Apr 14 - Destination Guayaquil

April 14  2017 - Destination Guayaquil

The wet coastal region of Equador..90% is for export

Late start today....8.45... We went down to the station and boarded the train again in Bucay and set out through the lush vegetation towards our next stop Naranjito. 

Millions of bananas ripening in the high humidity

This wet rainforest area is the main production area for sugar cane, bananas and pineapples and we passed through plantations of all three. 

The bananas are wrapped in bags with airholes once they reach a certain stage to help them ripen & colour and protect them from bird and insect damage. All the bags were printed from a local co-operative and all the small plantations work together to harvest and sell their products communally to the fair trade associations. Amongst the plantations, small homestead of indigenous Equadorians who all waved at the train with excitement as it passed by at its normal 30mph.

Pineapples - probably one of the few
fruits we found in every country

Pineapples are another major crop here and it is the first time we have seen field upon field of pineapples.

Cocoa Pods growing in the Hacianda plantation

Cocoa was the principle crop for this area and produced some of the highest quality cocoa until the 1940’s when a crop blight wiped out the entire area. After this the locals concentrated on bananas and pineapples but recently given the popularity of quality artisan chocolate some younger farmers have started again on the cocoa crop but one with better resistance to the bug that wiped out the native cocoa trees. The result again has been a high quality cocoa crop so the plantations are again on the increase.

We stopped at a Hacienda that is home to a Danish/Ecuadorian family who settled here 45 years ago and have plantations of all 3 crops but are now specialising in cocoa. 

They showed us the cocoa process from end to end. The cocoa pods are opened, the seeds are extracted (which in their original white state are sweet like passion fruit), then dried in the sun. 

Once dry they are toasted in large pans and once cool the shell is removed to give the raw cocoa seed. These are then ground and bagged and shipped off for production. The raw cocoa tastes like chocolate but is very bitter, this is 100% cocoa powder.

We had lunch at the pretty Hacienda in the open which was lovely and then headed back to the train for our final leg into Guayaquil (Duran station).

Steve spent much of the day consulting his altitude map of the journey to check that he really was nearing sea level and had said goodbye to the dreaded altitude sickness that has dogged him for the past 3 weeks.

Our final leg was again by steam train, so we watched as they switched the diesel over and attached the steam engine and then we were off puffing & tooting through the countryside. 

All the locals came out to wave and take photos as the steam train passed.

All went well until at a level crossing in a small town, the train caught the  overhead electrical wires !!  Wiring in South America is several degrees worse then Turkey and power  outages due to rainstorms are common. Not sure whose power we took out, but the train drivers had to tie up the cables so the train could go underneath !!

The city of Guayaquil although we will
spend no time her as we are just here to board a ship

We left the train in Duran station and picked up our ride into Guayquil city for a quick overnight before heading off to the Galapagos tomorrow.















HAPPY EASTER TO EVERYBODY.....

These are easter gifts although we thought they were a
bit ku Klux Klan for our tastes

More views from the train of the wet coatal areas and the stilted communities.....outside the city, rice is the predominant crop.....

Apr 13 - The Devil's Nose !

Apr 13 – The Devil’s Nose !!

Another early start today 6.30 again !!! Enough already…

Down to Rio Bamba station to board the train for today’s journey through to Bucay. This first section of today’s journey was on a beautiful old steam train and the locals were as keen to take photos as we were !

The trip through the countryside with the steam train puffing & tooting at every crossing was lovely.

We stayed on board to watch the switch from steam to diesel again at Colta and then headed on to our next stop at Guamote.

We were really lucky here as not only was the traditional market in full swing, but as it is Good Friday tomorrow, the indigenous people from the villages were all in town buying the things they need to make the traditional soup called Fanesca they have on Good Friday.

Market right beside & usually on the train tracks

This little piggy went to market...

Local colour everywhere

Market day gossip !

It was a riot of colour, noise, smells and a lot of fun !!

From there it was on to the Devil’s Nose where the zig zag track descends 600m in hairpin bends as we move from the Altiplano to the cloud forest region of Ecuador. Very dramatic scenery.

We descended from the clouds at the top round the hairpin bends you can see on the hill

Then through the Cloud Forest which was very beautiful and lived up to its name by being 

very wet and humid. There were lots of beautiful butterflies and wild orchids in this very

green rainforest area. The whole area is incredibly fertile with black soil rich in minerals and 
every available inch is farmed as a small holding giving the whole area a patchwork effect.

Manual logging....

The track continued on its downwards track, taking us overall from a height of 3000m down to just 294m at our final stop Bucay. Steve is celebrating the end of the high altitude leg of the trip and hoping for a return to eating and drinking shortly……………this could put the trip budget up a bit as he intends to make up for lost time !!

Our final stop for today was for our little hotel in the cloud forest, which was a simple little hostelria set among the trees. Dinner outside in the warm with the birds and the forest sounds as backdrop…..lovely !

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The Best of the Rest - we had hundreds of market pics....

Sheep tied up on the track

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