I had come across the Nariz del Diablo in a coffee table travel book we have at home about great journeys to take. It is now a far more sanitised version of the route as you can no longer ride on the roof but is still apparently a feat of engineering with its switchbacks down through the Andes.
So off we set on a bus to Alausi. Our first more local non direct bus meaning it stops randomly along the route to pick up passengers for sections of the route. Ecuadorian bus drivers fancy themselves as race drivers and sections of the trip were quite stomach lurching as we made our way through the Andes.
On arriving in Alausi we were dropped on the outskirts of town and had to find our way with no map. Luckily it's a pretty small place. Spanish is improving quickly out of necessity!
Alausi is a small railway town in the Andes. It has one Main Street with hotels, a few restaurants and the train station at the end all presided over by San Pedro, an enormous statue of the town's saint up on a hill overlooking it.
Lunch was quite something. The restaurants here are not a la carte but have a set meal for which ever meal you walk in for and they just bring it through. Well we've now learnt to at least try and figure out what the meal is before sitting down. It's the soup that makes it difficult.
We sat down for almuerza which is lunch of the day where we were served some orange juice and a soup containing potatoes, sauce and some meat we still aren't sure about. We think it was lamb but what part of the lamb we have no idea! Also a side dish of avo and what Warren thought was beans, I though was liver and we now think was a minced black pudding. I tried, I really did. But only managed a bite of the beans/black pudding and managed a few pieces of usually discarded lamb parts made up of varying sizes of tubes and some tongue or stomach like pieces out of the soup heavily disguised with mouthfuls of potato. Warren ate it all! My relief was palpable when the main was brought out and consisted of recognisable lamb, a fried banana and rice. YAY RICE!
We set off to take the Nariz del Diablo train, but the mist had rolled in and we couldn't see much so postponed for 8am the next morning. Instead taking a wonder around town. The people here are so friendly and try and chat with us even with our very limited Spanish. There is quite a reaction to our Sud Africa which is great and they are curious to find out where else in Ecuador we are going. It sounds like we are missing out not going further north to Banos.
Dinner was another experience. We couldn't brave another set meal guessing game and both would have grabbed a hamburger if one had been available! Instead we opted for some street food - at least we could see what we were ordering! A beef, sausage and banana kebab.
The evening was relaxed except for the marching band that did a few laps on the Main Street - didn't know what they were doing at 10 pm, but a few heads popped out to encourage them through. The rest of the night was littered with firework bangs, but no bright lights (no one can tell us why).
An early start was planned, but we were already up with a chorus of birds and some duets from local dogs chipping in. A quick local café and pan chocolate (both for $1) and we boarded the train.
El Tren Nariz del Diablo, has recently opened following restoration of the track after El Niño a few years ago. Unfortunately no riding on the roof as after too many deaths it wasn't good for Ecuador's image! The train twisted and turned, clinging on to the side of the Andes as it "I think I can, I know I can"'ed down. An average train gradient is 2 degrees, this was 10!
Mands snapped away on the camera like it was her first trip on holiday out from Japan, but got some great shots. The final section saw the train having to zig zag forwards and backwards as it's impossible to turn and too steep to go straight - it's like falling leaf snowboarding.
At the bottom there was some local dancing. We avoided joining this time as there was no cerveca in the disco leg, but did get to talk to one of the dancers, Josè. He's just moved back after being in London a few years, so both he and us enjoyed a good catch up.
The Devil's nose was explained as the name of the mountain that we'd just come down - the lead American engineer named it as such during construction as there were a large amount of deaths from malaria and other diseases. The only way to ever manage to build this was to make a pact with the devil. The mountain has sections where no vegetation grows forming eyes, the large nose and finally the track makes the beasts mouth.
Grabbed out mucellos / bags and hopped on a bus to Guayaquil - should have been labelled Quaya'kill as that's what the driver had in mind! First it was the overtaking and a particular gravel section was so bad the locals were shouting mas despacio (go slower) following a high speed, gravel road, mountain side, blind sharp corner hand-break manoeuvre that would have done a Bond opening scene proud. 3 minutes later an old man next to us pulled out his bible - by the state of it, he'd driven with this bus before! Second was trying to maintain a similar speed during the cloud fog out. 10 meters visibility at best in sections . A middle-of-nowhere-passenger-drop later and the irony hit as the Bond villan bus overtook us and kept it's nose ahead for the rest of the journey!
Next... Off to Galapagos!
P.s. stomachs in check after yesterday's 'man versus food'
No comments:
Post a Comment