Loja Trembles...

With John away and all, there I was reading away at the happy hour of 12 midnight last night when suddenly everything began to move. Not just a gentle sway but a significant rocking. The bed was moving, the windows were making noises in their frames, it felt like the whole building was creaking.

The normal few seconds of a tremor passed, but the shaking continued….oh my word, when was it going to stop??? It felt as if the ground was alive! So I jump out of bed, deriding myself for not keeping up to date our ‘emergency kit’ and run to Evie’s room, in which she continues to sleep peacefully oblivious to all. Do I wait a few more seconds? Do I grab her and run outside? By the time these thoughts had whizzed through my mind it seemed as though the tremor/quake had stopped, praise the Lord! So I make my way back to bed with my heart pounding in my chest.
Apparently it was a tremor of 5.9 with the epicentre not too far away from Loja.

All I can say is that the novelty of feeling the earth move under my feet has definitely receded and I’d be happy to be on solid ground the rest of my days (you’ll be happy to know that about 12.15am a friend who lives across the road buzzed a couple of times on my door to check that Evie and I were OK)!

Karine learns to drive...the Ecuadorian way

After 3 weeks of driving school, including discovering the major potholes of Loja along with lurid depictions of the accident injuries, a few tests in Spanish and my driving instructor practising his english with me I have come out the other side almost with a local license. Almost, in that now I need to wait for the driving school to put together the necessary paperwork in order to take it all to the police who will hopefully award me with the final product (who knows how long that will take)! Will keep you posted!

PS E for experienced! Not really, 'estudiante'