Leaving the hat thief of Cuenca we caught the bus to Riobamba, home of the famous Devils Nose railway. The town itself is nothing special or exciting but we obligingly checked out some churches before queuing for our rail tickets.

The train ride down the 'Nariz del Diablo' is down some pretty hair raising switchbacks which have been cut into the mountain...and to make it even more exciting slash irresponsibly dangerous all the tourists get to ride on the roof!

After an awkward breakfast, with all the train tourists pretending not to rush or panic when people left the restaurant, and we were sitting in our seats ready for the mad dash to the roof. This was because we had been primed by our Oz mates about where to sit and what side to aim for so we were ready to fight our way onto the roof....apparently when they did the trip there was a proper fisty cuffs between two tourists because only two thirds of the passengers can fit up top! Crazy, but we were ready!

Except in our case where there was no roof to sit on and instead we got to ride sitting on the log sleepers on the log wagon while eagle eyed 'engineers' chucked them off where the old one were completely rotted away....health and safety, schmafety.

It was great fun although we got completely covered in dirt and dust, and we even had sellers hopping from carriage to carriage flogging beer. They don't make train journeys like this at home.

Quick lunch in what appeared to be, and most probably was, someones front room and we were back in Riobamba boarding our next bus to Banos for some much needed thermal bath action!