mom and dad's visit - nariz del diablo

one of the more touristy things we did was a train ride called the nariz del diablo (devil's nose).  ages ago, (since 1873), ecuador had a full train system that ran all the way from up north by us, all the way down to guyaquil (ecuador's largest city, located on the coast).  about 20 years ago, when josh was in ecuador visiting his uncle glen, they did the same train ride, but at that time it was not a tourist attraction, the locals were travelling on the train with livestock, and many chose to sit on the roof (see image below, stolen from wikipedia).

it is nothing like that now.  the train has long been abandoned for normal transport use, due to damage from el niño in 1997 and 1998, as well as general neglect, but recently the government has been working hard to restore portions of it for tourist use.  last time mom and dad visited we did a little day trip by us, out of ibarra.  this time we did the devil's nose, out of alausi. trust me when i say, there is no reason to visit alausi unless you are doing this train trip.  the town is super tiny, with zero tourist attractions and only once decent place to stay.

so - the devil's nose is named this mainly because of the difficulties faced when building the railroad.  there is a major loss in altitude (about 1,000 meters, or 3,000 feet) in this section of the railway and it was apparently very difficult to build, with many people dying during the construction.  they named the mountain "the devil's nose" because of the difficulty in construction, and because you can "see" a face in the mountain.  maybe some people can, i definitely could not see it!

so due to the incredible altitude change, and the 45 degree face of the mountain, switchbacks are used to help the train make it up steep slopes. A switchback is a trail which zigzags up a steep ridge instead of going straight up. This technique helps trains climb steep hills gradually and alleviates strain on the train as it ascends steep gradients.   apparently back in the day it was one of the finest and most daring feats of engineering that the world had seen. 

so below are some photos from our day!  if you click on the photo, it will enlarge. 

 overlooking the very boring town of alausi

 gross

 josh and andra... as local kichwa! 

mom and dad... as local kichwa! 

 old train

 park

 the building with the white balcony was our hotel, we had a great view!

 the train rolling into the station to get us

posing with a llama (told you this was touristy!)

mom with the llama

 local kichwa dancers welcomed us

 a map of where we were, and what you could see (in theory if it wasn't so cloudy)

 i liked this sign... watch out train, it's steep!

 you can see the tracks where we just were

 same here, during a switch back (above and below) 

you can see the tracks where we just were

  same here, during a switch back (above) 

you can see the tracks where we just were

 train conductor guy navigating the train through a switchback

 beautiful view, and a shot of our train going around a curve

 a local family enjoying the view

rolling back into town