Catching the late train - Riobamba

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The bus from Baños to Riobamba did not take long, although we were somewhat disheartened by the torrential rain cascading from the skies and filling up the road in torrents. It made the huge potholes even worse and the suspension on the bus reaching its ultimatum!

Once there, I am ashamed to say, we went into a fast food restaurant and had burger, chips and coke. It was actually very nice...nothing like the rubbish we have.

The following day we boarded a very late train with a hell of alot of foriengers...
The train consisted of a 3 passenger carrienges, a cargo carriage and a huge engine. We set of through endless patchwork hills, chugging along on a single track, nailed down on bits of driftwood. The scenery was just fantastic, it had rained the night before and so everything was fresh in a thousand colour greens.
The most spectacular was a few hours later. On the left a hundred foot rock face and to our right a 200ft drop to an angry river. One of the carriages de-railed. It was pretty hairy, espescially when you havn't got much room for error! It was a problem with the track and so with a little hammering and guidance, the first carriage popped back on. The process repeated itself with the following 3 carriage. The last carriage was a different story, one time it slided to the left causing people who had jumped of the train, to nearly be squashed against the rock face. With a little patience and the inginuity of the train guards, the train got back on track.

We then proceed to desend into the valley by traversing the rock faces. First the train would go forwards, then the points would be changed so we could go backwards first, and so on.

Once to the bottom, pictures were taken and we then started the journey back up. The train is not really used for transport because so much of it has been destroyed. It is mearly a tourist attraction for the hairy drops and huge mountains.

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Photos

Train
Side glance.

Will
All aboard!

Stop off in a town
Collecting the Gringos was a chore.

Through the valley
Still on the rails

Everyone out of the train watching.
A huge cheer went up when they got the train back on the track!

The Devil's Nose
This was the turnaround point, where people took the pictures. After this we proceeded back up to Alusi.

Comments

[jo]

gosh
what can I say - there is a book in you somewhere!! Amazing and not what I expected .. keep it up..keep the photos coming keep the writing going - all great stuff xx