El Fin de Semana #1 (Weekend #1)

Hola!

I just finished my first week in Ecuador, and while I have a lot more interesting stories to share about patients I’ve seen at Hospital IESS, this post is dedicated to my viajes (trips) over the weekend!

El Naríz del Diablo

We headed over to Alausí to visit El Naríz del Diablo (The Devil’s nose), which is a mountain range through which Ecuador’s first major trans-country train ran. It was called the Devil’s nose because it was super dangerous, with many deaths during the construction of the railroad in the late 1800s.

Here’s some pictures on the road from Riobamba to Alausí.

This is one of my favorites.

The town of Alausí also has a giant statue of San Pedro (Saint Peter) over looking the town.

San Pedro close view

The train was pretty nice. It’s not really the important transportation lifeline it used to be; now it’s mostly for tourism. Some sad facts about the train… the labor used to build the train was mostly from Jamaica, where they tricked workers from Jamaica into coming to Ecuador with promises of good pay and a nice life, and then essentially forced them into slavery. Also the Naríz del Diablo area used to be home to condors, but the construction destroyed their nests and forced them to move.

The naríz, it’s the big mountain. You have to use your imagination.

We took some group photos, but all these Ecuadorian tourists wanted to take pictures with us too (like the dude crouching down.)

Chimborazo Volcano

The one place I really wanted to visit was Chimborazo Volcano.

View of Chimborazo from Riobamba, Parque 21 de Abril

It’s technically the highest mountain in the world if you measure from the center of the earth (Everest wins for height from sea level).

It’s an extinct volcano topped with a glacier, and I see it almost everyday on my walk to the bus. So I was super excited to get to climb on it.

Riding in the back of a truck on the way to Chimborazo

On the way, we passed this lady who was taking her llamas (2), pigs (2) and cows (2), by leash into town.

Chimborazo at its peak is 6310m (over 20,000ft).

To climb to the top you need ice picks and rope and real climbing gear, but we managed to climb up to 5000m (16,400ft) where the last refugio (retreat/cabin) before the summit is located.

While Riobamba is already at a pretty high elevation (2750m), I could definitely feel the altitude and was getting super dizzy and having problems breathing. Gotta love altitude sickness.

Chimborazo is also located in a National Park, which is a refuge for lots of wildlife including the vicuña, which almost went extinct here, but was repopulated using animals from Peru.

Yes, I am looking at you.

All in all, a pretty action packed weekend!

Chau!

Margaret