A Seat With a View:  A Rooftop Train Ride Through Ecuador

by Natia English, Freelance Writer

Located on the central western coast of South America, Ecuador may be a small country but it offers unlimited adventure at a very reasonable price.  Whether you are looking to hike inside an extinct volcano, ride a bike along a trail of waterfalls or meet an authentic shaman in the Amazon jungle, Ecuador is full of unique adventures. 

Ecuador’s rooftop train ride through the Andes mountain range is no exception.  A full five hour ride sitting on top of the roof of a train passing by mountains, valleys, deep cliffs and friendly villages, easily leaves you breathless.  The most memorable part of the journey may very well be the ride down the “Devil’s Nose”  (Nariz del Diablo), an area which drops 3,300 feet in less than half an hour.

My adventure started in the small town of Riobamba in central Ecuador.  After a short night’s sleep, my friends and I got up early and walked groggily to the Riobamba train station (10 de Agosto and Carabobo) arriving at 6:15am to purchase seats for the 7am “Devil’s Nose” train to the town of Alausi.  In fact, this train – which is the only train riding on this loop – only rides out three times a week on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, and they all leave at 7am. 

There is no seat specified on the ticket – it’s first-come, first-served seating and we found that by 6:30 most of the rooftop on the 7 box car-long train had been carpeted with lounging travelers.  Somehow though we managed to find a seat and jam ourselves in.

Before getting on the train, it is probably wise to splurge and rent a cushion or two for USD$1 each from one of the local vendors hanging around at the station. Since it’s a 5-hour long ride, I realized early on how important those cushion were!  In the worst case, if the ride ends up being too much on the rooftop, passengers can always sit in the ironically vacant seats inside the train.  Seeing that we started off so early and we were riding along at a high altitude of 8500 feet, we were happy for the warm hat and gloves we brought.

Built nearly 100 years ago, the “Devil’s Nose” railway loop was at that time a major feat of engineering since they had to create a complex set of railway tracks allowing the train to go back and forth down a 3,300 feet drop.  Though the train used to be used for transporting local passengers and commercial goods, don’t expect to meet too many locals on board nowadays.  Being one of the most expensive railways in the world to maintain due to its rocky mountainside location, the government has since privatized the railway.  So, with a steep ticket price of USD$11 per passenger, which is four times more than a bus ride to the same location, tourism is now the only means of keeping it alive.

Sight after sight, the lack of windows and walls certainly allowed us to have a better view of the patchwork fields, hills with cattle standing casually on a 45 degree slope, deep gorges that dropped hundreds of feet right next to us and high mountain passes surrounding us including the famous snowcapped Chimborazo Mountain, which at 20,700 feet is Ecuador’s highest peak.  Our train stopped along villages where locals wore ponchos and dresses with unique colors representing their communities.  Fuchsia and red especially seemed to be the latest craze amongst the local villagers. 

If you’re really looking for an adventurous job, you could always become a rooftop food vendor!  The food vendors were actually walking along the boxcar rooftops selling snacks and drinks on top of the train while the train was moving at full speed.  In the meantime, out of pure sympathy and awe, we held out a hand for stability to help the vendor move along the rooftop and make his living.

It is advisable to keep your drinking to a minimum, do to the difficulty in getting on and off the train’s rooftop.  Since the train stopped at several towns along the way, I had only 15 minutes per stop to crawl over a multitude of travelers on the rooftop crammed together like a can of sardines, then climb down a tiny hard-to-reach ladder and finally find the wagon that had the bathroom before hurrying back to my boxcar.  I nearly missed getting back to my seat as the conductors were egging me to jump on my boxcar as the train actually started pulling away from the station. 

Overall, the experience was exhilarating not only for the fresh air and the beautiful landscape but also for the thrill of having very little on the train to keep us from falling off the edge – all but a two inch ridge at the edge upon which we rested our heels precariously.  There was certainly no getting up and taking a good stretch while the train was running. 

There was even a few terrifying moments when small rocks started falling onto the train from the rocky walls of an over-arching tight canyon that we had penetrated at one point, no one fell off or was hurt.  Two hats were stolen away by the wind during the trip however, so I suppose the ride was not completely without casualties.

**All Photos by Natia English

If You Go

Ecuador Tourism

http://www.thebestofecuador.com/riobamba.htm

Other Information

Riobamba Station can be found at 10 de Agosto and Carabobo

  The train departs on Wednesday, Friday & Sunday at 7:00am

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