Apr 12 - Volcano Avenue

April 12 – Volcano Avenue

Another early start at 6.30 this morning to beat the Quito traffic, we headed down to the train station to board the train which will take us the length of Ecuador from Quito to Guayaquil over the next 3 days.

We left from the centre of Quito with commuters waving to the train as we passed by.

More of the great graffiti we have seen in all of South America

Walking the goat.........

Farewell Quito

Today was the trip through Volcano Avenue. For people that had never seen a volcano before this holiday, we are now nearing volcano expert status having seen so many active & inactive ones on this trip !

The weather in the past couple of days has been not so good and very changeable with low mist and thunderstorms with very heavy rain, so we were hoping for better things today so we could see the scenery on the way through Volcano Avenue.  The last train trip had seen nothing as it had rained all day and the mist came down, so it was fingers crossed !!

Our weather luck held and the skies brightened, blue sky appeared, the mist lifted and there is all their glory were the volcanoes !

First was Antisana, 

then Corazon 

and then the largest and most impressive was Cotopaxi with its perfect conical shape and snow covered top. 

From there down through fertile valley scenery with the Andes volcano as backdrop past Tungurahua which is still active and the crater was clearly visible.

Tungurahua with active crater

At El Boliche we went for a hike in the National Park which was like rainforest, wet, earthy and warm which made a good leg stretch after a morning on the train.

Our last stop of the day was at Urbina station the highest point of our trip at 3609m where we left the train and met the last iceman of Chimborazo. Volcan Chimborazo is the highest mountain in Ecuador at 6310m. 

Volcan Chimborazo with the glacier at the top

It has a glacier at the top and the ice from here has been used locally for centuries. The Icemen climbed the peak with donkeys, chiselled out huge chunks of ice, wrapped them in straw reeds, packed them onto the donkeys and brought it back to the small town of Rio Bamba where it was sold. In the days before refridgeration this was a prized commodity and commanded a good price, but with modern factory produced ice and refridgerators this is now a dying art and over the past few years all the other icemen have given up or died. 

Balthazar with some of the glacial ice

Balthazar is the last one and the skill will die out with him. He is in his seventies, but still climbs twice a week to bring back the ice. In the local market one stall buys his ice & makes ice cream from it which is hugely popular with the locals as they believe the ice has special health giving properties.

Ice wrapped in reeds keeps for 15 days

Fascinating to see old trades like this co-exist in our modern world..

On the last leg of the trip to our overnight destination in Rio Bamba, the train dancers appeared complete with pan pipe music (aaaarrrgggh....) but these were the people who made the ornate masks that are used for the festivals here. The real masks can be upwards of 1.5m but obviously the ones for the train were smaller versions and even then they had trouble getting through the carriages !!  

Devil with devil brew pot !

Small version of the Ram mask which got stuck between carriages

They gave out devil juice which is a local sweet liqueur from fermented sugar cane. The clapping & dancing improved immeasurably after that ! The masks were great, very ornate & lots of work making them.

During our stop at Urbina, it had rained a bit so as we descended the last hundred meters to our stop at Rio Bamba, we had a perfect view of a cloud rainbow which none of us apart from Steve had ever seen or even knew about. It was beautiful...

Cloud Rainbow