Buses to the Middle of Nowhere

'Here?' asked the bemused bus driver when we asked him to stop. We were two hours outside of Riobamba, itself not the most touristy of towns, and another three hours to the next town of note, Macas.

The lagunas, near where we got off the bus

We'd chosen this spot as it was the most accessible place to do a day hike in UNESCO-listed Sangay National Park. There wasn't much (any) information about any trails, but we had heard that just walking along the quiet road made a nice trip. It didn't disappoint. We started off walking up to a pass amongst páramo - high altitude grassland - surrounding a series of beautiful lagunas. The landscape changed completely after the pass into lush cloud forest, with multiple waterfalls cascading down next to the road.

The cloud forest on the other side of the pass

The only problem was - how do we get back? We'd seen a couple of buses pass back the other way early on, but hadn't seen another for several hours. We found an indigenous Quichua lady tending to her cows and she told us there'd be another one 'imminently'. Time is a different beast here to what we're used to at home - 'imminently' turned out to mean in an hour. But it didn't matter - we were surrounded by gorgeous landscapes and had a new friend to chat to.

Another of the lagunas

The complete opposite of our bus journey into the unknown was to take the train from the town of Alausí down the Devil's Nose mountain. This used to be a steam train, known for coming off the rails during its precipitous descent along several switchbacks and for people riding on the top. Sadly it's been rather sanitised and turned into a tourist attraction now; however it does still offer fantastic views, and a chance to reflect on the amazing engineering that allowed this train to descend 500m in only 12km. At the bottom, you're greeted by a local dance. This wasn't our favourite thing.

The switchbacks descending down the Devil's Nose

We're now heading on to Baños, where we should be able to see a bit more of Sangay National Park in the form of the smouldering Tunguruhua Volcano.