Loja: an apology

Querida cuidad de Loja,

I'd like to apologise for some of the writings in this blog which may have portrayed you in a less-than-positive light. I may have complained about the somewhat rude people who walk side by side on a pavement that is only two people wide, the uninspiring centre with nothing to do, or the fact that the surrounding hills made me feel like I was trapped in a natural prison of my own choosing.

Now I'm not going to take any of that back because I definitely meant it at the time. However after coming back to Loja as my carnival recuperation centre (March 4th to 8th) I realised that all you need is a little love. A lick of paint on those old peeling colonial buildings. A new bar or theatre or library or anything to cheer the place up a bit. To stop you guys from living on past glories so much.

I actually enjoyed my return there a lot. I enjoyed my morning morocho in the market, I enjoyed a steaming hot empanada in the Parque Bolívar and I even enjoyed taking over my friend Oliver's classes when he was taken ill post-carnival. I especially enjoyed staying in the rent-free teacher's house with all the young, interesting and energetic new teachers that I never had the chance of working with. I'd have overlooked a lot of things if I'd had that.

Coming back I realised that I'd become fond, even proud, of your little idiosyncrasies: the way that people use usted even with their parents, the way the majority of shops are barred to the outside even when open and that haircut (short back and sides, gelled up to a very stiff quiff at the top and a little ponytail at the back) that every male under 30 has.

Obviously I wasn't the person to inject a fresh energy into you people's daily lives, but someone will be, and I'm sure that future English teachers will have an awesome time because of it.

Con cariño,

Rowan

Las despedidas

A sure sign of how much of a good time you've had in a place and how many meaningful friends you've made there is how sad you are to leave. If this is true then I can say with some confidence that I in fact did have a very good time in Loja with some most excellent friends.

The goodbyes began on Friday 31st Jan with the last day of three of my kiddie classes. The difference in goodbyes was marked - with my cutie 7-9 year olds we sang Yellow Submarine complete with actions for their 'graduation', then my favourite's mum went out and bought us all fried chicken, which we ate and reminisced about the class, then left with a big group hug. I have to say I had a little tear in my eye. For contrast, my 10-12 age group came in, begrudgingly sat through Wallace and Gromit with me, begged to go home early and only said goodbye after I shouted down the corridor after them. From the final 13-15 group only 2 from 7 turned up which I was happy with as it meant we could watch the final hour of The Inbetweeners Movie in peace. So that was all fine. I had hoped for a big teachers party but everyone was so exhausted that we all just wanted to go home. Or in my case to Rene's (our boss, personal assistant, and friend) mum's house due to a slight 'dickhead problem' with my landlord, where she attempted to destroy my stomach lining with even more chicken and rice and soup (I had to refuse most of it and that which I didn't eat was served up for breakfast). Delightful woman though and very generous with what she had, which was fairly limited to start with.

So that was one goodbye. The biggest goodbye came then on the following Wednesday, with the last class with all my adults there. One was due for a test so he kept me occupied whilst the rest of them mysteriously didn't turn up. Eventually I was told to go upstairs, where the others waited for me with a great goodbye party, and I was greeted by cake, presents, beer smuggled into the school, and even a mini-me out of foam stuck to the board. Due to being rendered speechless by what they'd done for me I spent most of the time grinning at it all, but I stopped that for long enough to give a little speech about how much I'd enjoyed teaching them, to which they told me how much they'd enjoyed being taught by me. The presents were amazing too, a little sombrero, a box of goodies from Loja and the surroundings and a bag full of personal messages from each of them. Still looking for the perfect time to read them. Afterwards we had an afterparty consisting of getting some drinks and driving between various city lookouts and getting back in the car to drive off when the police came. Living on the edge, but also kind of boring. Well I had fun regardless.

