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.

Walking high, travelling far, and generally looking up

It really is time that I wrote something more positive here. Luckily my neck issues are now sorting themselves out and I've been able to make some visits out of Loja, so let's talk about that.

On January 11th I headed out with my Colombian friend James (pronounced ha-mezz) to Vilcabamba, the local laid-back hippie/gringo commune for a spot of hiking. The place is interesting as it not only showcases the huge climatic diversity of Ecuador, since a windy 40 minute bus journey brings you to a slightly lower altitude and with it a sultry tropical world of colour far removed from the monochromatic fresh mountain slopes of Loja, but the influx of gringos on the search for cheap land and daily massages lends it a much more laid back feel than Loja.

After said bus journey we headed straight for mandango, one of the many mountains that tower over the village. Not knowing the way to the path, we stopped by 'Hostal Mandango' in the presumption that the owner would have some inkling as to the whereabouts of the hotel after which he named his business. As it was his terrible directions cost us a good half an hour of walking time. We finally found the actual path, and after a decent slog up the top (some of the time on our hands and knees up a rubble path with a sheer drop to one side), we were soon making Jesus poses on the cross at the top. Most exciting of all was the wildlife - we saw an iguana camouflaging itself in the dry grass, had to poke a tarantula out of our path with a long stick, and when we reached the top a grand old eagle swooped over to say hi.

After we stopped for pizza in a well established American-owned joint where the owners spoke barely a single word of Spanish. It left me with a warm glow of self-satisfaction to compare myself with him, out for the day with an entirely non English-speaking friend chatting constant Spanish, and that after only 4 months of learning and immersion. My friendship with James has been funny in a way because it's given me a guide to how I'm improving. When I think back to when I got to know him 2 months ago and was basically latching onto singular words I'd understood and forming any acceptable sentence about the perceived conversation topic, I honestly do feel quite smug that now we can have real back-and-forth conversations, and I understand 95% of what he says. It's strange in a way that a friendship can work in those circumstances but with enough hand signals and 'eyyyy's we somehow muddle through.

The second trip was last weekend, to the village of Zapotillo down by the Peruvian border in order to see the guayacanes trees, which flower brilliant yellow annually, but only for one week, so we knew we had to go for it. Now, due to the the remote Andean location of Loja I've come to approach the interminable slaloming bus journeys required to reach anywhere of note with a Zen-like calm, seeing the endless hours as  opportunity to immerse myself in favourite books and albums, alone withy my thoughts. However this journey tested my tolerance to the i  limit.

We took the bus from Loja at 15.30 on the Saturday, arriving in Zapotillo at 23.00. Due to the one-off nature of the event all hostels were fully booked, so we looked for salvation in the bus station. The building closed for the night at midnight, but the woman kindly offered us some cardboard boxes from the storeroom and some scissors that we might make ourselves some beds and sleep outside on the concrete behind the buses. This actually seemed like our best option until we saw that the bus we'd arrived on was still open and containing several fellow bums sprawled across the seats. There we 'slept' (the bus station was next door to a late night music club) until 5am.

At 5 the engines started up and the bus driver told us he was heading towards the village where all the yellow was. Liar. We overshot the turning for the village by a good 10km and greeted the sunrise with our thumbs out on the side of the road after working our way back there from the dead end village we'd been dropped off in. Luckily hitchhiking is super easy over here due to all the pickup trucks, so three lifts later we made it back to the turning and at 7.30 jumped on the back of one of the many army trucks running a free service to the trees.

I guess you could say we got what we paid for. Between there and the trees was only 2 hours of windy dirt track. Cue much headbanging (ironic since the doc had told me the day before to avoid heavy metal concerts due to my neck) and furious breathing through the nose, if at all. By the time we arrived at 9.30 we'd been on the road and sleeping rough for 18 hours. To be fair the site that met our eyes was beautiful - an entire valley decked out in daffodil yellow, definitely a site for sore eyes and necks, and we gulped down our morning chivo al hueco (goat in the hole) gratefully.

Due to work on Monday and the ridiculously long journey we'd have to take back, we only had 3 hours in the actual village we'd been aiming for. We spent those eating goat, walking alongside a herd of goats towards some old Inca bathing pool before hitching on a pickup instead, which we shared with a travel sick goat on our way back from the baths. To me this was such a south american thing to happen - chilled out about giving us a lift and then springing the surprise of a retching goat in our travel space with no apology or explanation, hilarious. So we huddled at the far end of the back of the truck, grimacing with each goaty retch as we knew that if anything came out of its mouth it would trickle down to us and our bags sitting downhill from it.

After another army truck journey from hell it was back on the bus. Luckily I was armed with my neck brace, which is brilliant for sleeping on buses as it stops your neck moving around with the movement of the bus, and my secret weapon - the unabridged Moby Dick audiobook. Works every time.

A very dizzy Christmas

I haven't written much in my blog recently because it was simply too depressing to write about the situation while it was still ongoing. Now that I'm feeling better and things are just about back to normal I feel I can write about it with a bit of distance and perspective.

