"Loja airport turned out to be 14 miles from the town, and as it was raining I decided to join 6 others in a shared taxi, which conveniently dropped me at a hotel on the main street. The hotel, that would easily have passed for a one star in the UK, cost me £2.20. By the time I had settled in it had stopped raining and I was able to have a walk round. Despite being a fairly important town, Loja was quite small, and though pleasant, was not very picturesque and seemed to have little of interest. A bit of a disappointment I felt, but with a cooler climate I found it very relaxing after the activities of the previous few days.

My evening on Loja was spent walking the town again, this time looking for a bus company that had a bus going to Cuenca, a town 120 miles to the north. After trying 6 companies I finally found one with a bus leaving the following morning. At the time I could not understand why there seemed so few buses on this route, after all it was the Andean Highway, and Cuenca was the 3rd city of Ecuador. After spending most of the next day on the bus, travelling mostly on dirt roads over a very hilly terrain, with many long climbs up the steep sides of deep valleys, I realised why the journey took so long and there were so few buses or other traffic. Much of the route was of lush green scenery, so although it was an exhausting journey, it was one I really enjoyed.

Loja is at an altitude of 2,220m about 6,800'" - MH