Loja living

@?maggie17 wrote:

I am concerned about hospital care....So if anyone could fill us in on Loja I would so appreciate it.

Loja is home to one of the EC government's IESS hospitals.  If you have an Ecuadorian ID card to which all residents are entitled, you may enroll in IESS, Social Security health care, at a cost of $73 per month for an individual, slightly more for a couple.  The (Spanish-language) website for IESS is iess.gob.ec ...

SOLCA, the national cancer agency, has a medical center in Loja, as well.

What else would you like to know about healthcare in Loja, or anything else about the city?

cccmedia

Hey Maggie:
Be glad to accomodate you -- I have been living in QUito for almost 4 years and now Cuenca for 6 months.  Looked very hard at Loja and Cuenca and compared them every which way and back --and checked them out with friends much more knowledgeable than I.   Love Quito and will return -- but had an opportunity for more quiet and a smaller city nearer to outdoor activities -- so I decided on Cuenca.  Email me privately and I will tell you everything I know!!   

sueb4bs

I've written a lot of posts about Loja on my blog, as well as a book about Loja called "Live Like a Local in Loja." 

Loja does have a hospital and people I know of who have used it generally have good things to say.  However, stories about the level of medical care in Loja are mixed.  From everything I have heard it sounds like Loja is great for any routine medical needs, but if you have a serious medical condition you would probably need to move to a large city or even back to your home country.  Some people have left Loja for medical reasons.  I haven't personally needed medical services in Loja so I can't speak from experience.

There is so much more to say about Loja, but I need something a little more specific than "fill us in on Loja" to say much more--it's hard to know where to start!  The overall thing I could say about it is that it is well suited for people who speak Spanish (or are on their way to learning it) and are interested in immersing themselves in the Ecuadorian culture.  The city has a population of approximately 200,000 and has most anything you would need.  If you enjoy the symphony, they have a nice one with regular free performances.  If you're active and enjoy hiking, there are lots of places for that nearby.  There are no major tourist attractions there, which makes it a nice, quiet place to live without a ton of tourist traffic (except the big pilgrimage in August which attracts hundreds of thousands of people from all over the country and surrounding countries).

Any other specific questions?  I'll do my best to help!

Supermarkets?

Outdoor swimming pools?

Ease of getting buses to Cuenca and Vilcabamba?

cccmedia in Quito

cccmedia wrote:

Supermarkets?

Loja has a Supermaxi in the south part of town.  There are also regular mercados in several different parts of town, and open-air market days on the weekends, and I prefer to shop at those since they are usually much cheaper.  Supermaxi is a great place to pick up the items you can't find anywhere else, though!

cccmedia wrote:

Outdoor swimming pools?

It probably has to do with the generally cooler, wetter weather, but swimming pools are not a big thing in Loja.  I don't recall seeing any outdoor pools anywhere in Loja.  There is an indoor pool (last I checked, it was undergoing renovation) in Parque Jipiro.  There are some public outdoor pools in Malacatos and Vilcabamba, south of Loja.  If you need to warm up, it's easy to hop on a bus and head down there for the day.  Many wealthy Lojanos own vacation homes in Malacatos, and many of those homes have swimming pools.  Some of the hotels in Vilcabamba also have pools.

cccmedia wrote:

Ease of getting buses to Cuenca and Vilcabamba?
cccmedia in Quito

Buses leave for Vilcabamba several times per hour and most of them can be flagged down anywhere along the route.  The cost is $1.30 each way.  Buses depart to Cuenca multiple times per day, and cost $7.50.  The bus station (Terminal Terrestre Reina del Cisne) is in the north part of town and the bus schedules are posted for each different bus line.  Another great resource for bus schedules (anywhere in Ecuador) is http://latinbus.com/  Buses generally do leave on time.  It is cheap and easy to travel by bus!