As if that wasn't enough, in the final half of my last lesson with just 3 from 6 of them I offered them the chance to play any game. The game they decided upon was 'guess what Dennis has in his bag'. After 5 minutes I gave up, and he pulled out a big gift box of Swiss products - an army knife, watch, pen and keychain. Not any old Toblerone for them! Add to that a very cute card with 'don't forget us because we won't forget you. Thank you for forming part of our lives' on the envelope. As you can imagine I was rendered a bit speechless again. I left them all a little personal letter of thanks (it was the least I could do) and one big hug in place of the words that I couldn't really find to thank them.

My final weekend in the area saw us head to Vilcabamba (gringo-hippie-centenarian commune) for a weekend that was far more eventful than it should have been. The general plan was to hike to a waterfall and have a little dip there then go partying after. Well despite a very high water level we went for the trek, crossing the fast-flowing knee-deep river, getting changed on the other side, and then crossing it again to take a dip in the rather deep pool at the bottom of the very powerful waterfall. If this sounds slightly stupid then that's because it was. I was the unlucky victim who got sucked towards the waterfall and under the water by a rogue current, and luckily one of us was close by and only in up to his waist and so was able to drag me out. Needless to say I was shaken up by that for a good couple of hours afterwards. Even scarier was when Antonia, a new teacher who'd arrived with her boyfriend, was unceremoniously dumped 2 metres into the water by a tree branch that decided it had finally had enough of being climbed over all these years. You could say that the deep water saved both of us, as it wasn't quite enough to suck me under and just deep enough to prevent her hitting anything hard on landing. When I think back I'm glad that the only casualty was my hat bought by my students, cruelly knocked off my head by a stray branch into the raging torrent.

After those lucky misses we partied that night like it was really our lucky weekend, with an outdoor live band, dancing, drinking around a fire, and then a pool party at my friend's girlfriend's dad's country house. I honestly have only ever seen such a nice house with such perfectly clean white furniture on adult films. It was slightly surreal.

On the Sunday we jumped into another river, gave Rene his birthday Bailey's, jumped into another river and headed home. It was then only left for me to pack up ready for a midnight bus on Monday night with a final michelada (spicy beer that I also had on my first night in SA) with my good friends here. As a final emotional farewell James (Colombian friend) gave me a necklace his mother had given him to watch over him, and which now should watch over me. Truly the sweetest gesture - it had better not fall in any fast-flowing rivers!

I'm now in Guayaquil providing a little jetlag recovery bootcamp for my girlfriend before we fly to Galapagos tomorrow, and that is of course crazy and slightly surreal, but even while there I'll miss little old Loja and the very good friends there that I made in such a very short space of time.

The Loja Sunday market

The market, which takes over a large proportion of the town on a Sunday morning, is definitely where you see Loja at its best. I love to pop down there of a Sunday morning to see lovely old indigenous ladies sat in huddles shelling peas, piles and piles of every exotic fruit and vegetable that you could care to imagine, and people shouting off about their toilet paper, fresh honey, parsley, potatoes, sugar cane juice and everything in between.

Of course, bartering is expected, and any attempts I make at it instantly mark me out as a gringo, but it's fun to try. The bottom picture of this post is how much fruit and veg I managed to buy with 5 dollars, so my bargaining skills must be improving (in my first week here I was duped into buying a small bunch of grapes for 2 dollars).

Christmas looms large

Some of you may have noticed a slight undertone of homesickness creeping into my recent posts, which doubtless has a lot to do with the unstoppable advancing of Christmas into our lives. Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas. It's just that practically all of the elements of Christmas that I love are missing from my life right now. My loved ones are far away, the usual build up and pre-Christmas excitement (let's face it, the best part of the whole shenanigans) is lacking from this part of the world, and most importantly it's far too warm to be Christmas at all.

