Part 1: Heavenly Domes to Hellish Noses
The Journey
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| The Heavenly Domes of Cuenca |
Our journey to Cuenca was a disaster. We'd found that we could take a bus from the nearby Chiclayo overnight and arrive easily in Cuenca in the morning where our accomodation had assured us that we could check in early. So we left from
Trujillo and took of towards Chiclayo, the bus journey was easy enough, we even got given food as part of it. However upon arrival in Chiclayo we headed off towards the terminal that we'd read about, the busses left there every hour, easy! The terminals in Chiclayo are not centralised so they all lie around the same street, the terminal we needed however did not exist... in a panic we go to several different terminals to ask if they go to Cuenca, no one knows. Eventually one sent us to a company called CIVA who said they didn't but we could try a different one near where we came in. So off we went to this terminal, who informed us it was the company next door that did it, we went to take a look but couldn't find one at all. Deciding that the day was drawing to a close and not wanting to be wandering the terminals after dark we headed off to find somewhere to sleep. The place was stayed was actually really nice, although curiously we stayed in the business centre which consisted of a bed and a desk. This did leave me with many questions about how the Peruvians do business but I decided not to ask. Our TV in the room didn't work so they gave us breakfast instead (something I feel I should bring to the attention of the TV licensing company, free breakfast for anyone who doesn't have a TV?)
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| The colourful Alausi sign |
We googled our hearts out and found that the terminal that went straight to Cuenca didn't leave until 5:30pm and was only marked by a hand drawn paper sign. The other company we had been looking for has apparently moved several times. Not being filled with too much hope at getting there we decided we would do it through the day and get the bus to a town called Tumbes a matter of kilometres from the Ecuadorian border. From there it was a simple matter of getting a bus to the border crossing and then finding a company on the other side to take us to Cuenca. Easy! or so we though.
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| The Devil's Nose Mountain |
The journey to Tumbes is long, we left on the first bus out at 10:00am and were merrily on our way, including food on the bus. Upon arriving in Tumbes we left the terminal where they had actual sliding gates with what felt like all of the taxi drivers in peru clamouring around and yelling at you about taking a taxi, going to the border, friend you need a taxi! It was awful, literally like the scenes you see on Black Friday, but they followed us a little way down the street as well towards where we could get the bus from. When we arrived however there was no bus, so we tried a terminal that had a few minibuses where we got palmed off onto a taxi driver who would take us to the border.
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| Old town houses |
It was a tense journey through, the border is a little confusing as we crossed it into Ecuador through the town of Aguas Verdes and over a bridge. The driver was really good and walked us over, to an Ecuadorian taxi driver who was then taking us to the border and on to a bus station, the border to get a stamp is actually just down the road, alongside the town. This driver then informs us that there were no busses to Cuenca from the town that night but he would take us to Machala where there were busses that went there. We agreed as we didn't really want to spend the night in Aguas Verdes just in case he was telling the truth. Within no time we had passed through the border and got our stamps and were off towards Machala. The driver was very friendly and explained that we had to go through four different customs checks as there is a lot of contraband that crosses the border, but we would be alright as we were gringos. This was true, they took one look at our white haggard faces and just waved us through. Finally we arrived in Machala, the banana capital of the world, and just managed to get the 8:35pm bus to Cuenca, the journey was a few hours and after painfully trying to stay awake we wound through the mountains and ended up in Cuenca, our fourteen hour ordeal finally coming to an end.
Cuenca
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| A panoramic of the mountains |
Cuenca is a stunningly beautiful city, for those who are unaware there are various warnings about Ecuador and we were a little apprehensive about coming, however most said it was fine with sensible precautions. Cuenca however is a very surprising change from many other cities that we had visited in South America thus far. It is incredibly clean, well built and really pretty from the churches in the town to the small terraced houses that line it's old town. Given the difficulty of our journey, we only had one full day to explore Cuenca.
