The Ecuatorian are the most curious people I have ever met. Every time I sit near someone in the bus or take a taxi or meet someone somewhere, the first question is "where do you come from", then- are you traveling alone? Where is your husband? Do you have children? How many? Do you still work or are you retired? What do you do? How long are you staying in Ecuador? Where have you been so far? Where are you going next? and so on...As it gets boring to tell always the same things I started to invent everytime new answers, to see how creative I can be.
From Guaranda I took a bus to Riobmba, quite a large and uninteresting city. I spent there one night in a hostel which has a book exchange, so I could exchange all te books I had already read and decided spontaneously the next day to take a bus to Macas in the Oriente, the southern Amazon region of Ecuador, as the road Riobamba Macas goes through the national park Sangay where there aree 3 beautiful volcanoes which I hoped to see. Unfortunately the weather was terrible, there was dense fog all the way so I did not get to see anything.
Macas is a small and ugly town. luckily I found a nice hotel 7 km. from Macas and even more lucky- I was the only guest there on monday and Tuesday. on the weekend it was booked out, and I had the whole hotel for myself. It is a beautiful wooden building in the middle of thee forest.
The weather was rainy so there wasn't much I could do, so I spent most of the time lying in the hammock and reading, which was lovely. They even had a nice swimming pool but although it is Amazonas region, the water in the pool was very cold and the weather not really inviting to swim. I would have liked to make a jungle tour but not in the rain. So on Tuesday I decided to take a bus back to Riobamba and from there to Alausi. I left the hotel around 9 and when I arrived at the bus station the bus had just left. I got a ticket for the neext bus at 10:30. I waited, and waited, and waited... at 11:15 the woman who had sold me and the others the tickets came by and said the next bus would be coming at 12. I wonder what happened to the 10:30 bus. Did it havee an accident? Did it get lost??? So i waited more or less patiently and as at 12:15 there was still no bus in sight and I had waited for 3 hours I went back to the place I had gotten my ticket. On the way I saw another bus saying Riobamba. I was told it was leaving in a moment. I ran back to return my ticket and get the money back, the woman was already waiting for me to return my money, I did not have the time to ask her what had happened to the 12 o'clock bus, I just ran and when I came to the bus station the bus was already driving out of the station. One of the workers grabbed my suitcse and ran after the bus to stop it, I jumped in happy to have gotten a bus to Riobamb. When the man came to sell the ticket it was more expensive than normally and when i asked why, he said this bus was going through Puyo, which is about 1,5 hours longer, so I arrived in Riobamba around 5:30 in the afternoon. I caught a bus going to Cuenca which passes close to Alausi. Another 2 hours. When I got to Alausi it was already dark. I was sooo lucky, that the nice woman sitting near me also had to go to Alausi, the 2 of us were the only ones in the whole bus getting off at Alausi. It was dark and a dense fog. The driver did not exactly ee where he let us off. If I were alone I would be hopelessly lost. We started walking one way and saw he had let us off at the cemetery instead of the entrance to the town, so we walked the other way about 200 m. until she found the way down to the town. With her help I arrived at the hotel around 8 in the evening. That was a long day.
In Alausi there is a train station where you can take a turistic train to Sibambe through the famous "Nariz del Diablo". There used to be a train from Quito to Guayaquil many years ago. The railway was built at the turn of the 20th century. Now only turistic trains go on this railway, what a pity.
Alausi is a cute little town at a beautiful location.
the next picture is for you, Reuven
Te population is mostly indigenous and as in all Ecuador, they wear their traditional clothes.
here you still see little grocery stores like I remember from Brasil in my childhood.
and friendly people
The difficult topography of the Andes, the layk of labor and the rainy weather, perfect for landslides and tropical diseases, turned the Transandean Railroad into "the most difficult train in the world" .
From Alausi to Sibambe the train goes through a beautiful valley descending quite a lot. I was extremely lucky to be there at the only few hours of nice weather the last day, in the afternoon the fog returned and you could see nothing.
This is me and Luis in Sibambe.
We atopped there for one hour, had time to visit an interestig museum that tells the story of the railrroad, enjoy delicious juice, do some shopping from the local women who make beautiful handicrafts
and watch their pretty dances.
This woman allowed me to take her picture, after I bought a little basket she made.
