The Devil's Nose

We arrived in Riobamba in order to travel on the famous train journey to Alausi, called El Nariz del Diablo because of one section where the train has to get down a virtually sheer cliff face, which is supposed to resemble a nose. We spent just one night in Riobamba, staying in a decent and cheap hostal near the station, called Tren Dorado. It was a saturday night, and after seeing the local fair and eating in a dodgy restaurant (more meat, rice and fried eggs) we decided to go back to the hostal and play cards because we had to be up early for the train the next day. The journey is incredible because you have to sit on the roof of the train all the time. It's run just for tourists now, hence the $15 fee, but it was worth getting a numb bum for. The weather varied from burning sun to pouring rain - poor sarah again got burnt, but we were at least able to stretch our legs every time the train derailed. I think it happend 3 times, the longest taking around 45 mins for the workers to get it back on track. Up on the roof it was packed with tourists, and every time we stopped locals would climb aboard to try and sell us anything from bananas to sweets. Overall it was a great day, we passed a huge volcanoe on the 118km or so journey, and got some cool photos of the locals - we went past so many farms with little women working on them, usually with a baby on their backs. It is defintitely worth doing this trip, i think it runs on wednesdays, fridays and sundays.

The next stop was Cuenca, a further 4 hours away by bus. Unfortunately we were unable to get a room in the Cafecito hostal, which looked pretty cool, but we settled for a place called Milan which had cable TV and good room service for $7 a night. Cuenca is an attractive city, the 3rd biggest in ecuador, with some decent churches and cathedrals, and strangely a lot of alcoholics by the looks of it. We saw at least 3 people passed out in strange places, well we assumed they were passed out anyway... There's also a river, along the banks of which the local women wash their clothes, and a pizza hut which i was forced into going to by the others, the girls just couldn't resist a deep pan.

Dave and I went to the Archeological Museum of the Central Bank which was pretty cool. Inside there are models of traditional jungle homes, as well as festival clothes and many relics from the Incas. The art work is good, you can go outside to some tiny ruins of the Pumapungo Palace, once the place of Atahualpa, the last Inca ruler. We also went to the Museum of Modern Art set in a colonial building at Plaza San Sebastian - this had some strange paintings, some done by kids and we nearly got lost in the museum.

We caught a bus from Cuenca to Ingapirca, the only decent Inca ruins in Ecuador. They're nothing compared to those in Peru, but still worth a visit if you're nearby. There's a temple of the sun, the area makes for decent photos, and there are some llamas there. The signs are in spanish but I managed to overhear an english speaking guide nearby at times, although I wasn't all that interested to be honest. The next day we hired a guide who took us on a trek through the Caja National Park nearby, at 4000m above sea level it was the highest altitude we got to. The park was impressive, the scenery unique compared to the rest of ecuador. It's full of lakes and rare plants, one which I tasted - it's supposed to be good if you have no food but it tasted horrible. Apparently trout fishing is popular there, this wasn't part of our trip although we did stop off at restaurant on the way back and have some trout which was pretty decent. The walk itself was tiring so make sure you've got a decent pair of walking boots. It's pretty cold at that altitude, too.

After leaving rainy Cuenca, we returned to Quito via a 10hr overnight bus trip, thankfully on a luxury coach. We spent some time at Parque Carolina, chatting to random policemen and going on the pedalos, and we also shopped at one of quito's upmarket malls. Unfortunately Sarah's camera was snatched out of her hand that night, this was in the busy part of Quito near all the hostals, so you have to beware. The most annoying thing was the 37 pictures she had on the film, and that this left only my camera after dave's and lisa's got broken in the jungle.

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