Sunday 11 March 2012

30 minutes in Riobamba!

On saturday we got up slightly hungover, after experiencing Baños' nightlife, and decided it was time to move on again. Moving so much seemed like never ending cycle of packing and repacking my backpack but there was so much for us to see!

We had read in the Lonely Planet about a train ride which only runs twice a week from the Andean town of Riobamba. It takes you through the mountains and past the snow covered region to the famous 'Nariz del Diablo' (Devil's Nose). It sounded exciting and we had planned to get all dressed up as if we were going on the Orient Express.

So we headed to the bus station and got on the next bus to Riobamba which the LP termed 'the Sultan of the Andes'. We arrived and it couldn't have been more wrong...The book of lies, lies again! (Not sure I have mentioned this yet but the Lonely Planet is awful and gets so much stuff wrong that we named it 'the book of lies'.)

We were there for approximately a hellish 30 minutes before we wanted to get out of there! In that time we saw a grown woman aged about 60 and dressed pretty nicely stood in the middle of a busy main road having a wee! We took it as a sign that if the 'Sultan of the Andes' was like this, god knows what the 'spectacular train ride' would be like!

So after about 30 minutes in Riobamba, we headed to a bus station on the other side of town in search of a new plan...and good job we did because a few days later we found out from someone else who had been there that the train wasn't even running, phew!

xxx