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| Beautifully green balcony |
Cuenca is found in the highlands of Ecuador, nestled in the Andes that runs as a backbone across the continent. It wasn't until fairly late on in the 1900s that Cuenca had a road that ran into it, helping to preserve it's buildings. Cuenca was originally a settlement of the Canari people who were defeated by the Incas, yes they got this far up. Tupac (not the rapper) decided to found a great city where Cuenca now stands which is said to have been a marvel filled with gold temples and rivaling the beauty of the Incan capital of
Cusco. Interestingly it is because of the gold temples that some people believe that Tomebamba (as Cuenca was known then) was potentially the inspiration for El Dorado, the city of gold. Upon hearing of the Spaniards conquests the inhabitants decided to burn down their city in order to stop the Spaniards getting their hands on it. The Spanish eventually got to Cuenca and Gil Ramirez Davalos decided to build a city on it, named after his home town of Cuenca, Spain. Today Cuenca is the capital of the Azuay province, and one of four UNESCO heritage cites in Ecuador, the other three being Quito, the Galapagos Islands and the Sangay National Park.
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| The inside of the New Cathedral |
We had a lovely day exploring the old town, it's got many nice colourful streets with beautiful buildings and also feels incredibly safe. We had a look around the new Cathedral which is an odd mix of Gothic and Romanesque which gives it a very different feel to other churches we've seen. Think about is as a mix between Notre Dame in Paris mixed with the
Hagia Sophia or the Vatican, that's kind of the closest approximation I can think of.
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| The Cathedral, it's distinctive blue domes in the background |
We continued to amble around the old streets of Cuenca. Found a sweet shop where we tried some Cuy (Guinea Pig, but thankfully chocolate ones) and also a nice coconut toffee type thing. A bit like a meringue made out of coconut and Dulce Leche sauce, it was nice. Although paying for things in Ecuador is weird as the currency is dollars, with the fifty cent coin being an Ecuadorian one. But the difficult thing with the american coinage system is that we have no real idea of how much the coins are worth, they don't seem to write the numbers on them. We surmised that a quarter was obviously going to be a quarter of a dollar, so twenty five cents, but what the hell is a dime?
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| Guinea Pig |
After this we relaxed at our accommodation for a little bit before going out for some food. It was all pretty good, I had some rice and beans with meat and plantain and oddly a single bit of cheese. Olivia had some sausauge and chips, and we both had coconut juice with it. Coconut juice is an odd thing and was actually quite nice and would make an excellent pre-bed drink, sort of sweet and milky and yet oddly a little like non-alcoholic Malibu. After this we had a look at the surrounding mountains that rise up on the skyline of Cuenca before heading back and getting ready for our journey to Alausi the next day.
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| Olivia in the Main Square |
Alausi
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| The view from St Peter in Alausi |
So there we were racing through the mountains towards Alausi, or more accurently San Pedro de Alausi. Alausi is found in the Ecuadorian highlands about 4 hours bus ride north of Cuenca. It is home to the infamous Devil's Nose Railway. This was what we had decided to travel to see, a train ride for thrill seekers. We had read that this train track was perched precariously on the mountain and was a marvelous feat of engineering that descended to a nearby town through a series of switchbacks down a mountain. Given this information and our passing by Alausi we thought that we had to go and see it.
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| A train mural in the local church |
We arrived Sunday afternoon and headed down from where the bus stop was into the centre of town towards our accommodation. Unfortunately we soon discovered that our map had the location marked wrong, but a kind woman pointed us in the right direction and we were soon in our room. The Hostel was nice enough, but included them locking the front door constantly, giving the feel of ending up in prison or Fort Knox. As we had a few hours of daylight to go we decided that we would go and find the train station and see if we could buy tickets for the train journey tomorrow, knowing that can sell out. At this point we discovered the train station wasn't open, but nonetheless decided that as we were up early, we would go and buy the tickets for the 11 o clock train when we get up in the morning.
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| St Peter of the Snoggers |
From here we decided that we would go and see St Peter. The town (as we learnt when in
San Pedro de Atacama) is named after Saint Peter, I'm not sure when he visited but they decided to build a massive statue of him that overlooks the town, probably to discourage people from doing anything naughty. So off we climbed up the surprisingly small hill that housed St Peter and took a look at the view. From here we could see a small market and decided we'd take a look before searching for food. So off we went down some steps, upon turning the corner however we run into a couple furiously making out...
