Ecuador - Part 2, Riobamba, The Beach & Vilcabamba

From Banos we headed a little further south along the ‘Avenue of Volcanoes’ as the Pan-American highway through this part of Ecuador is known - to the city of Riobamba. Riobamba is the nearest major city to Ecuador’s highest volcano - named Chimborazo, weighing in at 6350 meters above sea level. Our plan was to mountain bike down it from the refuge at 5000m. We were also in town to embark upon the famous ‘Nariz Del Diablo’ (or Devil’s Nose) train journey from Riobamba, south to the towns of Alausi & Sibambe.

The train is something of a challenge to actually even get on these days, as it only runs a couple of days a week, is frequently cancelled at the last minute due to landslides, you can only buy tickets in person from the station in Riobamba the day before departure from 9.30am - & the tickets sell out fast, as not only is it one of Ecuador’s main attractions, but the locomotive train with several carriages that was previously used is currently under going repairs - so the trusty

old American school buses have been put into yet another after life use, & this time a bus has been converted to run on train tracks & act as the ‘temporary’ replacement train… & as a result there are only about 40-50 seats available for any one trip.

We had to travel to Riobamba on a Wednesday to stand any chance of getting on the Friday train - this constraint, coupled with some poor planning & communication on my behalf meant that unfortunately we were unable to meet up with the family of our Ecuadorian Spanish teacher from back home, Jenny - who’s family live just North of Riobamba in a city called Ambato - who had kindly offered to put us up for a couple of nights - lo siento un otra vez Jenny!

We hooked up with a guy we had been emailing about the mountain biking trip, a fella called Galo Briti, who’s father used to be Mayor of Riobamba. Galo himself holds the claim to fame of being the first person with a mountain bike in Riobamba & subsequently set up the first company to provide organised mountain bike tours of the surrounding areas. After a very thorough briefing & bike testing session on the Wednesday evening, we set out on Thursday morning for Volcano Chimborazo - after also having managed to negotiate with the owner of our hotel & a girl who worked at the train station to enable them to get tickets on our behalf for the train journey on Friday.

Galo turned out to be a great guide for the day, & the trip became much more than just a mountain bike trip, as he plied us with information about the local indigenous communities on the approach to the Volcano, the affects of the current & historical political policies on the ownership of the land & the effects on the communities - which interestingly has largely resulted in more power being given to the indigenous communities, so much so that the indigenous voting population now represents something like 27% of the overall vote, & as such means that the indigenous communities are able to pretty much determine the outcome of any election result as they all tend to vote together. As a result the politicians recognise the need to keep these communities on side, & often turn a blind eye to some of the agricultural practices they carry out, which tend to be less than environmentally friendly. A world away from the relative power the indigenous communities of Central America have, who are basically still in constant battle just to maintain any rights to the land they live on, & have been regularly slaughtered by the Government/military in large numbers over these basic rights.

We pulled up at the first refuge on Chimborazo at 4800m, & proceeded to hike (very slowly) up to the second refuge at 5000m - a breath taking experience - & not all because of the lack of oxygen at this altitude. The clouds broke & we were rewarded with stunning views across the high Andes & the surrounding Paramo’s (high altitude flat grass lands), which create a desert like setting.

Over the next few hours we descended on the bikes down to about 2500m, with a few vehicle assisted climbs to take us to some of the best descents along the way. En route we passed through old Inca ruin sites, through local communities, passed by llama, alpaca & vicuna (that produce the worlds most expensive wool - in fact the Chimborazo Volcano is a protected National Park, solely for the purpose of protecting the natural habitat of the Vicuna), past a natural water spring that actually flows with perfectly clear carbonated mineral water & tastes just like Perrier. We filled up a few bottles & have shipped them back to London to be sold in high class restaurants for £50 a time… gotta find some way of funding all these excursions! Yet again - another amazing, very rewarding day.

At 6.30am the following morning we boarded our train/bus for ‘La Nariz Del Diablo’. About 15 minutes out of Riobamba the train line passes through a cement plant, which presented us with the first challenge of the journey, as a lorry waiting to pick up his load of cement had parked right on the tracks, & although the driver was in the cab & the train/bus was chugging towards him, the lorry refused to move for a good 20 minutes until the Police were called to handle the situation…bizarre. Eventually we chugged on through the Andes, the rails regularly running inches from the edge of the cliff with drops of around several hundred metres to our left or right.

