Burps 'n' Slurps

Loja is a prosperous, tidy and organized town. So much so that, in conjunction with its cool climate, it's easy to imagine that it's not in South America at all.  

Our time in Loja was a mixed bag, in all sorts of ways.

In town there was definitely some good stuff.  Loja sits in a pretty green valley at just over 2000m.  As I've already alluded to, it looks almost European. It was full of charming squares, big and small, each with a church facing on to it.  The styles of them varied a lot, but they were all delightful, active places.

But at the same time, I kept comparing it to Peru, usually not favourably.  The central market was so much more organized, but less lively for it. Everything seemed to be more expensive.  There were signs all over saying “one simple action for a better city: don't buy in the street.” But I like buying stuff in the street.  I know (and probably even knew at the time) that these comparisons were unfair, and that with a bit of time to get used to our new environment I'd come to be comfortable, happy and even excited here too.

We took some steps in this direction when we headed south of town (a mere 15 or 20km!) to the entrance to Parque Nacional Podocarpus.  After having missed out on seeing Andean Cocks of the Rock in Peru, we hoped to spot some in an overnight trip to the park. But our hopes were dashed as soon as we arrived, with the ranger at the entrance letting us know that they lived in an entirely different part of the incredibly diverse park (it has terrain ranging from Amazon rainforest to cloud forest to near alpine peaks above the tree line).

We walked up a quiet road 6km to the administration centre and the cabins where we planned to spend the night.  We walked on the trails through the cloud forest near our cabin, and, given how early we'd arrived, decided even to do part of the longer loop walk we were saving for the following morning, climbing up to the mirador which, at 2900m had fabulous views out over the surrounding mountains and down to near the amazingly nearby city of Loja.

While we sat up there we were regularly buzzed by birds that came hurtling out of the sky, wind whistling amazingly loudly through their wings as they passed, often only a few metres away.  These looked very similar to the white chinned swifts we'd seen returning to Kaieteur Falls by the thousands, but didn't flock like them and were quite a bit larger. (Interesting side note: while trying to find out what species they were [white throated swift], I learned that swifts, while superficially quite similar to swallows, aren't really related to them at all and are much more closely related to hummingbirds.  Of which we also saw several in the Podocarpus cloud forest).

It turned out to be fortunate we went up to the mirador that afternoon, for several reasons.  

First, I slept terribly.  The cabanas usually had bedding, but apparently it was all down in town being cleaned.  We made the mistake of telling the staff that we'd be fine, and ended up spending the whole night snuggled up close under a single thin sheet, wearing all of our warm clothes. Even so my knees or bum alternated being cold all night.  

But there was worse.  I'd found the walk up to the mirador tough, then back at the cabana after late lunch, I felt a bit nauseous.  I figured both of these were mostly due to the altitude and dehydration. But in the middle of the night I felt a bit bloated, sat up and gave out with a disgusting but familiar tasting burp.  Apparently my difficulties had been due at least in part to a Giardia (microscopic gastrointestinal parasite) or similar infection.

By morning I was in no shape to do the loop walk, and neither was the weather.  It was cloudy all around and drizzling. I was, just, feeling well enough to walk down to the road and get a bus back into town.  Our first stop back in Loja was at a pharmacy where I picked up the medication to treat my illness. I spent most of the rest of the day in bed. But thankfully the medicine works fast and I at least felt up to doing lots of research for the rest of our stay in Ecuador.

We'd decided that the next morning (assuming I felt up to it, which I did) we'd head a bit further north to the city of Cuenca for a short visit, followed by a few days of hiking on the popular Quilotoa Loop.

It was a grey and drizzly day again as we bussed our way through the mountains.  Almost the whole journey was spent passing through big dark green hills and valleys, surprisingly densely filled with villages and dairy farms.

Arriving in Cuenca around 15:30 on a Saturday, I still wasn't 100%.  We found a place to stay on the edge of the old town, but even after a brief walk through the historic centre on the cloudy afternoon I was struggling to see why people rave about it as they do.  Apparently in addition to nausea and brown urine, another one of the side effects of metronidazole is a generally grumpy and pessimistic attitude.

The next day was a Sunday and one activity suggested for the day by travel guidebook was to check out the markets in the nearby towns of Chordaleg and Gualaceo.  These were pretty unremarkable. Each had limited selections of fruits, vegetables, meats, etc. and small sections of tourist focused goods. The two-hour return bus trip would've felt like a big waste except for two bright spots:

A wonderful meal at one of several stalls with whole roasting pigs that smelled fabulous and (arguably) looked even better.

And the walk through the countryside between the villages.  It was filled with small farms, nice-smelling eucalyptus trees and so many expensive-looking houses that we were left wondering where all the money for them came from.  Then as we approached Gualaceo we had a delightful walk under an old aqueduct and alongside the river, the trails and parks on its green banks busy with local folks enjoying their Sunday with friends and families.

This lovely walk cheered me up quite a bit.  Back in Cuenca we had the afternoon to look around the old city some more, and it became much clearer why so many visitors love Cuenca: the old town is just beautiful.

It's full of colonial buildings, many of which are architectural gems.  And then this is amplified by the plazas and churches, which basically take the charming little ones in Loja and upsize their size and impressiveness by a couple of points.  Several of these would be tourism highlights in other South American towns.

