A day in Loja

Although the day is not over, I though I should go ahead and get this posted. Loja is much longer north/south than east/west, because of the shape of the valley it sits in, so this morning after breakfast we went out and got on a city bus headed north, and rode it until it came to the end of the line. It was a beautiful day, and I took a few pictures at a local school ground, where the children were apparently out for recess. We then got on another bus and rode it all the way to the south end of town, where we walked through the campus of a local university.

Finally, we caught a third bus [at 25 cents per person per ride, this was not painfully expensive], and went back to a shopping center that we had noted earlier. After looking around a few minutes, and getting ready to leave, we noticed a couple that did not appear to be Ecuadorian. I asked the woman in Spanish if she spoke English, and it turned out that they are Christian missionaries from Australia who are largely working with people who suffer from addictions and such. We visited while they ate lunch [they were moving apartments today, and were thus unable to eat at home], and we learned that they have been living and working in Loja for 20 years. Then as we were about to conclude our discussion so they could get back to moving, another woman, this time from the US, stopped and asked if she could join us.

Her name is Sandra, and she is down here working at the university teaching English as a second language [ESL]. She stayed with us as we ate lunch, and then left to go back to work, but we will be meeting again for dinner, this time along with one of her students that she says is quite advanced in English. She also referred us to Las Puertas de la Ciudad or "the gates of the city", which is what we visited this afternoon. Here is a picture taken from the top floor, looking to the north.


We fly out of Loja early tomorrow morning to return to Quito, and thence to Otovalo, a couple of hours north of Quito, so my next post should be from there. Now I have to go rebalance our bags, as the airline allows us 20 kg apiece of checked luggage, and 5 kg apiece of carry-on. I am sure that our total baggage weight will fall under this combined limit, but I will need to spend some time portioning it out so as to avoid overweight penalties. Fortunately, I brought a little scale that will help with this task!