So what happened? On Thursday 19th December, after the last proper teaching day of that year, we had the Christmas party of the business empire (that's right, business empire. Bet your secondary school wasn't part of a business empire) to which our language school belongs. The previous evening we'd had our own lovely little teachers' party in a fast food chicken restaurant - where else - and given out secret santa presents and the sort, but this party was rubbish. It was for 40 employees and took place in a pizza restaurant which had one stone oven which fitted four small pizzas at a time. Spot the problem there... After seemingly endless ceremonies to crown the prince and princess of the school, which involved each one of the 10 candidates giving two laborious speeches about the message of Christmas, we heads the joy of witnessing a secret santa gift-sharing between 30 people which weren't a part of and which went something like this: the person who just received a present stands up, says 'my secret santa is a person who I just meet recently, seems very nice, blah blah blah... the person is revealed, gifts given, they stand up and the whole thing continues. For 30 people. Of course whilst all this was going on the one person trusted with making pizzas for 40 people with a small oven was chatting away to his mates and drinking beer. When the ceremonies were finally over after 11pm he finally started to prepare (!) the pizzas. Needless to say we left that place in a bad mood having been fairly inadequately fed...

When we got home we had to make ourselves some tea. After i put my basket of staple foods (2kg sugar, 2kg rice, 1kg pasta, bottle of tommy k, packet of biscuits, tin of peaches, packet of sweets, fair play) in the corner of the kitchen, I stood up, hit my head on the cabinet, and fell to the floor. I distinctly remember thinking 3 things down there: 'what am I doing on the floor, this is pathetic', 'I need to move my glasses so I don't crush them with my head' and 'oh, I can't move. Or speak'. The situation was so innocuous that my housemate Oliver 'common sense' Reynolds told me to wake up because I can't sleep on the floor. I recovered the power of speech and movement after a few minutes and trotted off to bed.

I expected that I had a bit of concussion but bravely dragged myself into school because my kids needed me for their big Christmas performances, and to be fair I was looking forward to my starring role as well. We had 'The Night Before Christmas' with the 7-9 year olds, climaxing in Santa and Rudolph spectacularly 'flying' off into the night from the swings in the playground, followed by a comparison of Christmas in Ecuador and Christmas in the UK, where we mostly discovered that it is in fact disappointingly similar. So that was fun. Even played a bit of charades and watched Wallace and Gromit with the one adult who showed up to my evening class, and I have to admit I feel slightly bad that he had to pay for that dubious pleasure.

I was meant to be leaving the next day for a big Christmas/new year trip around Ecuador, but had to keep putting it off due to feeling dizzy whenever I tried to walk anywhere and generally feeling low on energy and crappy. The situation continued until I gave in and found myself in a hospital clinic on Christmas Day being prescribed nausea tablets by a doctor who confessed to knowing very little about matters of the head. Those made me even more dizzy, but didn't stop me enjoying a lovely Christmas lunch with some English blokes and their friends. Roast turkey, roast potatoes, bacon stuffing, yorkshires, cauliflower cheese and gravy. Top stuff. That and the various packages from home (and a charming Rudolph hat from Korea, see below!) and being able to watch literally every Christmas special on iPlayer on my tablet (even the queen's speech!) at least did something to quell the homesickness of my first Christmas abroad and alone and sick.

It was clear that I had to see a specialist, and 3 days later I was going through one of those massive body scanners and having my head and neck xrayed. The upshot was that the bang on the head caused a swelling in my neck which was causing my spine to bend somewhat at the top and also restricting the blood flow to my head, hence the dizziness and all that. I was given pills to increase blood flow, relax the muscles and injections for my bum (good that I have a lesbian friend who used to work in a pharmacy) and a neck brace to wear for a month. Party on.

To be fair the neck brace isn't such a big deal, I only need it when I'm out and about and it gets me plenty of sympathy which let's face it we all enjoy. It's the biggest hindrance on hot sunny days and when doing any strenuous exercise, when the thickness of the material leads to some serious sweaty neck syndrome. It's also allowed me to reduce my hours at work, and having the one hour off in 6 makes an incredible difference.

I still managed to celebrate new year's, albeit in Loja and not on the beach in the party capital of Ecuador. They have some interesting customs here. In the week before people buy dolls dressed up as various hated famous people or make their own with their own personal figures of hate, presumably bosses or little sisters.

 On the night itself I saw boys dressed up as girls stopping the traffic (literally, not figuratively) and demanding money, along with little boys and girls doing similarly who may or may not have been actual beggars. At least the town felt alive for once. I spent the evening with my Venezuelan friends eating hallacas (corn dough filled with a three-meat sauce, and a little bit of each of egg, pepper, olive, broccoli, ham, carrot... then wrapped in a banana leaf and boiled) which we'd prepared the night before. At quarter to 12 we headed to the roof to see the fireworks all over the town, and then at 12 the dolls, which had been stationed in front of the houses were set on fire across the whole town. This gave an appearance of some kind of hell on earth, which some might say is fitting for this place. Well it looked cool anyway. Then came the questionable tradition where all the kids have to jump 12 times over the fire for good luck. Not sure about that one.

Right I've talked enough. I promise to make the next post a bit jollier. Seeya then.

Feeling festive with my morocho lady

Girfts from home

And advent calendar from my girlfriend

Christmas party with my 10-12 year olds

and my 7-9s AKA Santa and Rudolph

The root of all evil

Christmas lunch

Smiling

Venezuelan new year's

and said dolls burning on the street

New year's dolls

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).