We encountered another couple of minor hold ups when we happened upon some landslide debris on the tracks, the conductor had to jump out & shovel the rocks etc off the tracks so we could carry on. Somehow I don’t think you would get away with the classic British excuse of ‘leaves on the track’ for train cancellations in Ecuador…

The section of the journey that actually gives the trip it’s name is between the towns of Alausi & Sibambe, where as a result of the seemingly in-passable landscape, the train has to zig zag it’s way down the sheer mountain side by a series of switchbacks, whereby the train over shots the corner, the points on the track are changed & the train reverses down the section, repeating the same process a few times until it has lost sufficient altitude to arrive at Sibambe. A very unique train journey - it certainly puts the Leamington to Marylebone route to shame to say the least.

From here we worked our way across to Ecuador’s second city, & main economic centre of Guayaquil. Although we were only there for 1 day & night, you can certainly feel that there is a little more money around the place than many of the other Ecuadorian cities we had visited so far. In the year 2000 a brand new promenade was developed & opened up, called ‘The Malecon 2000’ - which we spent the evening walking along, eating at one of the many restaurants that line the waterfront & checking out a few of the bars. As we sat there eating, it felt like we could’ve been sitting at a restaurant somewhere along the south bank of the Thames in London. The Malecon now also has a huge I-Max cinema complex, kids play areas, is palm tree lined & on the whole feel is very nice. It feels like a step towards a more prosperous future for Ecuador, also reinforced by the rows of luxury mansions that line the streets in the suburbs of Guayaquil that we passed on the bus on our way out to a little surf spot on the Pacific coast called Montanita.

Everything about this side of the country really feels different & just goes to reinforce how diverse Ecuador is a country - out here it’s all sand dunes, coast line, laid back fishing villages & surf spots. It seems strange to think it was all in the same country that we were recently in the Amazon basin, or surrounded by the highest volcanoes in the Andes. It is a little off the beaten track in Montanita, as most tourists follow the ‘Gringo Trail’ - which pretty much follows the route of the Pan-American highway through the Avenue of Volcanoes, so it feels like a little bit of a well kept secret - however it is popular enough to have developed into a pretty lively surf & party scene, & if you end up staying at one of the hostels right in the middle of the main centre then you better not plan on getting any sleep, as the bars & clubs are pumping out music until dawn pretty much every night. Fortunately we found ourselves a nice little place 2 minutes walk out of the centre that was totally quiet at night - so we had some peace to retreat to when we had enough partying.

It was here in Montanita that Leanne & I decided to have our first surf lesson. I have attempted surfing quite a few times in the past, though with little success - the lesson proved to be a worthwhile investment (all $15 of it for a 2 hour lesson inc. gear hire), as I managed to actually stand up & catch a few waves. Leanne had never attempted surfing at all before, though made some good initial progress, to be followed upon at a later date.

After about 4 days in Montanita Claire & I decided to move on, heading for the mountains again to a place called Vilcabamba. Leanne opted to stay another few days chilling out at the beach with a group of Irish people we had met up with.

Catching a few buses, we wound our way down the country 9 hours or so to Ecuador’s 3rd city and UNESCO site, Cuenca, another lovely colonial city. After a couple of city days we head on another 9 hours south to the mountain town of Vilcabamba, also known as the ‘valley of longevity’ due to the fact the locals are renowned for their extremely long lives - for more hiking and horse riding. We had seen posters all over Ecuador for a hostel that claimed to be a resort but without the price tag, set 2km out of town perched on a hilltop overlooking the valley, so that’s where we headed and we were not disappointed. Izhcayluma hostel was fantastic… sweeping views over the valley from the outdoor dining room, swimming pool, bar, cabanas, homemade bread and granola, buffet breakfast and German run so some great German food to escape from the fried chicken and rice you become accustomed to living on day in day out….!

There are numerous hikes around the area so we decided on an ’easy to moderate’ 5 hour one called the ‘Izhcayluma loop’ that took us up on the ridgeline above the hostel. Whilst it was a beautiful hike, there were parts of the ridgeline, that due to some pretty sever erosion were a little precarious to say the least! We see an advert for horse riding while we are there with a guy from New Zealand and opt for a 4 hour trip into the Podocarpus National Park. Without much discussion (nil) about previous horse riding experience, our guide canters off out of town with our 2 horses following quickly in pursuit. At this point it became apparent that Paul was not a professional rider. Having only been on a horse 3 times in his life, two of which on this trip and only ever managed a slow trot, he eased up a little! We wound our way up the mountain and into the National Park…. again, beautiful views but this time without the effort of walking! By the end of the 4 hours we were galloping back into town, Paul now completely at ease on the horse. We thought we were being clever in wearing cycling shorts to avoid too much ‘butt’ pain the following day as we had another long 8 hour bus journey over the border into Peru and whilst the cycling shorts helped, we did not bank on the leg and back pain. We didn’t realise that horse riding used so many muscles and could barely move the following day… We spent 5 days in total here having a really nice relaxed time, and it would have been very easy to stay for more!