Another day in Loja, Ecuador

Today was a slow day. We decided to spend an extra night in Loja to give us some time to see the city (It is considered Ecuador´s cleanest city - so we had to stay). For breakfast we ate at a restaurant that was in a run-down old colonial building, that appeared to have been quite a structure at one time. The service was interesting; it took the waitress almost 10 minutes to round up $1.75 in change when we were paying our bill. Afterwards, we booked a room over the telephone at a very nice looking place in Vilcabamba and spent the rest of the afternoon wandering about. We had lunch at a small vegetarian restaurant and chatted with the owner for a while. She seemed happy to give us a few spanish instructions, showing us different types of fruit and describing basic items on the walls and tables. We had plans to visit the Museum of Music in town, but it was closed for the day (I think we'll try to see it tomorrow before we leave instead), many stores were closed, including the tourist and post offices. We walked through the city, over the Rio Zamora and up a hill to the Virgen de Loja Statue. The location offered a panoramic view of the city and we took several pictures. Just before arriving at the statue, we visited a small store and bought a beer to drink on the hill (pretty civilized). We walked to the Plaza San Francisco and to the Parque Simon Bolivar. This evening we are seeing a bit of rain, our first time since arriving in South America.