Friday 30 March 2012

I bought a ticket for the El Nariz del Diablo (the Devil's Nose train ride) for 11am this morning, not being able to summon the energy to make the 8 am trip, with the train ride (including return) taking 2 ½ hours, and it should only take 2 hours to Riobamba, so that I didn't have to rush out.

It seemed a lovely example of bureaucracy, buying the ticket, or a case of job creation (a bit like all the security guards in Ecuador guarding all the parking spaces and goodness knows what, even at the entrance of small fast food joints).

I went to the ticket office, saw the woman at the desk immediately opposite the door. I confirmed I was there for a ticket, was pointed to the woman behind the desk, who spent ages trying filling out an online form (think she had difficulty finding UK in the drop-down list), but she eventually, after what felt like half an hour, printed out a colour excursiones printout on perforated A4 paper, which I then had to hand back to the woman on the front desk. She then filled out another form, which I had to sign, have it rubber-stamped, hand over the payment for the ticket, and then was given the rubberstamped receipt plus the excursiones piece of paper.

El Nariz del Diablo is a very steep railway line which is intended to link Quito with Guayaquil (discontinued but now being renovated for completion by/in 2013). However, it has been called "the most difficult railway in the world," and has been prone to delays due to the numerous landslides in the area and the steepness of the conically-shaped rock known as El Nariz del Diablo, which has near-vertical walls. From I what I could hear (above the rattle of the train) and remember, it claimed 2500 lives in the making of the part around the Devil's Nose. There have also been lots of myths and strange stories surrounding the area.

The engineering solution was to carve a series of zigzags (I think it's only about 3) into the mountain, but the zigzag is so tight that the train passes beyond the change point, the rails are changed and the train then travels backwards along the next zig (or zag) and so on. The climb is supposed to be a 1- in-18 gradient.

It's now just a tourist service, even more so now than when my guidebook wrote about it. Then, it was from Riobamba-Alausi-Sibambe (which is the bottom of the Nariz del Diablo)-Alausi -Riobamba. Now, however, it only runs from Alausi-Sibambe-Alausi and costs a great deal more, because it includes a toasted bread sandwich and a (very) soft drink.

Anyway, I hung around in the hotel until it was checkout time (10:30 am) then hung around outside the train station, having a quick glance over the few artesena stalls there before boarding the nicely furbished train. I could see what Ramona and Dan meant about the train: they were scathing about Disneyfying it for the tourists, with its varnished wood ceiling and plush seating - very different from some of the buses I've taken travelling around, for example.

I was allocated a seat on the wrong side of the train (ideally, you want to be on the right -and side) but luckily there were a few empty seats on the right -hand side, plus I stood up near the front of the carriage and peered through the glass door a fair bit of the way. The train ride was OK, but not worth $20, I don't think - Don and Ramona were right about that. Perhaps if you'd been allowed to ride on the roof (with safety railings)…

I sat next to a Canadian girl, Ashley, who was travelling and didn't know too much Spanish, and was going onwards to Peru, where she was meeting her boyfriend. I found out that she had had her camera stolen in Riobamba and that she and a couple had had to backtrack from Riobamba to Alausi to pick up the El Nariz. They were all at Riobamba station (bus/train, I don't know) at 6 am…so glad I met Dan and Ramona! I could have been in the same situation. The couple that Ashley had travelled with from Riobamba to Alausi were a German-Ecuadorian (Cuenca) pair who had travelled from Cuenca to Riobamba and then had had to go back to Alausi. They were a bit disgusted, I think, when I said that I'd found out the times and cost from the Cuenca tourist office…

Anyway, after the uneventful train ride we were given an hour at Sibambe, where there was an exhibition on the construction of the railway, a miniature model of the area, and an indigena dancing demonstration, and then it was back on the train to Alausi.

During the hour allocated for lunch and looking at the exhibition, the indigena guy there told me that in 2009, two Japanese girls fell off the roof and were killed. I had known this (from Dan and Ramona) but not all the details. It´s since then that no one has been allowed to ride on the roof. I must admit, in the photograph of the train at the exhibition, the roof did look a little crowded...

Back at Alausi, I collected my luggage and straightaway got onto the next bus for Riobamba, but only to cut my return to Quito by two hours, as I had made a reservation to stay Sunday night at Tandayapa Bird Lodge, to view some hummingbirds up close, really close. After getting to Quito, I would then have to get another bus to Nanegalito and then a camioneta to the lodge, adding an additional 2 or so hours to the 4 hour Riobamba-Quito journey.

I made it into Riobamba mid-afternoon and had a bit of difficulty getting a taxi as everyone from the bus terminal wanted one; it was a bit like being in New York, where it's everyone for themselves when hailing and getting into a taxi.

I managed to eventually get one and the taxi driver started asking me the usual questions, etc, and asked where I'd come from. I replied Alausi and he immediately came back with "El tren?" He wanted to know if I was travelling alone and how old I was, at which I tut-tutted at him (and made him laugh) and said "no, no," to which he replied, "secreto?" I laughed and said yes, and he said he had two kids. The "conversation" felt quite easy, and I didn't feel like I had to really find the words I wanted and could understand him easily.

I checked into the hotel I had decided I had picked out to stay in, using the descriptions in the guidebook. It was not a great choice, I have to admit in hindsight, though part of it is due to the noisiness of Riobamba itself. The hotel was the most expensive for a similar room (double room, with private bathroom) of those in Cuenca and Guayaquil, with a worse shower (barely tepid water and Riobamba is fairly high and not too warm in the evenings and morning), although its location isn't too bad, being near one of the mercados and not too far from the Parque Maldono where the cathedral was and the Museo de la Ciudad.

Riobamba is very like Guayaquil in being noisy with some of the same general atmosphere but less intense. It does have a positive in that it also has some colonial architecture, like Cuenca, but otherwise, it's an unremarkable town and the sights can readily be done in an afternoon.

However, I was only in Riobamba to break my trip to Tandayapa Bird Lodge, as I didn't fancy any other place on the way to Quito: I felt I had seen all I wanted of Latacunga, having passed through it to Laguna Quilotoa, and there were no other significant towns further north.

I had a quick recce, finding most of the more important sights, and then headed back to the hotel, deciding that Riobamba could quite easily and leisurely be explored Saturday.