So what is Christmas like in Ecuador, where they may not have the snow but they sure enough have the catholic following to make it into a big occasion? Well one thing is for sure - there's not the frenzy surrounding it that there is in England. Here in Loja the local independence celebrations saw a much bigger buildup, which is understandable of course, and although charming trees and decorations have been put up in the square, market, and in the houses, there's certainly not the same mad this-year's-has-to-be-the-best-ever-or-else feeling which has poisoned English Christmas preparations over the years.

I suppose a lot of it has to do with the fact that Christmas in the UK is the one shining beacon on the horizon during the descent into another demoralising winter, and families feel under pressure to produce a day which lives up to the endless weeks of excitement and presents which keep their little dears happy through the cold winter months. For this reason alone Christmas takes on a huge importance for a lot of people. Here, Christmas falls during the most agreeable weather of the year, and therefore it won't have too big a knock-on effect on people's lives whether it's a good Christmas or not.

A strange thing to observe is that the Christmas paraphernalia which does exist is very much orientated towards the image of Christmas depicted in 'It's A Wonderful Life' or that bloody coca-cola advert. If you were to seek out a Christmas card (I struggled with this - apparently South Americans don't send cards and it's a 'very European' thing) or some Christmas wrapping, you would almost certainly find it with either rosy-cheeked carol singers or Santa Claus dancing in the snow with his reindeers. Even the Christmas tree, with its roots in Nordic and German celebrations, seems rather out of place here.

In my classes I have been spending some time proudly comparing Christmas traditions in England with those in Ecuador. This has illustrated to me again the slightly depressing similarities between the two. In Ecuador the Christmas adverts start way too early, the tree is up in November, they sing carols (same ones as us but with a Spanish translation) in the run-up, and they even eat a turkey dinner, albeit on the 24th. They'd probably have Santa coming down the chimney if most of the houses didn't have tin roofs and it wasn't far too warm for a fireplace.

So to a certain extent Christmas is cancelled this year in my life. No need to feel sorry for me though, as myself, some of the teachers and our new Colombian compadres will be making the most of the time off and travelling around Ecuador for 10 days. It is definitely disappointing that I am in effect running away from Christmas, but there are definitely worse places that I could be running to. On the plus side I haven't heard Mariah Carey, Wham, Band Aid or any of that crap yet, and most likely won't. So there's a positive thought to end on if ever there was one.

(This post was originally written on 9th December but due to technical issues I'm posting it again with pictures)

The long descent into insanity searching for the lagunas del compadre

At the risk of making my life out to be some kind of EastEnders storyline (or finaladores de este as I'm sure it would be called here), it has been another dramatic week. Firstly, by way of contrast, and mostly for my own benefit since I forgot to mention it before (any readers can skip this bit if they like), I want to mention that I went to Cuenca, Ecuador's third city, on the weekend of the 2nd of November. There were lots of lovely celebrations going on for the independence day of the city, we saw some lovely squares and churches, I had 'Juanchito' written for me in Japanese, stood outside the Marc Anthony (biggest selling salsa artist of all time and ex J-Lo hubby) and got nicely drunk, and even found time to complete an epic 5 hour round trip to some delightful Inca ruins on the Sunday.

As I said, contrast... (welcome back those that skipped the first paragraph) So the weekend just gone was a 3-dayer due to Loja's independence celebrations, and we decided that rather than put up with the lameness of that we would make the most of our time and embark on an epic trek to the lagunas del compadre, a hidden system of lakes located deep in the Podacarpus National Park just south of Loja. We didn't know much about them but what we did know was that it's a 14km walk deep into the park which takes roughly 8 hours, you need plenty of water, good boots and a tent, and November is the best month in which to go. Great, we thought, let's do it.

So with our cobbled together food and drink supplies, wellies bought at the last minute (wellies? In ecuador???) and menthol balm in our pockets to smother our bodies in to ward off mosquitoes, 7 of us boarded the back of a pickup at 6am and headed into nature. The walk started at 7, and began with a long uphill climb for 2km into the clouds of the cloud forest.

