Ecuador's musical capital at the edge of the Amazon — a colonial valley city ringed by cloud forest, where Vilcabamba is one hour away
Loja is a colonial city of 200,000 in the southern Andes of Ecuador, at 2,100 metres above sea level in a valley where the Andes meet the beginning of the Amazon basin. Known as Ecuador's 'musical and cultural capital', it has an unusually active arts scene for its size and hosts the only national conservatory outside Quito. It is the gateway to Podocarpus National Park, one of the world's richest biodiversity zones (over 600 bird species), and the nearby Vilcabamba valley — famous since the 1970s as a supposed longevity hotspot.
Loja was founded by the Spanish in 1548 as a service town for the nearby mining districts and became one of the most important colonial cities in southern Ecuador. It was the seat of the province of Loja — Ecuador's oldest continuously inhabited city, having never been moved or abandoned since foundation. In 1820 Loja became one of the first cities in Ecuador to declare independence from Spain, and the regional banner of the freedom movement ('chuquiribamba') was signed here. The city's cultural richness relative to its size led to its reputation as the birthplace of Ecuadorian folk music and…