3 Big Differences Between Life in Spain and Life in Ecuador

When Matt and I decided to spend a few months in Quito, Ecuador, at the beginning of this year, I didn’t really know what to expect. And while I’d traveled to more than 20 countries on four continents, it was my first trip to South America — and it was only the second country, after Spain, where I was spending more than a few weeks.

(And living as an adult. When I lived in London for 4-5 months during college, it was very much a college experience.)

Anyway, there were plenty of surprises when it came to life in Ecuador compared to what I knew in Spain, so I thought it could be fun to take a look at a few of the differences.

1. Language

I knew that there would be differences between Spain Spanish and Ecuadorian Spanish. But this was my first time traveling to another Spanish-speaking country after having lived in Spain for two years and feeling the most comfortable with the language that I’d ever felt in my life.

And while I was able to communicate just fine most of the time, I could never quite shake the feeling that I wasn’t being fully understood when I would speak. Leaving me to wonder whether it was that my Spanish was bad, or whether I was just speaking Spain Spanish and the differences were more than just vocabulary. (Though when I arrived back in Spain last month for the first time in almost two years, people seemed to understand me better.)

To be fair, the vocabulary was plenty to keep in mind on its own. I learned more Latin American Spanish during high school, and although those words have been mostly replaced by the Spain equivalents in my every day vocabulary, I still know them and know what they mean. But these were a few of the biggest differences in basic vocabulary I came across in Ecuador, all of which were completely new to me:

• Agua de grifo (Spain) vs. agua de llave (Ecuador): When I asked for tap water at lunch on our first day in Spain Spanish, the waitress looked at me like I was an alien. It was probably partly because locals don’t drink tap water — although it’s perfectly safe in Quito. But it was mostly because they have a totally different phrase for it.
• Entrada (Spain) vs. ingreso (Ecuador): Entrance to a building. This wasn’t too hard to figure out, thanks to arrows that were usually on the signs.
• Tirar (Spain) vs. halar (Ecuador): To pull a door. Push, which is empuje and for some reason easier to remember, was the same.
• Bacón/beicon (Spain) vs. tocino (Ecuador): Bacon. While tocino is sometimes used in Spain too apparently, I would say the Anglicized version — a Spanish phonetic spelling of bacon — is far more common these days.
• La comida (Spain) vs. almuerzo (Ecuador): It’s not entirely true that I didn’t know almuerzo meant lunch in Spanish. I learned that in high school. What I didn’t realize was that in Spain, they never call it almuerzo — they only call it la comida, which technically translates to “the food,” but it means lunch. In Ecuador though, signs advertising almuerzo were everywhere.

2. Grocery Shopping

This was one of the hardest differences to get used to. Especially because we were in Ecuador for so long. If we had just been in Quito for a week or two for vacation, we could have gone out to eat for every meal. But since we were there for more than 2 months, that just wouldn’t have been economical.

When we decided we were going to spend a few months in Ecuador, cooking at least a few nights a week was part of the plan. We made sure to book a place with a kitchen that would meet Matt’s needs. (Yeah, if you didn’t already know, he’s generally the chef.) But what we didn’t know… was that the grocery store situation is completely different from in Spain.

Back when I lived in Madrid, there were two small-to-medium sized grocery stores within two blocks of my apartment — one in each direction. While the selection wasn’t as big as what I could get about six blocks away at a larger chain, it was enough most weeks. Small grocery stores were pretty easy to find in pretty much any city I’ve visited in Spain.

It’s definitely not the same in Ecuador, and this was one of the biggest differences. Rather than having a variety of chains, there are really only a couple of big ones: Megamaxi and Supermaxi, and Akí. And these stores are truly massive. Some of them were actually more comparable to Walmart, I feel like, because you could buy almost anything you needed there, from TVs to gardening supplies.

Since these stores are so big, there aren’t too many of them around the city. Which means you’ve got to commute when you need groceries. Our closest grocery store was a Megamaxi, and it was luckily only an 11-minute walk from our apartment. But since we only went for groceries once a week, we had two huge reusable bags that would be filled to the brim after our trip. And we learned the first night that walking back with those bags, especially since it was uphill all the way back, wasn’t pleasant.

But since almost everyone has to travel to and from the store, there was always a line of taxis dropping people off and picking them up. Add in the fact that taxis cost about $1-2, and we never walked back from the grocery store with full bags again. So while we got used to how grocery shopping works in Ecuador… it still sucked if you forgot one ingredient for dinner and couldn’t just run down the street for it.

3. Wi-Fi

I loved Quito for this and often found myself cursing Madrid for this: Wi-Fi was much more widely available out in public in Quito than it was in Madrid. It may seem kind of counterintuitive, as Madrid is known for being one of the world’s most international cities with a large population and a number of businesses based there, as well as universities. Quito doesn’t quite have the same reputation. Which means you could totally understand if Quito was lacking in the Wi-Fi department.

But almost every single restaurant or café we went to — and even a lot of stores — offered Wi-Fi. It was perfect for working outside of the house, which I love doing, because no matter where I went, I could reasonably expect to not only find Wi-Fi, but also find a seat. In fact, it was so easy to write this blog post about 7 great places for digital nomads to work… just in the neighborhood we were living in.

Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for Madrid. Of course, there are many cafes and restaurants that do have Wi-Fi, but I found that they were all clustered around the most touristic parts of the city, like Puerta del Sol. Not somewhere you want to spend a lot of your time if you actually live there.

And of course, there are the same places you find on every list of “Best Cafes with Wi-Fi in Madrid,” many of which are in the trendy neighborhoods of Malasaña or La Latina. But as some of the only good places to work from, they’re almost always so crowded that you can’t find a seat or an outlet.  It took me more than six months to find a few places in Madrid with Wi-Fi that aren’t in the city center.

 

I would love to hear what cultural and lifestyle differences you’ve come across in your travels in different Spanish-speaking countries! And let me know if any of these surprised you — or if you’ve had a different experience in cities that aren’t Madrid or Quito. Let me know in the comments!

-Cathy

Originally Published on May 31, 2022.