Then you can add the fancy and/or foreign friendly businesses (cafés selling fancy coffees, imported shoe and clothing stores, lots of bars, etc. etc.). Portable tap water, a (relatively) low crime environment and it becomes pretty clear why Cuenca is a popular retirement, or even just a getaway-for-a-while spot for many North Americans.

Ever since Loja we'd been planning and trying to sort out ways of neatly squeezing in our trek near Lake Quilotoa before our arrival in Quito.  By the time we were done our afternoon wander around the old town we'd become convinced that the best way was to not try at all, to spend a couple more days enjoying Cuenca and then to backtrack a couple of hours to Quilotoa after Quito if we still wanted to when the time came.

This gave us one more day of just hanging around town.  We checked out the interiors of some of the churches. The new cathedral (constructed in 1855 of brick and pink marble) had a huuuuge nativity display inside (nativity displays are a big thing in Ecuador), but it was dwarfed by the massive space under the nave.  We got to climb up the observation tower at city hall, uphill and just out of the old town.

We looked around the edges of the new town a bit, walking along the delightful paths following the Rio Santa Barbara (one of the four eponymous rivers in Cuenca (Basin) de Los Cuatro Rios.  Along the way we admired some of the fanciest colonial buildings on the plateau above. We enjoyed the lively feeling of the university district around lunchtime. We licked yummy ice creams (Fantasia de Navidad, kind of like light Christmas cake flavour).  Even spotted a few llamas trimming the grass at the archeological site near our hostel.

And back there we got to cook several vegetable-heavy meals in the hostel kitchen.  We'd been missing vegetables, as the inexpensive food in Ecuador (and, indeed, back in Peru) is pretty heavy on starch and meat with the veggies really just being a garnish.

Not that we went full-on health food in Cuenca though.  Far from it. We had multiple meals of papi-something (or something-papi), which are essentially just french fries with something on top. Papi-huevo (with a fried egg), papi-pollo (with fried chicken), or salchipapa (the cheapest and most popular of all, with sliced up hotdog) were all available all over town.  Not surprising for a town in the heart o the Andes, the spiritual and historical home of the potato!! The best papas also came with tasty extras like tomato-onion salsa, aji sauce or shredded lettuce.

And what goes with salchipapas? Especially on your way home at 23:30? Why beer of course!

The medicine I was taking interacts badly with alcohol, so we had to wait for our final day in Cuenca to check out the city's growing craft beer scene.

We got to four brewpubs/brewery bars over the course of the day.  The first was pretty darned good. It served three different Czech-style beers plus the obligatory IPA (which, not entirely surprisingly, coming from a Czech brewery was lacking in hops and was fermented with a lager yeast.). But the pilsner was really good, possibly the best beer I'd had since leaving NZ.

The middle two breweries were… problematic.  Partly in direct consequence of the beer. One had a choice of infected brews with one bland but okay offering (and an actually pretty good IPA that we tried just a sample of as we were leaving).  The other had four beers, all of which had significant yeast health issues. These places were also weirdly problematic because of the staff. They were just all too nice, and proud of the products they were selling.

If I try a faulted homebrew, my approach is pretty clear: point out the fault(s) as nicely as possible, explain how to fix them and then find something nice to say about the beer (there's always SOMETHING).

But with a badly faulted commercial beer especially when talking to the brewer him/herself it's much harder.  You're not just criticising their brewing skill. You're saying they are either: completely incompetent at their chosen profession for failing to notice things that should be blindingly obvious OR (worse) aware of the problems and trying to get people to pay for a poor quality product anyway.  It's tough to have a conversation like this even with someone you don't already like, so I usually just mention, but minimize the perceived problem and don't drink anymore of it.

Fortunately there were a couple of great non-beer aspects to the day.

Before even the first pint we visited the History of Medicine Museum.  It was a little bit dilapidated, but filled with a mix of interesting and bizarrely baffling tools, drugs, equipment and literature.  And even replicas of entire doctor's offices rom the early 20th century to the 1980s.

And during our mid-afternoon break we visited the Cuenca municipal planetarium!  Sarah and I kind of collect planetaria. There were free shows scheduled hourly, but only if they could rustle up ten guests for the 84 seat theatre.  When 16:00 came there was just the two of us. But when we asked if we could at least have a look inside “porqué gustamos planetaria,” the staff very kindly decided to do a show just for us (in English even!). We felt so lucky and happy for their kindness that we offered up a donation to the planetarium, which they steadfastly refused.

Our final stop of the day was brewery number four, a tiny bar on one of Cuenca's many squares that sold bottles only of their own house brewed Belgians style beers, plus other actual Belgians.  Sadly the brewer skipped his regular visit to the bar at 22:00, but the barman, a young Venezuelan who was just learning to love beer after landing this job was plenty knowledgeable and passionate about his products.  

While I sat and sipped at superb saison, tripel and sour, Sarah took a brief exercise break, popping outside to join the public synchronised dance in the square.

While it was a good choice quality wise, making our final stop one where all of the beers were 8% plus maybe wasn't ideal in terms of getting us home in good time and condition.  The late-night papi-huevos on the walk back doubtless helped a little though.

The next morning it was at last time to leave Cuenca.  As we were heading north up the Pan-American Highway there were heaps of buses.  It was just a matter of when wed manage to drag our slightly fuzzy selves to the station.

This turned out to be around nine thirty.

Having decided to take our time left us in a much better mood, feeling that we'd done some justice to Cuenca's loveliness as we headed north through still more cloudy green on the six-ish hour trip to Riobamba, Ecuador's third largest city, “the Sultan of the Andes.”