RioBamba, Nariz del Diablo, Cuenca, Lima

I'm terribly sorry for not posting any pictures with this travel report, but perhaps I will still add some later on.

Things to do this week! as I might not have internet for some time, I will update you guys before I will start my journey!

I will slowly travel south in the direction of Lima, Peru!

First of all, Thursday in the evening I will leave Quito for RioBamBa! Sounds cool, but this is even cooler when you know what we are going to do there. There is a train ride called “Nariz del Diablo” in English, The Devil’s Nose.

Well here is a brief description for all of you who are interested:

The country's most popular rail trip begins in the picturesque city of Riobamba. Like many cities in the Ecuadorian Andes, Riobamba sits in shadow of a giant volcano. At 6,310 meters, the volcano Chimborazo enjoys the distinctions of being Ecuador's highest peak and the furthest point from the center of the earth, thanks to the bulge at the equator. The train travels south from Riobamba through a few small towns and large expanses of open country before arriving at Alausi, where it begins a hair-raising descent of the Devil's Nose. Most travelers sit on top of the rail cars to take advantage of the spectacular vistas.

Thirty kilometers into the ascent of the towering western range, 130 kilometers east of Guayaquil, the railway snakes up a mountain known as El Nariz del Diablo (The Devil's Nose). This nearly vertical wall of rock was the greatest natural obstacle engineers encountered during construction of the Southern Railway, and one of a string of blunders that nearly smothered the dream of connecting Guayaquil and Quito by rail.

In retrospect, the mistake of going over instead of around the Devil's Nose has become a point of engineering pride. A team of engineers lead by the North Americans William Shunck and brothers Archer and John Harman, came up with an ingenious solution of carving a series of tight zigzags into the side of the mountain, which allowed the train to climb a gradient of 1-in-18 from 1800 to 2600 meters, by going forwards then backwards up the tracks.

Today, a one-percent grade, or an incline rising one meter in 100 meters of horizontal distance, is considered steep. Moreover, inclines and curves in the track, especially ones as dramatic as those of the Devil's Nose, limit the speed of trains and the size of the loads they can carry. Whenever possible tracks follow topographical contours or the contours are smoothed out or tunneled through. At the Devil's Nose, engineers ruled out tunneling through the mountain and decided that they must either go up it or around. They chose up. This decision made sense in 1900 but unfortunately it has precluded the use of the Southern Railway for use as a freight or efficient passenger line.

After this train ride we will continue to Cuenca , this is Ecuador’s 3rd largest city and has the nickname “The Athens of Ecuador”. For you guys following the news, no this does not mean they are just as poor as the Greeks, this means it is a very beautiful city! But in fact, I guess they are in comparison just as poor as the Greek. In the early 16th century on the place of were Cuenca is now a days there was an Incan town called Tomebaba, though when the Spanish arrived at its frontier in 1547 the city was already completely destroyed. This due to a war between Inca emperor Atahualpa and his brother Huáscar. There are only some rests of old city walls left from Tomebaba, which reminds me a bit of Venlo in a way. On the ashes of the destroyed city the Spaniards founded Santa Ana de los Cuatro Ríos de Cuenca on the 12th of april 1557. The Ecuadorian town of Cuenca is named after the Spanish Cuenca, as the former governor of this town in Spain commissioned the build of Cuenca in Ecuador. Because of itss historical center , Cuenca is a Unesco World Heritage site as their historic center with approximately 2500 historic buildings is quite unique in the world.
Next to this we are going to visit the site of Ingaperca, which is close to Cuenca and is “The Machu Pichu of Ecuador”. The Inca built with such precision that the ruins that still stand today didn’t need any mortar to keep them together much like a lot of builders in Ecuador still think they don’t need mortar in their buildings…..

Some small history also to be found on Wikipedia ;-)

The temple of the sun was positioned so that on the solstices, at exactly the right time of day, sunlight would fall through the center of the doorway of the small chamber at the top of the temple. Most of this chamber has fallen down.

The Incas were not the first inhabitants of Ingapirca. It had long been settled by the Cañari indigenous people, who called it Hatun Cañar.

The castle-complex presents a Inca-Cañari origin. The objective of its construction is uncertain. The complex played an important role on military strategies as a fortress and provisions to troops on north Ecuador. A common criteria of archeologists states that the main objective for its construction was linked to cult of sun.

It is said that the Inca Túpac Yupanqui during the expansion's campaigns of the Inca-Empire trough south Ecuador, met the Cañari "Hatun Cañar" tribe and strategically married the Cañari princes Paccha, giving on birth to the future Inca Huayna Capac in the city of Pumapungo (nowadays Cuenca).
After having seen all these sights the rest will go back to Quito and I will move down south towards Peru, to see some of my friends from Korea again. I am really looking forward to this and I hope I will have internet somewhere on the way to update my travel report.

Hasta Luego mis amigos!