Loja is the quiet intellectual of Ecuador. Tucked into a green valley at about 2,100 metres in the far south, it has a reputation as the country's capital of music and the arts, with a conservatory and a long tradition of poets and composers. The city was founded in 1548 and is home to a respected university, so the streets have a youthful, studious feel. It has a calm centre of arcades and plazas, and a castle-like gate at the northern entrance to the city, the Puerta de la Ciudad, which is the favourite photo stop.
The surroundings are surprisingly rich in nature. Podocarpus National Park rises just to the east, protecting cloud forest, páramo and a huge variety of birds and orchids, and it connects to forest on the Amazonian side. The region has a long coffee tradition, and Loja's cafés are a decent excuse to stop. Locals eat repe, a thick green banana soup, and cecina, a thin salted pork, as well as the sweet cakes sold in the bakeries.
For motorcyclists, Loja marks the end of the long highland road that runs the length of Ecuador, and the beginning of the southern mountains. Heading south, the road toward Vilcabamba is smooth and winding, crossing ridges with wide views, while the road north to Catamayo and the airport drops into a dry, warm valley with sugar cane. To the east the road to Zamora descends into the Amazon basin in a long series of bends and tunnels, though conditions need checking. Mornings are clear and fresh, afternoons often cloudy.
Loja is a city of about a hundred and twenty thousand, with fuel, workshops and a large choice of food, and Catamayo and Zamora, with eighteen and fifteen thousand people, are the next centres. The climate is mild but changeable, and rain comes in short heavy bursts in the wetter months, so bring waterproofs. People are famously polite, and most are happy to point you in the right direction if you stop and ask.