Me and Kim went to a beach town called Playas for a night this week, here's us in the hammock area:
Here's Kim and the sea:
Another view of the beach:
Us and the sea:
Me with some super glue to fix my glasses which broke:
Thursday 4 September 2014
Monday 1 September 2014
Nariz del diablo
Hi again
To continue about the Devil's Nose train in Alausi. In Spanish this is called Nariz del Diablo, and basically the mountain that it goes up, looks a little bit like a devil with a nose. The train was built originally in the 1800s, to make the journey from the coast to the sierra easier - it previously took about 2 weeks to do that journey. The Devil's Nose is just one small section of the whole train route that originally existed, it's possible to do other parts of the whole train line too in other parts of Ecuador. It had closed for some time as I mentioned previously. We got up super early, at 6am, to get to the station at 7am for the 8am train, which meant we had time for breakfast too, which is always my favourite part of the proceedings. I do love trains, and remember being a little bit upset when I first discovered you couldn't travel all through South America by train - I think you used to be able to as Paul Theroux wrote that Old Patagonia Express book about it, but I think gradually they all closed down, probably due to costs of maintaining them.
The train leaves Alausi and goes to a station about 20k away, called Sibambe. Which I kept mispronouncing Zimbabwe. The train goes slowly and the views are actually amazing, of canyons and rivers and fields and typical Andean things. We basically chatted lots, about things that were nothing to do with the train or the scenery, and then kept remembering we should be looking at the scenery and would stand up and look out of the window. There was a lady talking about various historical / geographical things to do with the journey, and she translated it all into English, especially for us, but we still didn't fully listen. I am probably the worst tourist ever at the moment. We then got paranoid that a man across the carriage from us was angry that we were eating crisps, but it turned out later when we got chatting back at Alausi station that his wife was very interested in Kim's lovely pink hat that she'd put on around the same time as the crisps got eaten. Isn't it funny how you can completely misconstrue a situation, is what we thought. We nearly offered the hat to the woman for 5 dollars as we thought it might make her really happy, but after trying it on she seemed satisfied with the whole transaction and gave it back to Kim.
At Sibambe we looked round a little museum about the train. There used to be lots of condors in the area but the dynamite they used to create the train track in the rock scared them away. There is 600m altitude difference between Sibambe and Alausi train stations, and the engineers therefore decided to make 2 switchbacks to get up there. This means the train goes up one way then goes back on itself and up the next switchback if you see what I mean. There were also very difficult weather conditions when they were building the train track and apparently the rock they had to cut through was very difficult to work with, so it earned the name of the most difficult train track in the world to build. We watched some traditional Andean panpipe dancers doing some dancing and looked at a llama and a horse, and at the views from the little cafe. We ate some really really good chocolate too. Then you get back on the train and go back to Alausi, pretty much exactly the same way you've come. The whole experience was very sedate and definitely enjoyable but absolutely not what I was expecting. I was expecting to be scared as we climbed up a cliff edge precariously on a train, maybe like when you get the funicular trains in places like Switzerland and Austria and you feel like you're going vertically upwards and it's all a bit frightening. Not that I like being frightened particularly, but I suppose I didn't feel any strong emotions about this train and we had been quite excited about it beforehand.
Anyway, we went back to Alausi and bought a few artesanial (if that's a word) items in the local shops. like rings and earrings, and then got our stuff from the hostel and chatted to Victor, who owns the hostel. He's lived there for 5 years and is US/Ecuadorean, his father owned the farm before him. It's really stunning there, and I can imagine how nice and calm life must be there. Me and Kim had talked about all the beautiful landscape and the difference in ways of life between our hectic citiy life (whether that's London or Guayaquil), and the sedate countryside farming life. But I think we romanticise it, like the old painters did like Gainsborough and those others that painted haywains and cattle lowing - it's actually probably really tough, you never get to take a holiday if you're a farmer, and you must always be worrying about weather, and soil, and slugs (or the Andean equivalent) eating your crops, and then natural disasters wiping things out too. I'd love a slower/simpler way of life, as I think most people that live in cities would, but are our brains just too deeply used to having to have all that stimulation all day that it would actually feel really difficult to make that change for the long term? I suppose the only way to find out is to try it one day and see what happens. It's like town mouse country mouse.
