The Railway Children

We left our hideous hotel in the hideous town and hauled our tired selves and heavy bags to the decrepit train station, where we planned to ride from Riobamba to Alausí. This trip involves going down the Devil’s Nose, “a series of exhilarating switchbacks down deep descents where roof riding is encouraged”, according to Lonely Planet. We put our bags in the luggage carriage and clambered up onto the carriage roof like Indian peasants. We hired a cushion from a man to sit on and got as comfortable as we could for our supposed 5 hour journey (it actually took over 9 hours!)

As we settled down on the roof, it started raining. We realized at this point that we had left our waterproofs in our big bags, which we now wouldn’t see until we reached our destination. A man came round selling useless sheets of plastic for rain protection which all the locals bought immediately. We, however, decided to brave the rain in true British fashion.

The train eventually set off and we rode for many hours through lovely English-esque countryside, passing through little villages and going over very rickety wooden bridges with no side railings. The tracks often went along the sides of mountains with sheer drops on one side, and crumbling rock faces on the other, threatening avalanches every time the train rumbled past.

At one point there was a bit jolt and the train stopped. Everyone climbed off the roof to see what had happened. We had derailed! Everyone crowded round and watched as the train workers re-railed the train using large metal things and shrubbery, of all things, picked from the railway embankment. Surprisingly, this worked, and with a loud clang the train was back on track. Everyone applauded as we all clambered back on the roof to continue our journey.

We eventually pulled into Alausi, where a group of non-hardcore tourists boarded the train just for the “switchback” part of the journey. We set off again down a series of steep-ish descents where the train had to go down some bits backwards because the turns in the tracks were so steep. Eventually we reached the bottom, thoroughly unimpressed. The “exhilarating” journey was in fact entirely sluggish.

Cold and bored, we clambered off the rood and went to the last carriage of the train, which was the only one you could sit in on seats (the other alternative to inside riding was in the cargo carriages, i.e. just metal boxes with big sliding doors like in old Westerrn films). Unsurprisingly, this relatively comfortable carriage was filled with everyone’s favourite – SAGA coach trip tourists! We joined the party and settled in for the ride back to Alausi.

Minutes later, a loud crash and joplt was felt throughout the train, and several granjas that weren’t sitting down were flung about the carriage like rag dolls, much to our amusement. Turns out we had derailed again. We hopped off again to watch the repairs and had fun jumping back onto the moving train (no health and safety for us!)

In the granja carriage, we met an embodiment of our faourite character – ANNE! 74 years old with a giant orange bowl haircut brushged forward with a small square of hair snipped out of her fringe to allow her wrinkled face to peek through. She also had a blue inflatable travel pillow around her neck at all times – even when standing. Anne got slammed against a chair during one of the derailments and then complained loudly about it for a long time.

The long journey continued with many more derailments (we stopped counting after 10). Train derailments continued with the use of leaves and rocks, and we watched the rails wobble violently as the train lumbered back onto them after yet another derailment. We spent the rest of the journey hanging off the side of the carriage watching the tracks slip by underneath us, and feeling the full force of the derailments as the carriage in front crashed into our one again and again.

Eventually we arriverd at Alausi (4 hours late!) and boarded the bus that would take us to Cuenca. Our favourite character from the train, Anne, also boarded the bus even though she hadn’t bought a ticket – it was allocared seating and all the tickets had been sold. Nonetheless, she wedged herself into a seat and refused to move when the driver told her the seat was reserved. Go Anne! This friendly exchange was conducted in Spanish by the driver and English by Anne so neither of the other knew what was going on. The bus was so full that people were sitting on plastic stools next to the driver and on the floor. A common occurance on chicken buses maybe, but unheard of on these luxury tourist coaches! After a long 5 hour bus ride we finally arrived in Cuenca, where we got a cab to a hotel described by Lonely Planet as “impersonal” – perfect for us!

When we checked into the hotel the receptionist said something to us in Spanish, very pleadingly, that we didn’t understand. We asked her to repeat it, but still didn’t understand. Her facial expression and pleading tone of voice suggested to us it was an important point she wanted us to understand. Not wanting to offend a lady, we smiled graciously and replied “yes, of course!”, pretending that we understood. We never found out what she said.

We had a couple of days in Cuenca in which we planned to see the sights in the town. We headed to tourist information and asked for information on horseback riding in the national park. The lady efficiently printed out information from her computer for us about… Spanish language schools! We thanked her and ran away.

We took a nice walk along the river and watched a local woman washing clothes in it. We also visited the museum of medicine, which consisted of a random collection of scissors and scalpels chucked in piles and 2 mummified children with fur on them with no other explanation!

We found a nice veggie restaurant and one day couldn´t decide what to have for lunch so we ordered 4 main courses. Charlie coudn´t finish his second meal (pizza) so he wrapped it up and gave it to an old lady who was lying crumpled up in a doorway outside the restaurant. She was so happy she couldn´t speak, and this time when the old lady touched Charlie there were no screams from either party. This act of kindness now means we can be extra nasty to everyone, at least for a while!

Throughout the Cuenca trip it rained a lot. We were pleased to leave to catch our bus out of there.

Final thoughts: Nice enough but bad weather. Good food.

Mark out of 10 = 5

Next time… Loja.

Just a little note:  We read the FCO site after going on the train and this is what it said:

"Some tourists travelling by train on the Riobamba to Devil’s Nose route like to experience the local custom of travelling on the roof of the train. We do not recommend that you do this. If you do choose to travel this way you should be aware of the dangers as cables and bridges can be found along the route.  On 16 February 2007, there was a serious incident on a “chiva” train travelling on the Riobamba to Devil’s Nose route. Two Japanese passengers travelling on the roof died after being struck by a cable suspended across the track. Two British tourists were also injured."

Only a month before we lolloped about on the train roof!

Mental note made..... Never read FCO before doing anything.