It was once we entered the actual clouds (a concept which I still find hard to get my head around) that we realised that this was to be no pleasant afternoon stroll. The idea of being up in the clouds at 3000m is a cool one, but the reality is that it's bloody wet, windy and cold. I had been mocked for my get-up of sports T-shirt and shorts with wellies, waterproof coat and baseball cap, but I have to admit I felt a warm glow of smugness as I observed other members of the group get steadily more sodden in their trainers, jeans and hoodie. The walk was not exactly as advertised, with boggy uneven paths and one steep climb seeming to follow another in quick succession. Add to this some very heavy bags, around 15 litres of water and 3 tents between 7 people and you have yourself a bit of a challenge over 14km at high altitude.

After 8 hours we finally got the lake (just one) in sight, by which time the four English boys in our group were so tired and fed up that we could only remark 'pfft, looks just like some bog-standard lake in Scotland'. Well it was a bit more special than that, but it would have taken something very special to impress us at that stage. Before we finally made it to the lake to pitch our tents I just had to lug a 6 litre bottle of water down a stream, easier said than done...

I whipped the boys into shape and we got the tent set up on a helpfully left sheet of tarpaulin and secured it down with a rock or two. Then it was time to heat up some packet soups, down some shots of whisky for warmth and cuddle up for the night. It was so cold that three of us lads were forced to spoon for warmth.

The next day I got up at 6 because I was just so happy to see the sun and have an excuse to leave the tent. Some idiot thought it was a good idea to take a dip in the freezing water so we all did that, then after much faffing we headed off again at 9am. Apart from a little collapse on the ground due to a lack of sugar I was doing fine, but it soon became clear that Israel, a new addition to the teaching staff who fled the troubles in Venezuela, was having some serious difficulties. So in my father's family's tradition of martyrdom I decided to hang back and help him out.

I don't regret that decision for a minute but it could have easily cost me more than a few cuts and bruises. Israel had come horribly unprepared, with only a pair of jeans, some trainers and no raincoat. He had also come without any medication for his altitude sickness, and at 3200m this slowed us down considerably. Another thing was that overnight train had made the ground even more unstable than previously, and every slip, stumble, or fall put more strain on tired knees and wasted precious energy. By the halfway point we were having to ration food and water, and with 2km to go I was so hungry that I practically thanked God for the half-full packet of peanuts that I found by the milepost with most of its contents spilt on the muddy ground (I ate them all of course).

It was after the 2km to go point that things got really tough. As luck would have it, we'd been walking for over 9 hours by this point, it was starting to get dark, starting to rain and the hellish uphill that we'd encountered the day before was now upon us, only this time it was downhill of course. I'm still not sure how we made it down with our battered knees, rumbling stomachs and dry throats and one wind-up torch between 2 people to show the way down a rocky, slippery and steep downhill in the black of the night, but we did it. After two further decidedly hairy hours we finally made it back to the refuge, 11.5 hours after setting off that morning and feeling decidedly sorry for ourselves. After my health scare of last year I didn't fancy getting into another 'survival situation' so soon, and I think that's what shook me up more than anything.

It's now Friday and I'm still tired from the experience! Looking back at my hundreds of photos it was a beautiful walk with amazing plants and scenery (once the cloud cleared), I just wish I'd been able to enjoy it more.

Naive enthusiasm at the start

Still looking fresh at the halfway point

Bit wet

The laguna

Amazing light at sunset - view from our camp

On the way back

Muddy

More lovely light

Very muddy

Very tired

The Ecuadorian daily grind

I've been teaching in Loja for just over 6 weeks now so it's high time I wrote some thoughts on how I feel about it and how the whole experience is going so far. My typical teaching day involves waking up at 9.30 ish (no alarm needed, lovely), lazing around for a while reading or watching Los Simpsons, then heading to the market for around 11 to meet my 'morocho lady' and practice some Spanish with her. This is basically a nice innocent lady who serves morocho (a drink made with milk, maize and vanilla and which tastes like rice pudding) and empanadas (puffed up pastry goodness with a sweet filling) and has the patience to put up with my fairly feeble attempts to speak Spanish with her. I've even started getting some benefits of being a regular in the shape of a mango and a grilled plantain with cheese that she's given me out of the goodness of her heart. I think she's just being nice rather than grooming me for anything but I guess you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise.

