Getting to know the bus network of Ecuador

Loja is a great place to live but one thing it doesn’t have going for it is proximity to anything in particular. In fact, you could just as easily say that it’s in the middle of flippin’ nowhere. It requires a bus to make a perilous upward journey for 20 minutes, gaining 1000m in the process (first time my ears had ever popped whilst in a land-dwelling vehicle) before you even make it out of the valley, and the next decent-sized town is 4 hours of lurching, windy roads away. Little wonder that many residents don’t bother ever leaving the town.

  However I happen to be of the opinion that there’s more to life than Loja so I packed the old travel sickness tablets and my Boot’s travel pillow and strapped myself in for the ride. Not literally of course – seatbelts are seen here as an optional extra rather than a safety essential.

  The first weekend away, on 28th Sept, was to Zamora, a small mining town deep in the cloud forest of the Podocarpus National Park. For those unfamiliar with cloud forests, it’s kind of like an Amazon-lite, where it rains less and is merely cloudy all the time. This may not sound very exciting but it covers an elevation of 1000 to 3000m and has 560 different bird species so it’s a bit of alright really.

  The bus journey over there was worth dedicating a weekend to on its own, with an embarrassment of little roadside waterfalls and sheer drops to tree-lined enclaves below, and I felt a genuine rush of excitement to be heading up into the  ACTUAL CLOUDS. Once there, and after a night of eating meat on a stick (pincha) and savouring the local German beer, Pilsener, we trekked into the trees (minus Oliver who unfortunately chose chicken on a stick instead of beef). I soon realized that I wasn’t as fit as my strolls through the Yorkshire Dales had had me believe as I fought my way up half an hour of sheer climb, but the view of a valley of endless lush green steeply sloping hills was a fair trade-off for a lost pint of sweat. Once I’d stumbled back down, there was the small matter of a massive waterfall in which to go behind and underneath ( the ultimate power shower) before a ride back perched on a ledge next to the driver with a nail sticking in my back. Lovely.

  Two weeks later I had learned my lesson and sat on a luxury overnight coach on the way to Baños, the adventure capital of Ecuador. Although nothing there was quite as adventurous as that coach journey, I managed to cycle 15km to stand behind another scarily powerful fountain, zipline 100m above the valley and get back to the town in time to see Ecuador all but secure world cup qualification. This was celebrated later with an impromptu street party – rum, percussion band and crazy topless bald blokes all included. 

  The next day was necessarily quieter, but that didn't stop me, Oliver, Ross (an Englishman in Loja the past 2 years), Diana (a big reason why) and their friend Tania heading up into the chill of the mountains firstly during the day for photos ops with the 5000m (very) active volcano that towers over Baños and then for an overnight stay with an indigenous family up there in the hope of seeing some glowing magma. Well we happened to choose the night where it stayed cloudy all night but we still enjoyed huddling by the fire and sipping an unidentified warm glowing orange alcoholic liquid for warmth.

  Sunday involved the ticking of some more adventurous boxes, with white water rafting in the morning and the genuine insanity of 'puenting' in the afternoon. For the uninitiated, this involves jumping off a bridge attached to a few ropes, and then swinging down from said 100m high bridge after a second or so of free fall. I didn't have the balls to jump but I was more than happy to be pushed backwards off the edge, and all I can say is that the $20 was worth it for that moment of relief at feeling the tension in the rope after the fall. An amazing experience.

  Ah in all that excitement I forgot to mention eating the national delicacy, guinea pig! You get the whole thing served in 6 pieces after it's been spit roasted over a grill, head and all (pictures below). It was very tasty actually, kind of like a gamey pork, and now I've eaten it I can rest safely in the knowledge that I won't have to see that terrifying head staring at me from my plate for a while yet.

Being a cumplañero for the day

What happened last Wednesday, the 9th of October (aka my birthday) has to go down as one of the best displays of thoughtfulness and generosity that I have ever seen in my life, not to mention one of the cakiest days I've ever experienced.

My day at work started with a gruelling teacher's meeting with the big boss, which may be one of the worst starts to a birthday I've ever had, but it was all uphill from there. I return to the teacher's office to find a huge cake waiting for me together with a big round of 'cumpleaaaaños feliiiiiz' from all the teachers in both schools here in Loja. After making a wish and blowing my candle out, I was required to stick my face in the cake and take the first bite, which is a tradition here that I would get used to throughout the day.

After everyone had had seconds I whizzed off for a quick Skype with my family (my parents couldn't hear me and had a cake for me back in England so I found myself having to sing happy birthday to meeee and then let them blow out my candles for me) and was then treated to beef and beans with René, the guy who basically runs this place singlehandedly.

The lessons passed by inauspiciously enough, and I purposely avoided telling some groups that it was my birthday for fear that they'd start using me as a peñata and try to beat sweets out of me. When I did tell my class of 16-18 year olds at 6pm the reaction was a quick discussion between two of them and an 'excuse me teacher we need to talk about something in private for 5 minutes'. When they returned (after longer than 5 minutes but I won't hold it against them) they had a strawberry chocolate cake and four plates and spoons with them. I honestly didn't know what to say, but I very happily accepted the cake, faceplant and all, and they happily accepted the chance to do no work for the rest of the hour (well I'm not a complete bastard...).

Slightly less welcome was my birthday present of a condom from one of the lads in the class with the explanation that he wants me to go to the local brothel and 'have a special night'. Well his heart was in the right place I guess. Anyway, the cost of the cake ($6.50 which is a lot for anyone let alone two Ecuadorian teenagers) and the obvious worth of a condom to a 17-year-old was a sign to me that they might just like me after all...

