![](\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/dowbrigade\/ecuatrain.jpg\")
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Riobamba, Ecuador Long an obligatory section of the famous Gringo Trail<\/a>, this spectacular We awoke before dawn, in a cheap dive near the bus station in Riobamba. A few people were abroad at that early hour; domestic servants on their The ticket window was just a hole in the worn, weathered and warped Many of the Indians had sleeping babes in their arms, The smallest The train pulled in at around 6:15. At first, we thought we were The passenger cars also brought to mind western movies of our youth, We pulled out of Aluasi station at 6:30. We decided to begin the trip The view was staggering. As much time as we have spent in the Andes, The train was chugging upward for the first stretch, the highest point The construction began in Guayaquil in 1899, and the construction team Near the entrance to the pass the train stopped at the first of the The ride from that point on was mind-blowing, Tropical vegetation flew If the view was spectacular, the ride was spectacularly uncomfortable. The About three hours out we came to the namesake stretch – the Nariz de We were lucky; it was the dry season. We only had to stop twice for The last of the steam locomotives was retired about ten years ago, to This is a travesty and a tragedy, sadly typical of third world countries article from El Riobamba, Ecuador – One of the true jewels of adventure tourism, and an unforgettable experience for train buffs like the Dowbrigade, has been off-line for over a month and is in danger of disappearing forever. We are referring to Ecuador’s … Continue reading
\n – One of the true jewels of adventure tourism, and an unforgettable experience
\n for train buffs like the Dowbrigade, has been off-line for over a month
\n and is in danger of disappearing forever. We are referring to Ecuador’s
\n only rail line, stretching 200 kilometers from the Andean redoubt and
\n market town of Riobamba, through a narrow pass over the spine of
\n the mighty Andes<\/a> mountains,
\n and swiftly down to the major port facilities outside of the country’s
\n largest city, Guayaquil, on the Guayas river. The route is known locally
\n as
\n "El Nariz del Diablo” – The Devil’s Nose.<\/p>\n
\n railway has been derailed not by natural disaster or alternative transportation,
\n but by the inability of the government to keep the tracks in decent enough
\n shape to make it an acceptably low-risk trip. Reading a recent
\n article in El Universo<\/a> concerning the problems of this train brought
\n back memories of the last time we
\n were aboard, almost 20 years ago.<\/p>\n
\n Riobamba lies in the shadow of Mount Chimborazo, a 6,310 meter (over
\n 20,000 feet) high volcano, the
\n highest mountain in Ecuador. The top of Mt. Chimborazo has the lowest
\n specific gravity on the face of the earth; thanks to the earth’s midrift
\n bulge, it is the point furthest from the exact center of the planet.
\n Even back then, the train track was in a deplorable state, and the departure
\n was
\n scheduled
\n from
\n the tiny
\n mountain
\n station
\n of Aluasi,
\n a few dozen kilometers down the route
\n from
\n Riobamba. A taxi to the Aluasi station cost all of $2. We were lucky
\n enough to find one at that hour.<\/p>\n
\n way to cook breakfast for middle class families, street sellers racing
\n to stake out prime street corners and market stands, night watchmen, workers
\n at all-night eateries and bars on their weary ways home. The Aluasi railroad
\n depot was not even properly a station. A small office with attached
\n ticket window and a covered waiting area to protect passengers from the
\n elements during the rainy season. A spectral mist was rising from the tracks
\n as we crossed them to buy our tickets. The steel rails shone a wet gun-metal
\n gray as they disappeared into the mist before even leaving the rail yard.<\/p>\n
\n wood of the office, 7\/8 covered by rusty iron bars with just a slot at
\n the bottom to pass over money and tickets. There were two classes, which
\n we knew from experience meant "With livestock" or "Without" We passed
\n over the equivalent of $4.85 for the ten-hour trip, barring landslides
\n or derailments (first-class, of
\n course). Pocketing the change, we joined the 40 or 50 Indians waiting for
\n the train to pull in. Most were poor farmers, returning to small villages
\n and hamlets within walking distance of the train route after selling their
\n potatoes and onions and yuka root at the market. Since passengers were
\n allowed to bring apparently unlimited baggage, and the railroad was cheaper
\n hiring a truck for moving merchandise, there were also crates of chickens,
\n cases of beer, big boxes of soap and noodles and sacks of cement.<\/p>\n
\n tots were strapped to their mother’s backs wrapped in intense colored
\n mantas (woven shawls) in the Andean fashion. The adults were sleepy but
\n seemingly happy, as though waiting for a party or a show to start.<\/p>\n
\n still dreaming – the entire train looked like something out of Butch Cassidy
\n and the Sundance Kid. The locomotive was an original steam job,
\n one of the last in regular service anywhere in the world. It was huge
\n and black, a giant boiler on wheels, a mechanical mass of creaking, whining
\n metal shrouded in steam which seemed to be leaking out from every angle.
