After a $1.50 cab ride we are at the Bus Station in Riobamba. Very bustling little place. Bus agents wandering all over loudly calling out destinations that they are trying to sell. We pay $4.70 for 2 people for the tickets for the 9:45 bus to Alausi.
On our next 2 hours we have many many indigenous people from Ecuador board the bus along with many vendors selling their wares. Kettle chips, banana bread and oddly enough a guy giving a very long sales pitch for Ginsing. He hands everyone (except us) a little package containing what looks to be 3 or 4 Ginsing candies. After this pitch he walks back down the bus to see if anyone is buying. If they aren’t they return the little packet, if they are they pay him.
We arrive in Alausi and find that our hotel, Hotel Europa, is only about a block from where the bus drops us off. Nice! We check in and get identical rooms. No bad feelings this time. 🙂 The green trucks below are taxis. They also have the yellow car variety.
During our walk around this little town, which we find very charming, we see this little lady. When we first see her she is peaking around the corner of a building. We pass her and her route follows ours for a bit and then we see her peaking around another corner. What or who she was looking at or for is a mystery. Her style of dress is very very common here. She is an indigenous Ecuadorian and from what I have been able to read, she is Kichwa or Quechua. These are the people who were here before the Spanish colonization of the Americas. They are very short in stature, with very fine features in many cases. The women wear colourful skirts and shawls and fedora type hats. The men wear predominately dark clothing and similar hats, sometimes with a feather.
We wander about and take some photos of the little town.
There is quite a large surrounding area for this town and I feel that lots of people come into town from the suburbs. 🙂 We have seen a medium sized truck hanging around honking it’s horn and when we passed by the back there were a number of people inside. We assume that this a bus of sorts for them. Honking to let people know that they are heading back to the burbs so they can pile in.
We are here to take the train to the Devil’s Nose and the train is drawing many visitors to this little town. A huge economic impact I am sure. We stopped in at the Tourist Office and we were greeted by a very friendly young man named David. He shook each of our hands and using his very good English (way better than our Spanish), told us about his town. Provided us with an amazing Touristic Map that must have cost a lot. Very good quality thick paper.
The train is big business here. Many business in the area around the train station use the same logo, just change the name of the business to their own and adding “del Tren”. Like “Cafeteria Estacion del Tren”, “Cafe del Tren” and “El Meson del Tren”.
