Loja, Equador

I arrived here at 4:30 am after that wonderful boarder crossing. The guys at the bus company had told me it would be no problem to change money in Loja, so I didn´t worry about it before leaving. So at 8 after the luggage storage opened I headed into the centre of town to change my money. It is Sunday -- this is a Catholic country -- it was not even 9 am -- it looked like a ghost town -- except that there were weird preparations going on. The other odd thing was that the people who were out were all walking away from the preparations. There was nothing open yet, so I sat and read my book. At around 9:30 the preparations turned into some kind of award or graduation ceremony for kids in something like the police cadets -- it was fun to watch. I didn´t take pictures, noone else was and there were lots of miliatry around, I wasn´t sure if I should. So far this has been one of my oddest days and it is not even noon yet :) i also couldn´t change money -- but did find a working bank machine so that I do have money now.