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Retun to Ecuador 1999

April 5th Wednesday
We are up at six to be in time to catch the train. The station is just two blocks from our hotel. The train left at 7.26. The train moves slowly out of town. Beautiful valley and mountains cultivated up the sides. There is a flat bed with a back hoe on it attached to the front of the train. We were told there is a slide on the tracks near Alausi and it will take about an hour to clear it before we can continue around the Devils Nose portion of the trip.

At 11.08 we are stopped to remove rocks from the track. We stopped again at a place where people were selling food. I got back on the train and when it started to leave Ellen was nowhere in sight. It was not long before it stopped again and Ellen and two other people came running back to the car. When the train had started up they did not have time to get back to the passenger car and had to jump on to the flatbed with the back hoe. Ellen said the man had given her a hand up or she never could have gotten on. It was the most exciting part of the ride for her.

Around noon we stop again. We are told the train will not go any farther and that we can stay on the train and go back to Riobamba or climb up to the town of Tixan and catch a bus to Alausi. We do not want to go back, so we start walking up the road to the town. There are vans where we stopped to take some of the people back. Some other people are taking a short cut up the side of the mountain. They said it was only about five minutes to the town. We decide to go that way too. Maybe for them it was five minutes but it took us nearly a half hour. It was very steep and we were carrying our back packs. Thank goodness we had only brought our small packs with us. A man from Ecuador with his two children were walking with us too. The one boy was having a hard time but kept going. We finally huffed and puffed our way up the mountain and then up the steep street through the town to the bus stop. After a short wait the bus arrived and we were on our way to Alausi.

In Alausi we went with some others to the train station to get some of our money back as we had not gotten the ride we were promised. The office was closed and we thought they knew very well before they started that the train could not get through. We realized then that is why there were vans to pick up the people who were on tours where the train had stopped.

At one thirty we took the bus to Cuenca. It was a uno muy peligroso camino with very steep drop offs on one side and steep hills on the other side. There had been many mud slides on both sides of the road. It was still raining and we were up in the clouds. We could only occasionally see the valley far below us. I believe this was the Panamerican highway we were traveling on too. The road was full of pot holes and the bus driver went from side to side to miss them. Dios mia, can’t see any road out of the bus window where the edge of the bank has fallen away. Probably just as well it was cloudy and we could not see too much. We sure are not taking up too much space to-day.

We arrived safely in Cuenca around six. We booked into the Colonial Hostal on Gran Colombia. 190,000 sucres for a double with un baño privado. It was a nice old hotel right on the main square. The taxi to the hotel was 20,000 sucres. We had dinner at the Barraca restaurant. Both the hotel and the restaurant were recommendations from Christa and Fritz whom we had met in Quito. Dinner was 28,000 sucres each and wine 18,000 each. Seems like a nice town with lots of historical buildings.

April 6th Thursday
This morning Ellen wakes up with Montezumas revenge. I go out for Pepto Bismal. By noon she is feeling better and we go out exploring.

April 7th Friday
Cuenca is Ecuadors third largest city with 320,000 population. It is 2530 meters above sea level. It was once a thriving indigenous city but it lay nearly in ruins when the Spanish arrived. This beautiful colonial city was rebuilt on the Rio Tomebambo.

We spent the day exploring the churches and museums. Walked down to the river.

April 8th Saturday
We took a taxi to airport and had breakfast in the restaurant on the second floor. We are paged for our flight. We fly back to Quito and again Ralph is there to meet us. Back at the house we do some laundry and then go for a walk up into Parque Metropolitano Bellavista. Dinner at Montesarrio

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Homepage | Cuenca | Peru 2000 | Cuzco | Inca Trail | Machu Picchu | Lake Titicaca | Arequipa | Colca Canyon | Lima
Retun to Ecuador 1999