  After that my spanish start today continues with my free daily Spanish class run by René, the boss of the centre, which is a really nice gesture that he didn't have to make. This usually finishes at 1pm, which leaves me with an empty couple of hours before lessons start. In this time I either trek 15 minutes up the hill to our house for some hammock time, head into town to argue with the lady in the post office, or idly half plan and make some copies ready for the afternoon lessons.

  Then at 3pm the madness begins. I start off with a group of hyperactive 7 to 9 year old who are definitely the 'learn by doing' kind, and every new word or phrase has to be accompanied by an action. This is very tiring but fun, especially when they have to mime such words as poison apple or skydiving, and I watch as they writhe on the floor after eating an imaginary apple or strap their backpack on, climb to the top of a chair and jump off.

I then have 10 minutes to run down the stairs quickly, file the folders for the previous class, find the folder and work for the next class, and 'relax' before running up 2 flights of stairs for the next lesson. All my lessons finish at 5 to the hour, and the next start at 5 past the hour so it's a very hectic schedule with no real breaks in 6 hours.

  The next set of students at 4pm are all 11 to 13 year olds are almost too well behaved and I struggle to find enough work for them. I've decided to make that work in my favour and we will now be reading a book whenever work is done. Easy peasy.

  It's just as well that those students are well behaved because the next set keep me on my toes big time. At 5 o'clock I have 13 to 15 year olds and at 6 o'clock I have 16 to 18 year olds. The 5 o'clock students are mostly more interested in taking pictures of each other than in learning language and the 6 o clock students have a lot of university work and usually turn up to my class halfway through, if at all. I have had difficulties getting them on my side but I find that making yourself stupid is as good as a way to endear yourself to the students as any - a break free moment with my young teens came when teaching adverbs. I shook my limbs around to demonstrate 'he is walking stupidly' and now every class ends in a plea of 'teeeacher, bailar!' as they ask for me to repeat my stupid dance. Bizarrely, I think their respect for me went up, rather then down, after that moment. Although they test me at times, all it takes is for me to glance out of the window at the view beyond the classroom and things don't seem so bad (see below).

  Then comes the highlight of the day, my adult class. It may be a bit dull to read about but they are a joy to teach, and we have much more fun than I do with any of my children's classes. I also often find that I'll plan a 'childish game' which won't go down well with my kids classes at all, but which my adults will find absolutely hilarious. The 20 minutes I spent with my adults playing 'simon says' spring immediately to mind... In a strange twist of fate they now have me speaking Spanish in the last half an hour of the Friday lesson. Well, if they want to pay to help me with my Spanish then it's fine by me. There are plans in place for them to show me the 'pubs' of Loja this Friday so there's a cultural exchange that I'm definitely looking forward to.

  All in all I'd say I'm enjoying the teaching, and there are more lessons that I walk out of with a big smile on my face than cursing my luck at being stuck with a certain set of kids. I think I went into it with a certain naïve notion that teaching in a third world country would involve rows of obedient children sitting cross legged 10 minutes before you arrive and then hang on your every word like their lives depended on it. The reality is that you get many of the same types of spoilt 21st century kids that you get in English schools who don't realise how lucky they are to have this opportunity for extra English help that a vast majority of the country can't afford. On the other hand, I'm not that old myself and I know at their age I was just down the park playing football after school and you'd have struggled to make me go to extra English classes every day after school, so I can sympathise with a bit of moodiness! It's definitely a challenge that I am more than up for though.

Empanadas

Two of my little 3 o'clock rascals with me on Halloween

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!