Ecuador is a very mountainous country. A truly beautiful country and one of my favourite travel destinations. Being on the ring of fire, there are many active volcanoes and one of the must do activities in Ecuador is to travel along the avenue of volcanoes. If you are lucky, you will also get to the very beautiful Mt Cotopaxi, but you do need a bit of luck to she her. The mountain is normally covered by cloud and on this trip to Ecuador, she was pretty much covered up again. There are two options to travel along the avenue of volcanoes. The first is by road. This is the main highway South of Quito. The roads in Equador are really good and for much of the central part, the roads are mountain passes. Another way to travel along the avenue of volcanoes is by train. There is an effort to make use of the rail system in Ecuador again and the main service is tourist trains.
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| At the station |
A very well organised day trip is a train ride from the Old city of Quito to the station of El Blance (the 2nd highest train station in Ecuador and close to Mt Cotopaxi. This is a great day out. My hosts in Ecuador arranged this train trip for me after the week of work and before I headed off to Colombia.
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| Train tracks |
The journey started at the old train station in Quito. Passengers where booked in and we waited to board our designated coaches.
Then it was time to start. As trains do not run very frequently, people tend not to take the main level crossings to seriously. The train was accompanied by 4 police officers on motorbikes who would rush ahead of the train to secure the level crossing.
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| The route |
The first part of the journey was through the various suburbs of Quito. You could by the number of people in Quito taking photos of the train, that this was not a common sight. Everyone was waving at the train.
The first stop was at Tambillo station. This was a "technical" stop. I think they needed to change the engine around.
After this stop we were out in the beautify country side. Lush green rolling hills with many dairy cows.
We reached the final stop of El Blance.
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| Lamas at El Blance Ststaion |
Unfortunately cloud was covering Mt Cotopaxi, but fortunately there was a herd of lamas to greet the train. Beautiful animals standing along the train tracks.
We could go for a short walk through the forest area which was really beautiful. At around 3547 m above sea level, oxygen was in short supply, but it was still a great walk.
After the stop at El Blance, we started the trip back.
At Machachi station, we were greeted by a cultural show of local music and dancing. Really great. This was followed by a lovely sit down lunch at the station. The local band playing traditional music was great and the folk dancing display was also something to remember.
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| Traditional show |
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| Train at El Blance Startion |
The final visit of the day was to a farm close to the station. Here, all sorts of animals were to be found and the local farmer put on a show with the different animals. Unfortunately this was only in Spanish, so I could not follow the show. There were only about 4 people on the train who spoke English, but all of the commentary on the train was in Spanish and English.
All too soon we pulled back into the old station in Quito and it was the end of a great day.
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| Show |
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| Lama at the farm visit |
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