Riobamba and Cuenca (17 - 20 June 2008)
The shaggy city of Riobamba is famous for the start of the Devil’s Nose train journey. Besides the beautiful landscapes visible on this journey, another attraction is the method of riding this train - all passengers sit on the roof of the train! This was the reason we decided to visit Riobamba.
We arrived via bus from Banos and went on a hostel search that delivered a very basic room for the night. Then we set off to the train station to book our tickets fro the following day. Unfortunately, there was a landslide somewhere between Alausi and the Devil’s Nose section and we could only cover about a third of the original journey. We booked the tickets nevertheless - we still had the opportunity to ride on the roof of a train!
We spent the rest of the day browsing through the colonial buildings of Riobamba. But by this stage we felt a bit fed-up with colonial buildings so we cut the walking-tour short and spent the night watching movies on our laptop. Sometimes I feel so guilty when we do this, but then again - “we are on holiday”.
5:30am…Rise and shine! Pack the backpacks; try to find some breakfast but with no luck, apparently the rest of Riobamba was still sleeping and then head to the station. We rented square, leather-covered pillows to soften the tin roof under our bums and then the journey began. The train departed at 7:00am and at first it was quite nippy. Luckily there were hawkers about selling hot coffee to the “loco gringos” on the roof.
The train meandered through different landscapes….villages, fields, valleys, mountains….and the impressive snow-covered Chimborazo volcano. It was such a thrilling experience! We disembarked after three and a half hours - how unfortunate that we had to miss out on the most spectacular section of the journey due to a landslide. We would have to return one day to do the full journey to Sibambe.
From where the train dropped us, we took a bus to Cuenca. There were more landslides on the way and we had to do a very scary detour - a huge bus navigating down a single-lane dirt road with a 100 meter drop to the valley below is not my idea of fun! But alas, we arrived in Cuenca in one piece (except for my shattered nerves!).
According to our guidebook, Cuenca is Ecuador’s most beautiful and seductive city. We stayed in Hotel Milan, a beautiful hotel and slightly too pricy for our budget. Our room had a balcony, overlooking the Iglesia de San Francisco and the plaza below. We took long walks through the cobblestone streets and marvelled at the cathedrals, churches and plazas. An interesting accolade for Cuenca is that it is Ecuador’s most important export centre for the Panama hat.
The fresh produce markets had some interesting products. For one, the enormous bananas that were about twice the size of my (enormous) hands. It also had red bananas, but apparently they are not called bananas and they taste totally different. There were baskets full of live cuy (guinea pigs) and adorable, fluffy chicks. I still feel guilty about eating the cuy in Peru, especially when I see the furry little creatures at the markets.
Yes, Cuenca was indeed a beautiful place. But our time here was limited - we had to get back to Guayaquil to catch a flight to the Galapagos Islands.
Click on the image below to view the gallery for Riobamba and Cuenca: