On the Road

Hello all from Cuenca! Here´s my journal entries for the last few days:

Saturday, October 25th
Took the bus from Quito to Riobamba, about 4 hours. Beautiful scenery, very farmlandy. Saw some of Cotopaxi and Chimborazo, two big mountains. It was a little foggy, so we didn´t get a clear view though. Chimborazo is apparently the highest point from the center of the earth, thanks to the earth´s equitorial bulge. Went through some town where seriously every building was a heladeria, ice cream store. Thought of you, mom. Made some PB&J sandwhiches on the bus, delicious. When we got to Riobamba we wandered around, got a snack and bought our train tickets for the Nariz del Diablo train ride. Also reserved some seat cushions from a guy. That´s just the way it goes. There were lots and lots of clothing stores in Riobamba, but no restaurants! Took us forever to find a place to have supper. The cafe we went to was pretty good, if a little pricey. We stayed at the Hostal Oasis, which was gorgeous. And they had a dog. There was a stained glass door to our room, and the walls were stone. Coolness. And even hot water in the shower. We had to get up at 5 am to catch our train, so it was an early night. Fell asleep watching some movie with Reese Witherspoon.

Monday, October 27th

We´re now in Cuenca at El Hostal Cafecito (little coffee). $6 a night, pretty nice. THere´s a pretty nice restaurant and cafe inside, had a wonderful omlette for breakfast. Yesterday on teh train we met up with a big group of people all going to Cuenca, so we have some new Dutch and German friends. No Americans heading this way, don´t know why that is. Anyway, the trainride was very cool, if a little longer than we expected. Saw lots of farmland and indigenous people. There were sheep on the tops of busses! Totally made my day to see that. We rode on top of the train, which was a little chilly at times but very cool. The worst part was when it started raining, but that was only the last hour or so. The train derailed twice, the first time took them 2 hours to fix. Nice little naptime, on the top of a train in the gorgeous mountains. As we were going along in the train kids would run out to wave, we all threw candy for them, it was fun. They were kind of weird about it though, didn´t eat it or hold it, but shoved it right into a pocket. Some of them took it pretty seriously. We stopped in two towns for potty and food breaks. I ate a banana empanada, which was good but a little squishy. Our final stop was a station in literally the middle of nowhere, where the indigenous people were having a little party for us. Apparently it was the start of their plans to improve the station, and make it more appealing to tourists; restaurants, shops, museums, all that good stuff. Right now it is literally just a place for a train to stop. They fed us for free, which was nice. Got to the town with the buses to Cuenca at around 5 pm. True to Ecuadorian time, it was about 4 hours late. We rode in the back of some guys truck to the main road, then walked to where we needed to wait for the bus, then waited for about an hour. There was a big group of us at that point, so I felt pretty safe about standing on teh side of the highway at night. Slept on the busride, so it must not have been too bad. Today Monica and I wandered around Cuenca, seeing all the beautiful buildings. It really is very pretty here, very old and colonial looking. There was a flower market and a big produce market that were fun to walk through, and then we shopped for some spanish books. I got a sherlock holmes one, so now I get to try and read it! In Spanish! We had a womnderful $1 lunch, with really good lentil soup. Yummy. Seriously, huge awesome meal for 1 buck. Doesn´t get better than that. Tomorrow we´re headed to Loja and from there to Piura, Peru. So last day in Ecuador for awhile.