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)

Cultural differences handily summarised

I decided it was a good idea to sum up a handy list of cultural peculiarities thus far collected in my time here.

Social: in Ecuador it is customary to shake hands with every single person of the already-present group when arriving at a social event. Then, when beer or other alcohol is served, it is rude to take a beer just for oneself, and rather several beers are bought by the group, and small amounts are poured into each glass. If you then want more, you are too offer it to every other person on the table before pouring your own. ¡salud! is rarely bothered with. I was also told that answering the question 'do you want to go to a bar tonight?' with the question 'sure, what time?' is so European.

Commercial: bartering is commonplace in all but the biggest chain stores, and it is actually considered rather rude if you don't barter on price. I was recently told by a friend that one of the best ways to win the respect of an Ecuadorian is to barter with him. They also seem to be a lot more accepting of dodgy travelling salesmen, and willing to fork out for whatever crap the guy who's ambushed us on the bus with a 30 minute speech is peddling. That could just be down to the Ecuadorian mild-mannered nature of course.

Manners: little emphasis is placed here on the manners that we hold so dear in blighty. Please and thank you are used sparingly, and people would rather barge past you than utter a simple 'perdón'. Despite this, they are a very warm (if slightly reserved) race of people, and any friendship will be greatly repaid.

Hygiene: one aspect of life here that I've found unusual is the fact that used toilet paper is not flushed down the toilet, but rather placed in a designated bin at arm's length of the toilet. Inevitably, this usually reaches the point of overflowing before anyone bites the bullet and empties the container of shitty paper out. As such, the relative benefits of this system are surely outweighed by the mankiness of the overflowing shit-bin. A teacher from England told me once that the thing he loves about Ecuador is the freedom to urinate where he wants without fear of being judged, and yes, I have seen plenty of evidence, male and female, to back that statement up.

Relationships: not got any personal experience in this field but from what I've seen latino men live up to their less-than-positive reputation. It is widely accepted that men are scumbags who can't keep it in their trousers, and cheating between couples (married or unmarried) seems to be fairly accepted. Someone one told me that her father's unfaithfulness is actually a running joke in the family, and many nights after tea he'll pop out to 'meet a business partner' with a knowing wink. Everyone knows what this means and it's accepted as long as he crawls back into the marital bed at the end and doesn't take drugs. As Ecuador is quite a conservative catholic country, teenage marriage is quite common and some people seemed surprised that I was unmarried at 24.

Environment: fair play to the president, Rafael Correa, in this department, as he seems to be someone who actually cares about the environment. There exists something in Ecuadorian law called the 'law of nature' where the beautiful nature of the country is protected by law. The Galapagos are a bit too touristy but at least travel to the islands is highly restricted by the park entry fee. He tried an unusual policy of promising to leave the vast reserves of oil under the Ecuadorian jungle alone if the international community would come up with the $3.5bn that they could earn by exploiting 0.1% of the national park. In the end they only received a few million so the scheme was a abandoned, but a bit more cooperativeness from more well-off countries or individuals and it could have worked. Here in Loja I don't really see a lot of love for the environment, despite the beautiful natural location. I've yet to even encounter anywhere that you can recycle anything here.

I'll continue to add to this post as and when I think of more stuff. Contributions and suggestions gratefully received.

What I dream of when feeling homesick

In no particular order:

Fish and chips meals out to the pub with my parents

Chaotic Sunday afternoon cafe visits with my wider family to shelter from the pouring rain

Taking a flight to Dortmund to see my girlfriend and enjoy the pure  Gemütlichkeit of her apartment

Jumping on a train and being with my uni mates in Sheffield in an hour and a half

A proper cup of tea

The British sense of humour

Christmas by the fire, huddled up from the freezing cold with my closest family and playing some terrible board game

The look on my nieces and nephews faces when I knock on the door of their house in Bristol

Games of tennis with my brother and camomile tea and curry nights with my sister

Fifa tournaments and afternoon kickabouts with my old school friends

Regional accents

The ability to understand everyone with minimal difficulty (although this admittedly has its drawbacks)

The rain

My guitar

Home

Half time reflections

I am now roughly halfway through my stay here in Loja and it seems like that coupled with my mozzie travails and my little flirt with death on the mountain has put me in a reflective state of mind. I am currently unable to say if the halfway stage is a good or a bad thing. On the one hand it means I'm halfway to seeing my girlfriend and starting a new little chapter of adventure with travels around south america and beyond. On the other hand I feel like I'm starting to develop a nice routine here, am building strong relationships with some of my students and fellow teachers and am just starting to get a firm grip on the language.

A word that keeps popping into my head is freedom. You could definitively say that one of the most positive aspects of my life here is freedom. From the moment I wake up until the start of classes at 3pm I can essentially do what I want, which is nice of course. The problem is that freedom and loneliness can be defined similarly, and the two often appear hand in hand. So as I freely stroll around town or lie in the hammock with the day stretching ahead of me I can't help but feel the heavy hand of loneliness on my shoulder, dragging me back slightly as I go about my business, and I guess that wears me down somewhat.