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| The Mountain view of Alausi |
Slightly disturbed at the sight of a man trying to hide in a woman's mouth we kept our heads down and kept moving. However upon turning another corner, there was yet another couple, and no way down the hill either! So we had to turn around and walk past them once more, whereupon we found a path to where we had come up. This path contained, you guessed it, another couple making out! It would appear that we had inadvertently wandered into the makeout spot of the small sleepy town of Alausi. Now some may argue that the romantic views of the valleys and mountains are what grants this place it's makeout spot title, but I reckon it's more to do with the only place that St Peter isn't looking at you, right by his toes.
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| We found a dead Scorpion, kind of worried now |
After eating a dinner of rotisserie chicken and not very good chips (they weren't really crispy, we found this the next day as well, Ecuador isn't great for chips so far) we headed back to sleep. The next morning I headed off to get breakfast and train tickets, only to discover the train was closed on Mondays. Monday was the only day we'd have in Alausi, a small town with nothing to do apart from make out under Saint Peter it would appear. So instead we spent the day wandering through the town, eating baked goods and deciding what to do about the train. In the end we decided we would take the early train before we had to take the bus to the next place. Despite being able to buy the tickets online, the internet and their site were against us, so alas we weren't going to be able to get tickets until the next morning.
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| The view from Sibamba |
We rose early the next morning and headed down to the station, only to find we were about sixteenth in the queue for tickets. Though initially apprehensive that we would not get any we thankfully managed to get some (although oddly they seem to drag an empty cart on the back of the train as no one was sat there). Unfortunately our tickets were the mountainside seats, so we got some good views to begin with, but after that it is mostly rock that you get to look at, but the views from the other side were fantastic and we could stand up and take a look through them.
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| Happy we'd finally got the train |
To give you a brief overview of the Devil's Nose Train, or the Nariz Del Diablo, as stated above it is a train that runs along a narrow mountain track. It was built between 1897 and 1902 (I believe), it was constructed by a workforce of people from the Caribbean where ultimately half the work force died. Some of this was due to diseases such as yellow fever, others were related to TNT accidents or falling from the mountain. This was because they used to hang people from ropes to chip away and create the track. What stands there now is a series of switchbacks that take you down a steep mountain path. Switchbacks are where the train goes forwards, they switch the tracks behind it and then it reverses on to a different track, and so forth. It is truly amazing the work that was done on it considering the era.
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| An example of a switchback |
Our journey consisted of the 12km descent to Sibamba through the winding mountain train track, apparently at one point you could sit on top of the train, but nowadays it's only inside due to a fatality. Upon arriving in Sibamba we drove past some traditional dancers and ended up at a view point where we could take pictures of the Devil's Nose, a mountain named for how steep it is, and the amount of people that died constructing the train. At this point we mused about how glad we were we'd traveled north of the
Devil's Throat in Iguazu, as we weren't sure what we'd have found further south. After this we headed back to Sibamba where there was more traditional dancing, a few craft shops and a museum (not about the train oddly) before returning to Alausi.
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| First the make out spot, and now pole dancing! |
I think overall the Devil's Nose has some fantastic views of the scenery and is quite the engineering marvel. If you are a train fanatic it is most likely a must see. I found from reading stuff online that the description of the 'thrill seeking ride' was a bit misleading, ultimately it was a rather sedentary ride, nothing compared to the
Rainbow Mountains bus at all. The mountain side, although still giving excellent views, does end up being a bit inhibited as there are two sets of seats on the Abyss side and your view is blocked somewhat by people shoving their cameras out the window to take photos. Despite it being a little costly for what you actually get, I do think that it is worth it to see some of the fantastic views around Alausi. But also to wonder at the construction of the train track. So ultimately I would say that it is an interesting thing to see, but don't go expecting a thrilling ride (unless you sit on the roof).
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| The Devil's Nose Train |
In the meantime
See some more of our posts
Check out some more of our pictures
here and what we're up to currently.
Part two here
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