OK, we admit it, we made a mistake in stopping at Loja. Although there are some attractive buildings around the many squares, nothing can detract from the fact that there is very little to do! It was raining as we arrived and we walked around a bit looking at buildings and sussed out some possible eating spots (including that most rare of finds in Sudamerika, a vegetarian restaurant).

By this time it was raining more heavily and it looked as though this was going to be the general pattern. We realised that we were likely to have to do something inside for a couple of days Luckily our hostel room was fairly spacious and had cable TV so we settled down to concentrated watching of films, which are shown on several different channels, often in English with Spanish subtitles. We eventually lost accurate count of how many we had watched but after recapping we think it must have been around 10 films, including a double bill of two Hannibal Lecter films, several light comedies and a film with Johnny Depp about drug smuggling in Colombia.

One of the failings of this system of watching is that we have no TV guides, so we don't know what is coming up. So we have to flick through the channels until we find something that looks interesting but we rarely see the opening credits so we often have to work out what film it is. That’s easier if we have internet access but although this place has three wifi systems operating, none of them will allow access to our netbook. It’s a problem with their system, not our computer, but attempting to discuss network protocols in basic Spanish with a hostel manager who doesn’t understand computers has proved rather frustrating on several levels!

However, we did manage to to attend a concert given by the local symphony orchestra with a guest conductor (Colombian but now living and working in US). Although we’re not completely sure, we gather that this is not a fully professional orchestra but it gave a pretty good account of itself in the 8th Symphony by Dvorak. In the second half, the more modernist dynamics of Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite challenged them a bit but they closed the show successfully with a couple of South American pieces that played well to their strengths. The contrast with concerts back home was very interesting. Members of the audience here were quite happy to enter and leave during movements and lots of people had really important things to say to each other while the music was playing. That sort of behaviour would cause some of those attending the Town Hall concerts in Leeds to throw a fit!