Alausi choo choo choo

The main reason for being in Alausi was to catch the little train that comes from Riobamba on Weds and Fridays and takes tourists on a short but expensive ride down into the canyon along hair raising switchbacks to Sibambe where it turns around and returns. Along with many others we did the trip but coming from Canada it was not as amazing as those from less mountainous regions.

We spent a good deal of time over coffee trying to decide whether to go to Riobamba by train or bus. After great deliberatins we decided on the train to appease my love of trains from my childhood...we wnt to get the tickets only to find that the train was not running that day but the next. This sort of thing happens frequently here and trying to find out the timetables in advance is an exercise we have not yet perfected. However we hit the bus again and on arrival at Riobamba decided to carry straight on to Latacunga where we hope to do the Quilatoa loop of scenic beauty.

Latacunga presented us with rain and sun as rapidly as we could blink but as this was the first rain that we have had since the second day of the Inca trail we quite enjoyed it. We have walked the city and climbed the cobbled streets to the viewpoints and found our way to a Lagoon to have a picnic only to find that it ewas being cleaned out and is in fact not a lake as we thought from the map but a community playground probably with water in it at some time after cleaning. However we enjoyed our picnic all the same and watched the kids out of school. They seem to leave school around mid day and you can find them walking in groups all afternnon and evening still in their uniforms. Seems a strange system to us as we can´t seem to find out exactly what school hours are. Latacunga of course had a few lovely plazas and squares as well as the huge noisy buses which pollute these lovely towns.