After a 2 dollar lunch, we got the bus back to Guayaquil. The last bus to Guayaquil leaves Alausi at 1pm, which is an early last bus. We chatted a bit then both fell asleep for a while. The journey is about 4.5 hours, and the last 3 hours of that are really really hot as you are going lower down and into jungley country again towards Guayaquil. If you remember last time I arrived in Guayaquil I was wearing 7 layers of clothing and that was too many. This time I had just 1 layer on and that was still too much too, but at least I was expecting the heat this time. We got back to Kim's and basically didn't do too much as we were really tired and hot, but we did eat some strawberry cheesecake as a treat for the long journey. Tyrone came round and we went to a really good street stall for tacos. It reminded me of the hamburger stall we used to go to in Mexico when I was there doing my TEFL course, that place was just incredible, I've never had burgers like that before or ever again. These tacos were great, full of beans (literally), and then you choose from a long list of other things, I had chicken and mozarella in mine, and loads of guacamole and onion/tomato stuff. We had planned on getting up at 5am on Sunday for our cycling, but changed our mind when we got home and realised how tired we were.
After the cycling yesterday we went for some seafood dinner at the Malecon, with Becky (Kim's flatmate that I'd met in Cuenca that weekend), and then went to las Penas (there should be a squiggle on the n here and it's pronounced las Pen-yas), which is where we'd gone last time I was here - where all the steps are and the lighthouse at the top. This time we went up the lighthouse, in all there are about 500 steps (only about 50 in the actual lighthouse). Tyrone explained some things to us about the lighthouse and the forts and the pirates that had landed in Guayaquil, and we drank some really strong cocktails on a pretend pirate ship near the lighthouse. I had a white russian which was really nice but as I don't drink much anymore it knocked me out a bit, which was also quite nice. The pretend pirate ship was pretty weird as there was no one on it apart from us and some weird pirate statues and really loud music. After another taco on the street that was the end of that day. Today our plans changed as Kim had to go to work unexpectedly and I have a cold, so I've been catching up on blogging and reading / blowing my nose etc, but hopefully tomorrow we're going to the beach for the day/night.
Over and out pepinillos from pepinillo in Guayaquil xx
To continue about the Devil's Nose train in Alausi. In Spanish this is called Nariz del Diablo, and basically the mountain that it goes up, looks a little bit like a devil with a nose. The train was built originally in the 1800s, to make the journey from the coast to the sierra easier - it previously took about 2 weeks to do that journey. The Devil's Nose is just one small section of the whole train route that originally existed, it's possible to do other parts of the whole train line too in other parts of Ecuador. It had closed for some time as I mentioned previously. We got up super early, at 6am, to get to the station at 7am for the 8am train, which meant we had time for breakfast too, which is always my favourite part of the proceedings. I do love trains, and remember being a little bit upset when I first discovered you couldn't travel all through South America by train - I think you used to be able to as Paul Theroux wrote that Old Patagonia Express book about it, but I think gradually they all closed down, probably due to costs of maintaining them.
The train leaves Alausi and goes to a station about 20k away, called Sibambe. Which I kept mispronouncing Zimbabwe. The train goes slowly and the views are actually amazing, of canyons and rivers and fields and typical Andean things. We basically chatted lots, about things that were nothing to do with the train or the scenery, and then kept remembering we should be looking at the scenery and would stand up and look out of the window. There was a lady talking about various historical / geographical things to do with the journey, and she translated it all into English, especially for us, but we still didn't fully listen. I am probably the worst tourist ever at the moment. We then got paranoid that a man across the carriage from us was angry that we were eating crisps, but it turned out later when we got chatting back at Alausi station that his wife was very interested in Kim's lovely pink hat that she'd put on around the same time as the crisps got eaten. Isn't it funny how you can completely misconstrue a situation, is what we thought. We nearly offered the hat to the woman for 5 dollars as we thought it might make her really happy, but after trying it on she seemed satisfied with the whole transaction and gave it back to Kim.
