The Devils Nose

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Just got to Guayaquil after having seen "the Devil's Nose" from the roof of a train between Riobamba and Alausí. Riobamba was a quite calm and pretty litte city. I hooked up with a group of Spanish-studying people who were in the city for the WE. We all went out to eat and dance salsa (even though the salsa there was different and not nearly as fun as the one they dance in Quito) and raggaeton (you cannot go to Ecuador without hearing this music - it is played everywhere) on Saturday evening. The trainride seemed very early when I got up at 5h45 Sunday morning... But it was definitely worth it. Roof-riding was of course permitted and we took off at 7 in the morning on the narrow traintrack, on the railroad that was once Ecuadors pride. The ride took about six hours, and in the end we had to go through 3 switchbacks to go down the unstable, at least it seemed like it, Devil's Nose. At one time the train even derailed!!!! Crazy!
Along the way we did see a lot of the landscapes and a lot of the locals and their routines: washing in the river, working in the fields etc. It was actually like a giant museum of Ecuadorian daily life. And then, of course, there were all the kids standing on the side of the rail to wave at us. In the beginning we thought that they found it amusing to wave to foreigners, but we soon discovered that the men walking around the train selling food also sold popsicles to throw at the kids... haha.

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