Derailed

Good Morning Everyone,
So here I am in Riobamba.

I spent the day walking around, checking out the usual churches, markets and plazas.

The city is pretty substantial with about 130,000 people. The architecture is really interesting and obscure.

The original city was destroyed by an earthquake in the late 1700's, and was rebuilt. Some of the original architecture survived but it has since been plastered over so it's hard to tell. The predominant population here is Quechua. Now, in fairness, there are Quechuas everywhere but it is as if this area of the country is one of their bases. I tried to get some pictures of them without being rude, so I had to be sneaky.

Most of them are easily identifiable with black (mafioso-looking) hats and colorful shawls and clothing. The city center, at least in terms of visitors, is around the old train station. It is one of only a few surviving train routes still in operation in Ecuador.

It's probably a good thing they shut the system down (as you will soon discover why). The train from Riobamba was left intact as a tourist attraction. It goes about 5 hours West to Alausi. Recently, even that route has been abandoned because of too many derailments. Now the train simply leaves from Alausi and goes into the mountains and comes back. Some backpackers I had run into in Vilcabamba had said it was worthwhile. I went to the station to buy tickets for the following morning, which meant I had the night afternoon and night to hang out here. I knew that there had to be at least someone partying so I got dressed, and went out looking for some sort of bar or popular restaurant. No such luck. I walked the entire city twice and came across plenty of street food vendors, empty bars, and political rallies (a popular nighttime activity in Ecuador, although not really my idea of fun). I did find a hotel called "Hotel Canada," with a "Restaurant Canada."

Curiosity got the best of me and I decided to pay a visit and see just how Canadian this place was. Sadly, the hotel was pretty shabby and had nothing even slightly Canadian about it, and to my amusement, the restaurant was a run of the mill Chinese restaurant!! I'm a little peeved that that is the perception Riobambans are going to have of my native country...

Anyways, this night was clearly not going to get crazy so I picked up a beer and made my way back to the hotel, justifying it by saying I had to be up early to catch the bus to Alausi.

The bus situation was great. There are regularly scheduled buses in Ecuador heading in all directions at predetermined times. The guys from the train station literally commandeered the regular 7am bus to Alausi, sold tickets to train-seeking tourists at a premium and pocketed the mark-up. That meant that as we drove along the route, locals kept flagging us down trying to get on. Because of us, they would have to start their Wednesday 30 minutes later! I sort of respect the entrepreneurship of these bus pirates, but there has got to be a better way than stealing the regular bus...

As always with a bus trip in Ecuador, it was like driving through 4 countries. The road started off looking like the Scottish Highlands, transformed into Tuscany, then Majorca off the Spanish coast, and finally we reached Andorra (aka - Alausi in reality)...all in only 2 hours!



That giant man you see is actually San Pedro, the patron saint of Alausi. We had about 2 hours before the train departed so I decided to go pay him a visit, and get the spectacular views from the hill upon which he stood.

The train arrived, unsurprisingly, an hour late.

It was more of a converted-bus looking compartment on tracks.

Within about 2 minutes of departure, the train derailed for the first time. One of the men on the train, we'll call him the derail-fixer guy, jumped off, grabbed a big rock and put it on a plank of wood on the tracks.

The idea was that we would drive over the rock/wood contraption and bounce back onto the rails. It worked! Obviously, these guys had derailed enough to know the quickest way to going.

The landscape was majestic.

We took a break to get some photos at some point. I decided the best place would be the roof so I climbed up. The conductor wasn't pleased but what I've learned here is that there aren't really rules so it's easy to get away with harmless stuff like that.

Before I knew it, there were 10 other people who had climbed up there with me. Now the conductor was really angry but I had taken my photos and was happy to be the first to oblige in getting off.

I just sat and watched as everyone all of a sudden as every foreigner stopped understanding any Spanish...Before you know it, we were back up and running and a few derailments later, I saw this strange sight. There was a food stand on the tracks in the distance, miles from the nearest town, house or farm.

It was a very smart capitalist Ecuadorian who was selling beef-kebabs and beers to the train full of tourists. The train conductor stopped (I'm sure he got a cut of the profits) and everyone unpiled to eat, drink and take in the views.

I grabbed a beer and took it all in.

Then I caught the repair guy doing some secret last minute tweaking while all of the other tourists were distracted.

Anyways, it was a great experience and I loved all of the quirkiness about the whole thing. When I got back, I headed straight on to Banos with some Brits I had befriended.

Until the Next Time,
Kent