Loja at Last

Saturday, June 01, 2013

Just as I was starting to feel like I was getting a bit of a feel for Quito (spending 2 days here is really just cruel…), it was time for us to make our way to Loja for our actual journey. At the ass crack of Quito’s consistent 6am dawn, we piled into a school bus, in clown car fashion barreling towards the airport some 45 minutes away.

After paying $40 in unjust baggage fees (they added 10 kilos to my bags mysteriously…), we made it to our gate and were of course unsurprised to find that for whatever reason, our flight was delayed. Somebody cited a weather problem, but looking out the window, you couldn’t really ask for a nicer day—leading me to believe that despite the dangers of the former airport that was in downtown Quito, this new one wasn’t very promising either…not to mention our rough landing.

When we finally landed, we were greeted by Ainhoa, who is actually here from the Basque country working for UTPL. She had barely finished her greeting sentence and I knew she had to be Basque, not just because of her manner of speaking (which was obviously not Ecuadorian) but by her legs. Call me weird, but I know Basque legs. Additionally, her mannerisms and bluntness stuck out to me as delightfully hilarious—again, something pronouncedly Basque.

As we wound our way into the valley where Loja sits, she explained to us a few basics of the city and told us about herself as well. I was indeed paying attention, but at the same time, I stared out the window, never feeling anything less than absolutely stunned by the Andes, which in this part aren’t even the crazy jagged peaks, but rather the immense, green hills that took me back to my time at Machu Picchu. They made me feel so small in a blissful, geographic way. The world existed before me and it will continue on after me, these mountains being a constant marker of that.

I was drawn back into reality as we approached the city and tried to rapidly assign housing situations. I was really clamoring for a host family because of my experience in Argentina with Juan and Ana, which was truly life changing. But David had explained that there might only be one host family with room for 3 people. We arrived at the first house, which they explained was the home of María Dolores. Sam, Megan and I jumped out of the bus, not wanting to face the consequences of securing a host family and were greeted by a welcoming yellow living room and immediately I knew I wanted to stay. Sure, María has 2 very young children and explained that really, she and her husband, Diego, wouldn’t be home during the day very much, but it’s 10 minutes away from the university and I didn’t want to risk it. Sam, however, looked around wondering how he was going to even fit in the bed she had open for him—not to mention the fact that the room was decorated with flowers, dancing princesses and happy little bumblebees. Codie, then, took his place. And so Megan, Codie and I became the new foreign family.

Once everyone was settled, we finally made it to lunch at a quaint little place called Mama Lola. In porteño slang, lola means tit, so I couldn’t help but have a laugh, even though I knew that’s not what the name intends to say…Though the service was slower than normal “Latin America” pace, they more than made up for that with the delicious food. As a vegetarian, the menu was easy to navigate because right off the bat, I eliminated most of the dishes. This left me with potatoes, a salad and a soup. Perhaps that sounds a little bit bland, but it was delicious and perfect. Not to mention, it all cost less than $4. In fact, for the ten of us, it was $70, including drinks and tip. I could get used to this…And even better because I’ll have to for the next 2 months.