La Andaluza Riobamba

... the Devil's Nose. We zigzagged down a mountain to views of the river below and the surrounding scenery. The views were nice, but not as "dramatic" as we expected - maybe we have just been too spoilt on views nowadays! The reason it is called the Devils Nose is that the mountain we could see from the bottom once housed 4000 Jamaicans. They were trying to mine here, and ignorantly used dynamite - killing everyone on the mountain. Also, it ...

... the floot by a piece of string ¿others may say rope, but lets not be pedantic?.<br><br>After surviving all this we went back to the posh complex we had found a few days earlier, except this time for dinner via a taxi. We treated ourselves and had had the first properly good meal that we have had for a while with fine wine and great views. If you have just won the lottery look up Luna Runtin on google and treat yourself and the other half to a proper ...

... Al and Lucy hire a couple of bikes, equipped with puncture repair kit and helmets, and set of down a valley tour of many waterfalls. Fairly iritaitingly we get overtaken by a posse of middleaged Americans shouting ´Hola¨ who look ridiculous in their all weather gear, but then seem relatively sensible in comparison to us in shorts and Tshirts as the heavens open. Nevermind, best of british, just as we planned. We have to cycle down a mountain ...

... we realised we were in the valley surrounded by jungle covered mountains with waterfalls. It was picturesque. The town is incredibly touristy, and we overheard our Cotapaxi guide say its not worth a visit because there are too many tourists and not much else of note. As most of you would know I´m all for the unique and authentic experience... but sometimes its good to go where the tourists go because there's a reason they all go there ...

Today probably looks like one big travel day based on my title, and it was in a way: 6 hours on 3 buses and 2 hours on a hybrid type train (more details on this later)... and at times it was particularly frustrating as public transport can sometimes be. But it was all in an attempt to catch the elusive Riobamba train to Nariz del Diablo and having semi-succeeded at this, and thoroughly enjoying it, I didn´t really mind one bit and it was ...

... another place that I hadn't heard much about, but was really pleasantly surprised when I got there. Lots of lovely, old buildings with beautiful architecture, some good museums and again a nice vibe to the place. Also, as I've found with most of Ecuador, the people are absolutely lovely, so friendly.<br><br>My last day in Riobamba saw me checking out their Saturday market and then I made my way to Cuenca, six hours south of Riobamba......<br>

... Boot hat sich irgendwie die Leine gelöst und das Boot ist abgetrieben. Das Kajak ist dann auch gleich hinterher, wir haben ihn aber nicht mehr wiedergesehen. Drei Leute wollten dann auch irgendwie nicht weiter und sind von dort zurück der Rest inzwischen 8 Personen sind dann in dem einen Boot weiter. Dann kamen noch einige heftige Stellen die wir alle ganz gut meisterten, manchmal wollte sich das Boot zwar aufstellen wir konnten aber durch geschickte ...

... on the seat was becoming incredibly uncomfortable. Still, there were some really fun and long downhill sections with some more nice waterfalls, though there were increasingly more uphill parts. My bike was a bit reluctant to change gear so actually having to pedal wasn't much fun. After an absolute soaking by more rain and a particularly nasty hill that we all just walked up, we decided to give up. We'd reached the small town of Mera, about 40km from Banos and we had all had ...

torrential downpoured yesterday so we stayed in by the fire and traded stories with some peeps from holland and the us. picking up our laundry today YAY although it was an adventure for chris to try to ask the lady not to put his jacket in the dryer. haha. she obviously did not understand so hopefully its not short sleeved when we get it back. yesterday we did a hike up to this virgin mary statue above the town ...

... ffnen konnte. Gottseidank tauchte der Besitzer um 6 dann doch noch auf und führte uns zum Bahnhof, so dass einer spektakulären Bahnfahrt nichts mehr im Weg stand.<br>Die Bahnfahrt führt durch tiefe Schluchten nach Alausi. Während der erste Teil bei Nebel und teils leichtem Regen noch relativ unspektakulär über ein Hochplateu führte, begann sich im Laufe der Fahrt nicht nur das Wetter zu bessern, sondern auch die Landschaft ...