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The Devil´s Nose

Ter:

Upper middle-aged American moms make light conversation with lower middle class German Goths who are bumming cigarettes from Australian middle management, but what's really odd is that all these people are sitting on the roof of a train together.

This is the Nariz del Diablo, a train that has no purpose outside of ushering tourists up and down a mountain that the brochure describes as "hair-raising" but is in fact as middle-of-the-road an experience as the people it is taking on the ride. It is truly a bizarre practice. Imagine a whole bunch of Westerners sitting on the roof of a train, on cushions rented for a dollar from the locals to protect their soft and sensitive derrieres.

They are all on the train as all the guidebooks say it is an experience not to be missed, a self-fulfilling prophecy. Not a single Ecuadorian rides the locomotive as it has no destination. Still it keeps quite few people in Riobamba, the train's starting point, fed. Think cushions, gloves and hats, cold beers, postcards, full hotels, etc.

The Nariz del Diablo, nose of the devil, is the mountain which the train is supposed to plunge down on spine tingling switchbacks. It's a lovely ride, don't get me wrong, but if that's the devil's nose then God really has nothing to worry about, and it's six hours on a train in the sun.

All I can say about this is that I've got the t-shirt.

Georgi:

I think that constructing the Devil's Nose train tracks must have been a great feat of railway engineering. But once constructed, it really is nothing to write home about. I think that they must have been playing Broken Telephone in the Ministry of Tourism, and "Great feat of railway engineering" morphed into "Great treat for gringos sightseeing", and based on this dubious piece of intelligence, this tourist attraction was born. They even had the audacity to print a pamphlet.

The tracks used to run all the way to Guayaquil, but now, with the drivable road network having gained favour as the primary national transport, the tracks are overgrown and buried in landslides most of the way. All that remains is the little tourist trap from Riobamba to the Devil's Nose and back. Even worse, the bit that's supposed to be so exciting only takes up the last half an hour of the trip, which means that passengers have to stomach five hours of dull scenery in the scorching heat only to culminate in a dreary zigzag down a mountainside.

In fact, the most exciting part of the trip was when, bladder bursting, I climbed down the side of the carriage of a moving train and leapt between carriages, Indiana Jones style, to use the loo at the back. This was preferable to relieving myself over the side, which I did consider, momentarily.

Oh, and we amazed some Australians by producing vegemite rolls for a mid-morning snack. We've been using up our vegemite rather enthusiastically since we read in the Lonely Planet that it's possible to stock up on such Western condiments in Cuzco.

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