At Sibambe we looked round a little museum about the train. There used to be lots of condors in the area but the dynamite they used to create the train track in the rock scared them away. There is 600m altitude difference between Sibambe and Alausi train stations, and the engineers therefore decided to make 2 switchbacks to get up there. This means the train goes up one way then goes back on itself and up the next switchback if you see what I mean. There were also very difficult weather conditions when they were building the train track and apparently the rock they had to cut through was very difficult to work with, so it earned the name of the most difficult train track in the world to build. We watched some traditional Andean panpipe dancers doing some dancing and looked at a llama and a horse, and at the views from the little cafe. We ate some really really good chocolate too. Then you get back on the train and go back to Alausi, pretty much exactly the same way you've come. The whole experience was very sedate and definitely enjoyable but absolutely not what I was expecting. I was expecting to be scared as we climbed up a cliff edge precariously on a train, maybe like when you get the funicular trains in places like Switzerland and Austria and you feel like you're going vertically upwards and it's all a bit frightening. Not that I like being frightened particularly, but I suppose I didn't feel any strong emotions about this train and we had been quite excited about it beforehand.
Anyway, we went back to Alausi and bought a few artesanial (if that's a word) items in the local shops. like rings and earrings, and then got our stuff from the hostel and chatted to Victor, who owns the hostel. He's lived there for 5 years and is US/Ecuadorean, his father owned the farm before him. It's really stunning there, and I can imagine how nice and calm life must be there. Me and Kim had talked about all the beautiful landscape and the difference in ways of life between our hectic citiy life (whether that's London or Guayaquil), and the sedate countryside farming life. But I think we romanticise it, like the old painters did like Gainsborough and those others that painted haywains and cattle lowing - it's actually probably really tough, you never get to take a holiday if you're a farmer, and you must always be worrying about weather, and soil, and slugs (or the Andean equivalent) eating your crops, and then natural disasters wiping things out too. I'd love a slower/simpler way of life, as I think most people that live in cities would, but are our brains just too deeply used to having to have all that stimulation all day that it would actually feel really difficult to make that change for the long term? I suppose the only way to find out is to try it one day and see what happens. It's like town mouse country mouse.
After a 2 dollar lunch, we got the bus back to Guayaquil. The last bus to Guayaquil leaves Alausi at 1pm, which is an early last bus. We chatted a bit then both fell asleep for a while. The journey is about 4.5 hours, and the last 3 hours of that are really really hot as you are going lower down and into jungley country again towards Guayaquil. If you remember last time I arrived in Guayaquil I was wearing 7 layers of clothing and that was too many. This time I had just 1 layer on and that was still too much too, but at least I was expecting the heat this time. We got back to Kim's and basically didn't do too much as we were really tired and hot, but we did eat some strawberry cheesecake as a treat for the long journey. Tyrone came round and we went to a really good street stall for tacos. It reminded me of the hamburger stall we used to go to in Mexico when I was there doing my TEFL course, that place was just incredible, I've never had burgers like that before or ever again. These tacos were great, full of beans (literally), and then you choose from a long list of other things, I had chicken and mozarella in mine, and loads of guacamole and onion/tomato stuff. We had planned on getting up at 5am on Sunday for our cycling, but changed our mind when we got home and realised how tired we were.
After the cycling yesterday we went for some seafood dinner at the Malecon, with Becky (Kim's flatmate that I'd met in Cuenca that weekend), and then went to las Penas (there should be a squiggle on the n here and it's pronounced las Pen-yas), which is where we'd gone last time I was here - where all the steps are and the lighthouse at the top. This time we went up the lighthouse, in all there are about 500 steps (only about 50 in the actual lighthouse). Tyrone explained some things to us about the lighthouse and the forts and the pirates that had landed in Guayaquil, and we drank some really strong cocktails on a pretend pirate ship near the lighthouse. I had a white russian which was really nice but as I don't drink much anymore it knocked me out a bit, which was also quite nice. The pretend pirate ship was pretty weird as there was no one on it apart from us and some weird pirate statues and really loud music. After another taco on the street that was the end of that day. Today our plans changed as Kim had to go to work unexpectedly and I have a cold, so I've been catching up on blogging and reading / blowing my nose etc, but hopefully tomorrow we're going to the beach for the day/night.
Over and out pepinillos from pepinillo in Guayaquil xx
Pictorial update
Me at the equator - not looking overly impressed, and seemingly with both feet in one hemisphere:
Me and Kim and the Devil's Nose train:
The first llama to appear on my blog:
A view from the train (this isn't the best picture I admit but I don't know how to delete it from this blogpost now it's there):
The Wild West town of Alausi:
Drinking a coconut in a plastic bag in Quito wth Danny:
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