Alausi and Cuenca, Ecuador - South Down the Spine of the Andes Mountains

In the final stretch of our one month in Ecuador, we found ourselves traveling by bus south down the spine of the Andes toward the colonial city of Cuenca. A well-maintained highway was the principal road and means for getting around in this part of the country. The views were magnificent. The road rivaled anything you would find in the mountainous west of the U.S.

Far off hillsides, verdant and green from the recent rains, held terraced fields holding basic crops and pasture land. Cows and sheep somehow found a way to cling on to their precipitous perch. Soon, the hills gave way to deep, bright, and sunlit valleys. The bridges at the bottom crossed swift moving, clear-water streams fed by runoff from the heights. Soon, our bus would climb once again into the heights and, as the afternoon wore on, into the growing cloud cover where the deep fog and mist would take over.

Many small villages dotted these highlands and valleys. Townspeople simply flagged down our bus if they wanted a quick and relatively inexpensive ride on the highway to the next village over. Perhaps they were going to see friends and family, or maybe to do some shopping or bartering for basic necessities.

One such village was the railroad town of Alausi. It is here that an active railroad once connected these highland communities with the port city of Guayaquil on Ecuador’s western coast. It met its demise due to consistent landslides and the growing reliance on the improving roadway system. Now, the rail road caters mainly to tourists, particularly the stretch called the Nariz del Diablo, the Devil’s Nose. We stopped here in Alausi for the evening so that we could be two of the many tourists who have descended on this small town to ride this unique and impressive railroad.

Alausi

What makes it unique, you might ask? You see, early engineers were at first baffled on how to build a rail line down the region’s steep hillsides and valleys with a gradient that locomotives could handle. It is at the Devil’s Nose, a massive rock protuberance that crowds in and narrows the valley, that this became most problematic. The solution was rather simple.

First, the rail line was laid as it normally is. Then, when it needs to turn down-valley, a spur is built as an extension at a hairpin turn. The train uses this spur to wait until a conductor leaves the train and manually turns the lever to align the train with the next set of tracks. The train then reverses course and travels down along these next tracks. This zigzag process is repeated several times down and around the “Nose of the Devil” until reaching the valley floor.

The Devil's Nose

If you look closely, you can see the railroad zig-zagging down the mountain.

At the bottom, we reached the tiny indigenous village of Nizag. Townspeople dressed in traditional clothing put on a spectacle of dance, cooking demonstrations, weaving, and handicraft-making. These were to show us how their ancestors once lived before the railroad when they were relatively isolated.  Now, they live off of the tourist dollars spent by those of us who take the train and stop to visit with them. Overall, it was quite nice and quite interesting. It even prompted me to get up and cut a rug for a spell.

Nizag village.

Later, a long bus ride took us to the beautiful city of Cuenca, the main community in Ecuador’s southern highlands. Too beat to do much else, we turned in early and ended up getting one of the best night’s sleep we’ve had since first arriving in Ecuador one month ago. Up until now, every community and town we’ve been to had dogs. Dogs roaming this way. Dogs roaming that way. Dogs regularly doing their business on the sidewalks (no one bothers to pick it up - it’s a miracle we never did step in any of it). Dogs barking and howling at all hours of the night. And, in an attempt to outdo them, there are the ubiquitous roosters who start their early morning crowing at the ungodly hour of 4:00 a.m.

But, here in Cuenca, we haven’t seen one dog, haven’t had to dodge one pile of dog shit, haven’t had to hear their incessant barking and howling, and haven’t had any roosters crowing at dawn or any other time of day for that matter. This quiet was most welcomed and led to our most awesome night of sleep.

Anyhow, as I was saying, Cuenca is a beautiful city. As we roamed the streets the next day, we quickly concluded that it is without a doubt the most impressive of any of the cities, villages, or towns we’ve been to in the whole of Ecuador. Its architecture and layout are textbook colonial Spanish. But, surprisingly, there are a lot of French, Italian, and German design elements in the various buildings. 

The most striking example of this is the Immaculate Conception Church. It was designed by a German, has an outward appearance similar to that of Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral, and has a gold leaf pillar covering at the altar similar to that found inside St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. In fact, when Pope John Paul II visited back in the day, he remarked that he felt like he never left Rome.

Churches or religious statuary can be found on just about every corner. Ecuadorians, and the Spanish people in general, are some of the most devout Catholics one could find. Over 80% of the population is Catholic. We had no doubt that statistic is true given how crowded the churches were with worshipers, particularly since today was a weekday.

Later in the afternoon, we paid a visit to a museum dedicated to the Panama Hat. Fun fact: the Panama Hat did not originate in Panama. It originated here in Ecuador. Well, you might ask, how then did it get its name?

Back in the early 1900s when the Panama Canal was being constructed, Ecuador’s weavers and hat makers were shipping their product in vast numbers to Panama to help give the workers there a way to shield themselves from the hot and searing sun. When the American president, Teddy Roosevelt, came to pay a visit to see how things were coming along, he took a liking to the hats and brought some home with him. Upon his return to the U.S., a reporter asked him where he got his hat. “Oh, I got it while I was in Panama,” he said showing it off. “You like my Panama hat?” And the rest, they say, is history (much to Ecuador’s dismay).

We had scheduled a cooking class for our last day in Ecuador. Unfortunately, there was a cancellation. The cook came down ill. So, we spent our last day simply walking the streets, eating small meals from street-side vendors or in the Mercado’s numerous food stalls, and participating in a good deal of people watching.  

  

Sitting in the town square, we saw a shoe shine man walking the lanes, portable shoe shine kit in his hands, looking down at the feet of everyone he passed, seeing if the types of shoes others were wearing were eligible for his business. Nearby, an old lady sat barefoot, wearing a tattered white coat smudged with dirt. She sat there talking to herself for the duration of our stay. Later, a lady with her three kids in tow passed by. She looked tired and weary and sighed heavily as she sat for a spell on one of the park's benches. Her youngest took an interest in a empty plastic bottle, which pleased his mother, knowing he would be pre-occupied for a while. 

Later, as we walked back toward our hotel, a lady sitting on the sidewalk with her young one in her lap, tugged on my pant leg, begging me to buy from her a lollipop that she hoped to make a few cents from. I've been carrying around a bag of lollipops to pass out to village children while on our treks and tours of the rural areas. I opened my backpack and handed her my bag still full of lollipops. By the look on her face, it was a gift beyond her wildest imagination. Her inventory for future sales had just increased ten-fold. 

We thoroughly enjoyed and simply relished our final hours here in Ecuador and its finest city. Perhaps we might join the many ex-pats who have since called Ecuador and Cuenca home.

“Maybe we’ll drop out of society altogether and live here,” I proposed to Mary Kay.

“Umm, no,” she said, shaking her head. “I like it here alright. But I like home better.”

“Ok, how ‘bout I grow my hair, put it up in a man-bun, grow a beard, wear sleeveless t-shirts – by the way, you would no longer have to shave my back hair – and I get a tattoo of Che Guevara on my left calf?” I asked. “I would fit right in with some of the North American hipsters and young hippie backpackers we’ve seen throughout Ecuador. Could we live here then?”

“Umm, that would still be a no.”