I find the mountains there so special, so different from Austria.
and our train
The Ecuatorian are the most curious people I have ever met. Every time I sit near someone in the bus or take a taxi or meet someone somewhere, the first question is "where do you come from", then- are you traveling alone? Where is your husband? Do you have children? How many? Do you still work or are you retired? What do you do? How long are you staying in Ecuador? Where have you been so far? Where are you going next? and so on...As it gets boring to tell always the same things I started to invent everytime new answers, to see how creative I can be.
From Guaranda I took a bus to Riobmba, quite a large and uninteresting city. I spent there one night in a hostel which has a book exchange, so I could exchange all te books I had already read and decided spontaneously the next day to take a bus to Macas in the Oriente, the southern Amazon region of Ecuador, as the road Riobamba Macas goes through the national park Sangay where there aree 3 beautiful volcanoes which I hoped to see. Unfortunately the weather was terrible, there was dense fog all the way so I did not get to see anything.
Macas is a small and ugly town. luckily I found a nice hotel 7 km. from Macas and even more lucky- I was the only guest there on monday and Tuesday. on the weekend it was booked out, and I had the whole hotel for myself. It is a beautiful wooden building in the middle of thee forest.
The weather was rainy so there wasn't much I could do, so I spent most of the time lying in the hammock and reading, which was lovely. They even had a nice swimming pool but although it is Amazonas region, the water in the pool was very cold and the weather not really inviting to swim. I would have liked to make a jungle tour but not in the rain. So on Tuesday I decided to take a bus back to Riobamba and from there to Alausi. I left the hotel around 9 and when I arrived at the bus station the bus had just left. I got a ticket for the neext bus at 10:30. I waited, and waited, and waited... at 11:15 the woman who had sold me and the others the tickets came by and said the next bus would be coming at 12. I wonder what happened to the 10:30 bus. Did it havee an accident? Did it get lost??? So i waited more or less patiently and as at 12:15 there was still no bus in sight and I had waited for 3 hours I went back to the place I had gotten my ticket. On the way I saw another bus saying Riobamba. I was told it was leaving in a moment. I ran back to return my ticket and get the money back, the woman was already waiting for me to return my money, I did not have the time to ask her what had happened to the 12 o'clock bus, I just ran and when I came to the bus station the bus was already driving out of the station. One of the workers grabbed my suitcse and ran after the bus to stop it, I jumped in happy to have gotten a bus to Riobamb. When the man came to sell the ticket it was more expensive than normally and when i asked why, he said this bus was going through Puyo, which is about 1,5 hours longer, so I arrived in Riobamba around 5:30 in the afternoon. I caught a bus going to Cuenca which passes close to Alausi. Another 2 hours. When I got to Alausi it was already dark. I was sooo lucky, that the nice woman sitting near me also had to go to Alausi, the 2 of us were the only ones in the whole bus getting off at Alausi. It was dark and a dense fog. The driver did not exactly ee where he let us off. If I were alone I would be hopelessly lost. We started walking one way and saw he had let us off at the cemetery instead of the entrance to the town, so we walked the other way about 200 m. until she found the way down to the town. With her help I arrived at the hotel around 8 in the evening. That was a long day.
In Alausi there is a train station where you can take a turistic train to Sibambe through the famous "Nariz del Diablo". There used to be a train from Quito to Guayaquil many years ago. The railway was built at the turn of the 20th century. Now only turistic trains go on this railway, what a pity.
Alausi is a cute little town at a beautiful location.
the next picture is for you, Reuven
Te population is mostly indigenous and as in all Ecuador, they wear their traditional clothes.
here you still see little grocery stores like I remember from Brasil in my childhood.
and friendly people
The difficult topography of the Andes, the layk of labor and the rainy weather, perfect for landslides and tropical diseases, turned the Transandean Railroad into "the most difficult train in the world" .
From Alausi to Sibambe the train goes through a beautiful valley descending quite a lot. I was extremely lucky to be there at the only few hours of nice weather the last day, in the afternoon the fog returned and you could see nothing.
This is me and Luis in Sibambe.
We atopped there for one hour, had time to visit an interestig museum that tells the story of the railrroad, enjoy delicious juice, do some shopping from the local women who make beautiful handicrafts
and watch their pretty dances.
This woman allowed me to take her picture, after I bought a little basket she made.
I find the mountains there so special, so different from Austria.
and our train
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