\n The engine was followed by a coal car, piled high with dusty black nuggets. <\/p>\n
\n wooden floors, sides and benches, with ancient cracked leather cushioning,
\n taped and patched and sewn so thoroughly it was hard to guess its original
\n color. All of the windows were open, and the Indians leaned out passing back and forth
\n ears or toasted corn, corn cakes, hard boiled eggs and some nasty looking,
\n steaming cups of viscous liquid to relatives on the platform. The party was starting.<\/p>\n
\n in a normal seat, and climb up onto the roof of the car, as was the Gringo
\n drill, after daylight gave us something to see. We didn’t have
\n to wait long. A few kilometers out of town, and the sun started peeking
\n from between the peaks, dissipating the mist.<\/p>\n
\n we are still stunned by the first light of day turning the snowcapped
\n peaks into a kaleidoscope of colored ice, blue to red to pink to white,
\n towering above a rich pallet of infinite greens, outcroppings and ridges,
\n chasms and rivulets all choked with growing things in a proliferation
\n of life right up to the snow line.<\/p>\n
\n in the route being about an hour out of Aluasi, where a narrow pass led
\n out of the Riobamba valley and down toward the coast. The railroad itself
\n is over a hundred years old. It was built by 19th century President Garcia
\n Moreno, a wealthy landowner from the highlands, and was designed to simultaneously
\n assert the centralized power of the capital in Quito and provide a passageway
\n out for the produce and particularly cacao, at that time Ecuador’s chief
\n export. Of course, the main beneficiaries were the rich hacienderos with
\n huge ranches in the mountains.<\/p>\n
\n crossed the coastal desert, drove upward through rain forest, navigated
\n frozen lava
\n flows and boulder fields, crossed raging rivers and somehow climbed sheer
\n rock walls half a kilometer high. This monumental feat was accomplished
\n by a team of American engineers, who got very rich, and thousands of
\n Indian workers, none of whom got rich and dozens of whom died by the
\n time the tracks reached Quito in 1908.<\/p>\n
\n major villages on the route. People and animals got on and got off. Food
\n sellers with pig and chicken sandwiches, meat and cheese pastels, Andean
\n tamales wrapped in corn husks, cakes and candies on trays held above
\n their heads did a brisk business through the train windows. We grabbed
\n our backpacks and climbed a steel-rung ladder to the roof of the car.<\/p>\n
\n by, giant ferns seemingly prehistoric, eucalyptus overhanging the tracks,
\n the occasional wind-blown branch whipping into the awed gringos scanning
\n the surroundings. The horizon was a jagged jigsaw of ice etched against
\n a sky of blue so thin and spatial it was hardly a color at all.<\/p>\n
\n wooden slats on the roof were encircled by a low metal rail, no more
\n than six inches high. Hooking your boots under this rail was the only
\n protection from being flung fatally down a half-mile ravine. In the States
\n a ride like this could never get insurance.<\/p>\n
\n Diablo It is a sheer vertical rock face almost a kilometer high.
\n Experts reckon the route could have detoured around this obstacle but in
\n an engineering tour de force the American designers decided to take it
\n on straight up. In a series of ingenious switchbacks famous among train
\n aficionados and engineers around the world, the train ascends (or in
\n our case descends) in a seesaw backward and forward, ever lower, to enter
\n another in a series of lush valleys leading to the coastal plain. <\/p>\n
\n relatively minor landslides, and wait no more than 30 minutes while the
\n train crew cleared stones and trees from the tracks. By the time the
\n daylight started to fade we were on the dry, flat costal plain. Our butts
\n felt like we’d been booted from every bar in New Orleans and we retired
\n to the relative comfort of the "first-class" cabin.<\/p>\n
\n be replaced by sturdy diesels (see photo) of Korean war vintage. The
\n article in the Universo says the current stoppage is due to general deterioration
\n of the tracks; 80,000 cross-ties need to be replaced along the 100 kilometers
\n of the route still in operation. These are two-meter wooden ties, and cost $20 apiece. The government pleads lack of resources
\n – it owes the railroad over $9 million and last month the 174 railroad
\n employees were only paid half their salaries.<\/p>\n
\n unable to develop or maintain even their basic infrastructure. The railroad
\n is a major tourist attraction – people come from all over the world to
\n ride the Nariz del Diablo. It’s a shame some smart foreign operators
\n don’t take it over and turn it into a first-rate attraction. Given the
\n current political uncertainty and risk-aversion in investment circles,
\n this is probably a pipe-dream. They probably couldn’t get decent
\n insurance coverage anyway.<\/p>\n
\n Commercio<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"