Riobamba en route to Peru

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After packing up our backpack and putting our other stuff in storage, we moved out of our apartment and hopped on the bus 6 hour bus to Riobamba, the fourth largest city in the center of Ecuador. We got there in the late afternoon and had hopped to go to a soccer game that night, only to find out that it was actually an afternoon game and it was already over. I was extremely disappointed but it turned out to be ok, because we ended up going to a soccer game in Quito at the end our trip.
So we check into a hostel and walked around, the dirty, noisy, not exciting town. We had dinner and then went to bed early because we had to wake up early to catch the famous “Devil’s Nose” train, where people ride on the top of the train.
That morning we got to the train early to find that the top of the train was already jam packed. We thankfully squeezed into a spot. The beginning of the ride was through the town and there was a person that had to stand at the front of the train and tell people when to duck because there were low hanging wires that would decapitate anyone not paying attention. After we got out of Riobamba, we rode through beautiful country and farm lands. There were tons of kids working in the fields that some of the people on the train would throw candy to. The train was about 5 hours and we stopped in a couple of towns to go to the bathroom and buy food and other goods from the local markets. At one point in the trip we were traveling along a very deep canyon and it was a little nerve racking. But then we started going through a very narrow part in the mountain that had been dug out, and we hit the side of the rock and got derailed. At first no one knew what was going on, and then we realized and thought that we would be stuck there. But after about 15 minutes the train started moving backwards, which made it get back on the track. After 5 hours we stopped at a town and Rachel, Amanda and I were hungry and tired of sitting on top of the train so we got off and the train continued for what we thought would be another two hours and we didn’t want to continue. So we found a bus that we thought would leave immediately, but it ended up that we had to sit there doing nothing waiting for the train to return. But then finally we were off to PERU!!!

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Photos

us on the top of the train
My camera was messed up the whole trip and mainly took pictures like this on