We thought we would take a different route south and planned to go to Macas by bus then across the National Parque to Guamote and on to Alausi where we wanted to catch a tourist train down the Devils Nose and back riding on the roof of the train then go from Alausi to Cuenca. Well, the best laid plans...
The trip to Macas was good, right through the amazon, tho lots of it is cleared it is amazingly lush and it was great scenery. At Macas we found a hotel for $10/night double, you have to ask for that price as most sell their rooms at a higher price but we always have been able to make that our maximum for a room so far.
Next morning we boarded a bus for Cuenca after making sure it went thru Guamote and on to Alausi, at least that's what we thought. We had headed out of town in it and the guy came to collect the money and wanted us to pay to go to Cuenca (8 hours away) no we said, we want to go to Alausi. His idea was that we go to Cuenca then catch a bus north again (another 4 hours) to Alausi. Dipstick! Alto Alto! Stop the bus! Off we get in the middle of nowhere and try to hitch back to town. Noone stops but we flag down a bus and get back to Macas in time to catch the 9am bus to Riobamba via, we hope, Guamote where we can change and get a bus to Alausi.
No, on the bus the helper (conductor in english but here conductor means the driver) and several other passengers look at our map (the big wall map in the terminal shows the road goes from Macas to Guamote too) and tell us it is wrong, the road goes directo to Riobamba, no choice to get off anywhere near Guamote unless we want to trek a long way. So we pay to go to Riobamba and sit back and enjoy our trip on a dirt road, thru rivers and past demolished bridges, through lush and cleared valleys and up into the clouds over hills, once even through a very long tunnel.
At Riobamba we ate then Carol headed to the train station to make sure we could take the train tomorrow - no - hearing a lot of that today. The train is out for maintenance and won't be on the track again until at least next Wednesday (read unknown). So now we decided to stay the night here and tomorrow we will catch a bus all the way to Cuenca (about 7 hours) where we have a date to couchsurf with a guy called Patricio. If he is amable as Patricio the macau we will have a great time.
