Planes, Trains, and Auto-mo-busses

¡Hola! Greetings from Ecuador on our second to last day. We´ve had a great time in Ecuador. It´s got just about everything. Jungle, highlands, mountains, ocean. You name it, it´s here. An incredibley beautiful country we´ll be sad to say goodbye to, but its time to explore some of Peru.

After our amazing Galapagos adventure we returned to Quito and hopped what was supposed to be a 4 hour bus ride to Baños but was more like 6 hours. It turned into a bit of a misadventure when about an hour and a half in I felt the results of too much water and juice.

After approximately 2 and a half hours of shuffling uncomfortably in my seat we stopped in Ambato to make a sudden and unexpected bus change. I thought this might be my moment, however, imagine my chagrin to get off the bus and watch one of our packs disappear in one direction on some doods back while the other disappeared in the other direction on some other doods back. Chasing one of them down for about 5 minutes they did luckily end up in the same place, that place being the compartment of a moving bus. My fear of losing our stuff combined with the chase to our departing transportation left me with no time and no place to relieve my...issues. I then made urgent gestures and related my trouble in awful Spanish to the driver. After 10 minutes I found myself jumping off the moving bus in the middle of nowhere Ambato, Ecuador to pee in front of a police officer for 30 seconds before leaping back on the moving bus to sit beside a very embarassed Lori. (A note, 30 seconds was only a stopgap...the guys out there will know what that means) Anyhow, we did make it to Baños without injuring anything. (I hope!)

Baños is situated at the foot of Tungurahua, one of the worlds (I believe) largest active volcanos. We saw a huge plume of smoke billowing from the crater as we came down the road. We even saw ash falling in town occasionally. The town is surrounded by ridges, but this hasn´t always helped the town survive eruptions. This however does mean that from town you can´t see the Volcano, and unfortunately, besides the clear day we arrived, we never got another clear day to get a picture. We spent several days hiking the area and concluded that Ecuador is horribley signed as we got lost several times and ended up doing hikes we weren´t planning. We also got to spend every day listening to kids from the local school practice their marching band presentation for Baños´ Dec 16 festival. (check the picture of them from our hostel room) The beat still echoes in my head days later.

We hopped another bus a few days later to Riobamba. The only reason, and I stress only, is to ride the train down ´Nariz del Diablo.´(Devil´s Nose) We arrived yesterday and rode it today. It was an interesting ride. The actual Nariz del Diablo lasts about 20-30 minutes and involves switchbacks down a very steep drop-off. You ride on the top of the train and at times, you don´t see the ground beside the train, just the canyon, far below. The rest of the ride is about 3 hours long through the Ecuador countryside, which as I said before, is quite stunning. The locals seem to get a kick out of a train full of Gringo´s hanging off the roof passing by and wave happily. Even the dogs join in the fun and chase the train as far as they can barking all the way. It is probably the longest, most uncomfortable, coldest, and beautiful train ride ever.

Anyhow, tomorrow we hop a bus back to Quito where we fly out to Lima at 8pm. We arrive at some point early in the morning where we have a layover until 7am. We then fly to Cusco, Peru where we will feel very very gross for a day. Lori has unfortunately come down with a cold which I hope she doesn´t give to me.

Thanks for all the Birthday wishes! Since this will be our last post until either after christmas or maybe until next year, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year! Keep warm!