After thinking that my day of cake was over, my adult evening class went and pulled the same trick on me, only this time with an added candle and a large bottle of iced tea. By now I had become quite familiar with the birthday routine as I dutifully stuck my whole face in another cake, and despite questioning whether I could stomach another slice, it slipped down rather easily. Once again I was left rather speechless by their kindness and generosity, and of course by all the cake and icing I was stuffing down my throat.

The day ended with a teacher's meal out at a local pizza restaurant and an after party of tea and biscuits at our place, and I went to bed feeling so much more at home here than when I woke up.

First impressions: dusty and loud, but beautiful

I've been living here in Loja for nearly two weeks now and although many would say that that's too soon to judge a place, it doesn't stop me from trying. Here are a few observations made during my short time here so far:

The weather: Being British it seems only right that I talk about the weather here as a first priority. Well the weather in Loja is pretty much as perfect as a fairly pale white boy like me could hope it to be. Being near the equator (as all of Ecuador is), the sun sets just after 6am and sets again just after 6pm pretty much every day, with no real seasons to speak of as we Europeans know them, rather they differentiate between vague dry and rainy seasons, which can seemingly fall at any time of year. Otherwise it's sunny most days, with the mercury rarely topping 30 Celsius during the day and rarely falling below 10 at night. It can occasionally absolutely piss on you, but people here have no need for a coat as the imminent sun and dry mountain air will just dry you off again. In fact I often don't bother drying my hair after I have a shower as I know my hair will be dry once I've walked the 15 minutes to the school.

The surroundings: I have to say I'm still a little in awe of Loja's Andean setting. Being a town built on a grid system which slopes down on all 4 sides towards the centre, you can see the mountains from wherever you are stood in the city and it takes you only to wander 10 minutes away from the centre to be left with an awesome view over the city and the mountains beyond (see the background picture to this blog, which was actually taken outside of my front door). The downside of this mountain location is that Loja is somewhat isolated - the nearest town is a good 45 minutes by bus - but with scenery like that it's easier to see why most Lojanas don't bother leaving.

My digs: not technically about the city itself but still worth a quick mention. There are 6 of us sharing a kind of courtyard affair with rooms backed onto it in an unusual motel style (see picture below). It seems odd but I'm finding it fine so far, the obvious advantages being the constant roofed-over sunlight without leaving the house and the hammock in the corner, which would be perfect for a siesta if people round here only believed in that sort of thing.

City life: The streets are generally dusty but litter-free, and the way I would sum up the city life I've noticed so far is that people want to take their own path, at their own pace, and won't let anyone stop them achieving that goal. Therefore in my attempts to blend in and not appear too much of a gringo (more on that struggle at a later date I'm sure) I've been perfecting my 'I know there's a car coming which I know won't slow down and could run me over but I refuse to acknowledge it or look at it, let alone quicken my pace as I cross this busy street' walk. It needs practice but I'm getting there. Otherwise I can't say that I've particularly noticed the level of friendliness amongst strangers that I may have expected when coming here, but maybe I'm looking in the wrong places. One more thing: why do people insist on walking side-by-side when the pavement is only big enough for two people? The number of times I've had to walk into the road because of this phenomenon... I'll get to the bottom of it, watch this space.

Taxis: There is an incredible abundance of yellow taxis in Loja. It wouldn't be much of an exaggeration to say that there is probably one taxi for every three normal cars in the city. It is hard to imagine where all the demand comes from, although a lot of it may stem from the fact that most people in Loja don't have the money to own a car and the fare for any ride within Loja is a mere $1 (did I mention they use US dollars in Ecuador? Makes things very handy indeed, plus they actually have dollar coins not like that dollar bill nonsense). Of course, if you make the foolish mistake of admitting to being English you may find your fare mysteriously double, as I learned to my cost. Otherwise car driving is much like walking around - get in the other person's way at your peril, and if you so much as cross their eyeline you can guarantee to get beeped at.

Shopping: The typical shop is very small in size, with probably only enough room to fit a maximum of 3 people. Even more typical are the so-called INSERT NAME HERE which have a caged entrance, only allowing the shop worker to give you your items through a hole in the cage or in some more liberal establishments over the top of the cage. In a town which prides itself on its safety this seems a little unnecessary, but maybe it's a typical Ecuadorian thing and I should stop being so bloody judgemental. There is a supermarket in the town but that seems to only be frequented by the rich and gullible foreigners, as a 400g bag of pasta can cost up to the same as the average hourly wage here (which i'm informed is $4). The sensible amongst us go to the bustling Sunday market for our sustainance, where battle-worn old ladies flaunt their wares, be it freshly caught fish, ripe tomatoes or coconut juice. In all the excitement we ended up paying $2 for a small bunch of grapes. Gringos eh... To be honest the cheapest way to eat is probably just to go to a random street cafe where you can expect to get a drink, soup (albeit sometimes containing chicken feet) and hearty meal of chicken and rice for 2 dollars.

Music and nightlife: After reading the lonely planet's description of Loja's nightlife as 'a tame affair' I have taken it upon myself to prove them wrong, with little success so far. We went to the main 'nightclub' the Saturday after I arrived, and although we all got merrily drunk on several shared bottles of rum in the club, the place never really got going and some of the locals in our group took to teaching us gringos how to dance salsa in the absence of more people on the dancefloor. It's easy by the way - just a few steps from side to side, sway the hips and resist the urge to move your shoulders or knees too much and you've got it. Loja also prides itself on its musical reputation but the only music I've heard so far is from the rubbish vans and gas vans who blare out the most obnoxious tune at all hours of the day and night. I thought about recording it to put on here but I really don't want to subject you all to it. I'm off to a famous local musical joint tomorrow night so I hope to bring you better tidings on that front soon.

OK I've rambled enough and I'm getting a bit bored now so I'm sure you were bored long ago. Hasta luego!