obviously valuable, why are you helping us for free?”
He considered his answer for a moment and then answered, paraphrased:
“Your first experience here in Ecuador was of being scammed. I had an opportunity to make things better – and in doing so, welcome you to my country.”
A few other things about Ulises, besides his obvious generosity and goodwill and good looks:
He’s funny – in both English and Spanish (it’s very hard to be funny in another language, by the way!!)
He likes sweets
He has a charismatic little dog (which you can see in a big puffy jacket on his facebook profile)
He spoils his daughter
I share all this to help you know Ulises as a human being. He treated me like one.
We are still in the trenches! My husband’s visa is next, and yes, the application is similarly messed up. But I can’t tell you how much relief we feel, being able to rely on Ulises.
I know lots of you may need the services of visa facilitators, now or in the future. IWhen my husband and I were looking for facilitators, it was an overwhelming process and we didn’t know what information to believe or who to trust. Also, Ulises’ name didn’t even come up (it was only once we arrived in the Loja province and started to ask questions that we heard his name frequently from other expats). I really wish I had known about Ulises earlier. I know who I’m hiring for my permanent visa application.
Hopefully this story helps the rest of you out too, as you are making your decisions.
Here’s his contact info below:
+593 99 370 9519 (whatsapp) ulisesacostac@gmail.com
website http://www.visatoecuador.com
Contact info: ulisesacostac@gmail.com; +593 99 370 9519 (whatsapp)
Address: Avenida Universitaria, Loja, Ecuador
Recommended by, Emily: +593 95 933 7301