This isn't meant to come across as moany or ungrateful for the opportunity I've got here. I can already hear the voices of my family and friends back home saying 'you're living the dream in a lovely warm country while we shiver here and count down to Christmas, stop complaining!', but I guess it does us all good to have a bit of a moan once in a while...

What it comes down to is that I just miss having my family and friends around. To be honest I don't particularly miss England at all, I more miss having people who truly care about me and are just a phone call away (Skype does NOT count) if I feel like calling. The natural response to meeting people from other countries who have cut all ties to come and live out here is one of respect and envy, but on further reflection I wonder how I would feel in their shoes? Is it such an enviable thing to have no real connection to your roots, to want to leave behind all that you grew up with? I'm not so sure.

So I am determined to make the most of my remaining time out here, and then of the time I spend in other places seeing where my money and interest will take me. The important thing is to remind myself that the vague sense of certain important people missing isn't loneliness at all, rather the feeling that you're more needed and wanted in one part of the world than in another. I guess that isn't really such a bad thing.

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

Me vs the mozzies

I'm mostly writing this post because I'm just plain bored lying at home with a raised foot and waiting for my spazzy mosquito-ankle to stop being so spazzy. During the day the raised foot position is natural for a hammock but in the evening it's enough of a drag to make me miss even my most annoying English classes. Strange feeling, maybe I do enjoy teaching after all.

It all started so well, with a night out with my students on the Friday for views of the city, crazy amounts of meat for 5 dollars and then a few tobasco-beers afterwards, all paid for by my students who are all either at university or earn less than me here. So yes, that was rather lovely. I also learned plenty of more interesting things about  Ecuadorian culture, such as the fact that people inland call those who live on the coast 'monkeys', which is apparently completely acceptable and not racist at all..

After a slightly below-par showing from myself at my Saturday class, it was straight off to Vilcabamba, a major 'gringo town' 45 minutes from Loja, for Saturday's festivities. As an aside, I recently discovered that the word gringo originates from the American occupation of Mexico where the soldiers wore green and thus they wanted that the 'green-go', hence gringo. It's not a friendly term in any case and I always make a point of taking an exception to it. Mostly the offence comes from people mistaking me for an American!

The festivities were a birthday surprise for my English friend Ross organised by his  Ecuadorian girlfriend Diana, in a private youth hostel resort type thing with swimming pool, outdoor bar and almost panoramic views of the surrounding mountains. We started drinking around 4 and finally retired well after midnight after sampling the pool and sauna facilities late at night and drinking copious amounts of warm canelazo (water, cinnamon sticks (canela), brown sugar, an acid fruit juice such as naranjilla or lemon and aguardiente (fire water)).

The next day we moved on to the holiday home of the owner of our company and perennial sunglasses-indoors-wearer Diego, for much more of the same. That is, volleyball on his private court, swimming and plenty of beer and salted pork skins for snacks (another delicacy here). It was a great end to a great couple of days but unfortunately I'd forgotten my insect repellent at the other place, and there had been an unseasonal number of the little bitey buggers at the party.

The next day I woke and felt fine apart from a slightly queasy feeling at seeing my feet and legs covered in mankey red dots, and I went about my business in the usual way. During my 5pm lesson my foot started causing me a bit of pain, by 6pm my left foot was pretty much too painful to walk on, and after 20 minutes of my 7pm lesson it was decided that my ankle was far too swollen for the sake of teaching the one student that had turned up, and René and I headed off for the public hospital in town.

Well that was an experience. After negotiating with the people operating the barrier about whether they would let us in, we made our way into a modern, newly built waiting room. Unfortunately, with no one to greet us at a reception and the doctor refusing to open his door to anyone, neither the various families knocking on his door or the police that came to drop off a suspect, a waiting room was all that it was.

Slightly put out by the lack of order or any type of system at the main emergency ward of the whole city, we headed off to the next hospital, which was in fact a private clinic. Here, the porter received us gratefully and wheeled me through (I couldn't walk at all by now) to a nice private room and a bed. There I lay as the odd nurse came through cleaning things, and a good 20 minutes later we managed to catch a doctor to ask her what was going on, only to be batted away and told that she was busy. 10 minutes later we threatened to leave if no one showed any interest in me, to which she said 'well, you can leave if you want' without having even looked at me. So, we left.

René was finding the whole thing very amusing and delighted in telling me horror stories of other such occurrences as I zoned in and out of attentiveness. To the third hospital's credit, they saw me promptly, told me it was just an allergic reaction and gave me an injection and some pills and cream to take home, the whole thing costing a mere 31 dollars. I would just have slightly rather not had to spend 2 hours of my life looking for someone who would spare me the time of day...

The moral of the story: get that insect spray on you because you don't want to fall ill here if you can help it!