Loja, Day 2

Well well well I get myself into interesting places sometimes. This entry isn`t about much, but it`s long nonetheless cuz I simply have to describe in detail the hostel I`m in right now. I arrived in Loja last night at about 7pm with no information about the place and therefore no idea where I was going to stay. I went on the recommendation of my taxi driver and MAN what a place. And by ´what a place´ I don`t mean it`s beautiful - I mean it reminds me of that dirty wreck of a place that Tyler Durden from Fight Club lived in: falling apart, paint peeling, walls moldy... And yet it has its appeal... Anyway I will stay just one night more before checking into a nicer place. I think the writer in me wants to prolong the experience a bit.

Here is what I wrote last night, more or less, but first a bit about my reflections on Goldfinger:

7.46pm - Wednesday 27 December 2006
I find since I finished reading Ian Fleming`s Goldfinger this afternoon I am almost subconsciously thinking like Mr. Bond, Fleming`s sly and very charming fox. The thoughts running through my head contain the same language pattern, syntax, and tone as James Bond. It must be a sign of very clever writing.

It`s a very exciting book, by the way. I acquired it in Máncora and devoured it in a few days. Now I can`t wait to read the rest of the series, of which I only know the film versions. I rather enjoyed its raciness adn Bond`s womanizing, and the marvelous inventiveness of the gangster plot.

10.40pm
I`m in a shithole of a hostel. It`s by far the dankest, darkest place I`ve been in on this trip, and yet there`s something about the building itself that appeals to me in a twisted sort of way. It`s certainly got a lot of character. When you walk in the narrow entranceway from the street you know not to expect much: the yellow lighted sign advertising ¨Hostal Americano¨ is dull and unwashed, the reception desk dingy, made of a dark wood faded and scratched from years of disservice.

Just beyond the desk the place opens up into a sort of indoor courtyard with the hostel`s 3 stories of dark doors and railings towering up around the perimeter. I`ll get back to this in a minute though.

My room is on the second floor up some creaking steps of the same dark wood that everything bit of furniture seems to be made of. It is basic and square in shape with a 10-foot ceiling painted white, the only bit of brightness aside from the unflattering florescent tube light that serves the whole spacious room. The floor is the same wood, though patchy from when holes needed to be filled, the silver heads of the nails showing. The walls are painted 2 shades of dull blue - darker on the bottom half to hide the dirt of previous inhabitants, no doubt - and they are rough and crumpled from the bad plaster job underneath. My furniture consists of an old chair covered in paint splatters, a dark brown desk in the corner, and a lumpy bed with a scratched up irom frame. It looks like there used to be a window, but it has long been closed up and painted over, leaving only a large sill which could now serve as a shelf.

The florescent light buzzes continually.

For the first time in over a month I will sleep in my sleeping bag instead of the sheets. I don`t trust their cleanliness or that the mattress is bug free. I have a feeling I`ll be jumping into bed, too - I`ve already checked once to see if there are monsters in the space underneath. I don`t think I can be in a house like this without letting my imagination get the better of me. And I haven`t even mentioned half of it.

On my way to the bathroom I had another look at the imposing courtyard. Above the third floor is a stained glass roof (it`s really just coloured rippled plastic but stained glass sounds better), hanging from a beam and resting level with the second floor is a gothic- like chandelier (the candles replaced with more florescent bulbs). Looking around, it is a vast building with staircases on either side, winding around to unseen wings where there are, presumably, more guest rooms.

Down below I can still hear the blare of the television, currently being watched by no one. It`s the kind of house where you can hear every little noise seeping through the walls. I can hear someone shuffling above me, the creak of each step as another person walks down the hall, opens a door. Along the hallway with its high ceilings, the doors are also very tall, probably 9-feet. And embedded into the walls lies the occasional oddly placed mirror, for what purpose I can`t imagine except to pick out the vampires from the humans.

The hall that leads to the washroom fails to reveal a door: there is no bathroom to wash up in. You come to two filthy sinks, around a small half-wall is an open urinal, down a tiny hall to the left are small doors for the toilet and shower stalls. The toilets are all seatless and the rubbish bins beside them look like they`ve been puked in or worse, stained and disgusting. I peeked into the shower: a moldy mess of dirty crumbling tiles. I won`t need to remind myself not to touch anything. Even without the sight, the smell of piss will be enough.

This house is formidable, creepy, haunted for sure. It`s straight out of a horror film and in a way that`s why I like it. As horrible a picture as I`m painting, the writer in me wills me to stay here for another night. I get a little thrill out of the ominous creaking of the boards, of the feeling that I`m being watched. In fact, within the first few minutes inside its walls I was already running through my head the words I`d use - or the voice I`d use - to write about it. It almost immediately reminded me, too, of the delapidated house in the film Fight Club. It has the same disgusting, anti-materialistic feel to it, and I can just picture Tyler Durden prancing around in his bathrobe, making soap in some dark corner of the basement.

When I walked in after dinner there was family sitting around a table in the courtyard playing Monopoly. I wouldn`t be surprised if, later on, I found out they were the ghosts of a family who once lived here.