Like a giant snake this train travels 446 miles from four meters above sea level to reach 3,600, feet.
That is the goal of an ambitious project of the Government of Ecuador to restore a conveyance that was unifying the country and had fallen into oblivion and decay. So far there are about 180 kilometers of roads repaired, including the spectacular "Devil's Nose," where the train must perform tasks in a zigzag to tame a mountain of rock. In the construction of that section killed some 4,000 people by the use of dynamite, landslides, snakebites and various diseases.
The dream of the railway began in 1861 with the start of construction by the government of conservative Gabriel Garcia Moreno, which ended in 1908, the Liberal President Eloy Alfaro. The iron mill was a prop to stimulate the economy, but after more than forty years operations came its decline.
Restores Some new acquisitions here and there were not enough to awaken the giant snake until in 2008 began the process of repairing the track, with an investment of $ 245 million.
A monumental project
seemed crazy over a century the idea of \u200b\u200blinking the coast with the Sierra of Ecuador by a rail and with good reason: huge mountains and rough terrain were not the best introduction for technical or not to the art of the time.
But ultimately, the railroad joined forever the landscape of the country and the train became a hub of national integration, structuring of the identity of Ecuador and an economic engine.
Over time, the construction and improvement of other roads was moving the train and its gradual demise also resulted in the isolation of communities entrenched in mountains and valleys with difficult access.
therefore revive the train is now limited to repairing the tracks, but to involve communities in tourism and trade with the creation of museums, shops, cafes or restaurants that Ecuadorians from the bowels of the mountains offer their products and promote their sites and culture.
Nizac The community, one of the beneficiaries in the province of Chimborazo, not only caters to tourists Sibambe station, it opens the doors of their houses to those who want to learn about their customs and assimilate ancestral knowledge.
Legend of love and hate
With an investment of $ 12 million nine dollars restore functional locomotives will be built new cars and will receive technical assistance. Although the similarity of railway history and technology, as well as language that Ecuador did bend their attention to Spain for the rehabilitation of the railway system, the waters of the Atlantic pushed the project to England. With the help of that country, Ecuador initially expected rehabilitate about five centuries old steam locomotives.
According to estimates of repair, snow-capped scenery and vegetation of Costa and Amazon can be seen from the windows of the train or diesel train when all sections come into operation.
repaired in sections and can be seen dreamy landscapes with green mountains dressed in different designs for different crops. There are also visions of vertigo in some places the path does not give more than the rail option for the passage of the train.
With jagged rocks on one side and steep chasms on the other, visitors can choose to guess about the ups and downs a century ago to open the mountain to pass the train or in the dreamy possibility of extending rail the clouds, since sharp bends seems certain that the locomotive was available to fly.
comfortable Payment rates for transportation not only entitles you to spectacular views as volcanoes, glaciers, communities or herds of native animals, but also to the immersion into the world of the indigenous world, where the elements of nature come alive.
The legend says the tour guide Luisa Martinez, who was the wife Iliniza south of Mount Iliniza north, became enamored of the volcano Cotopaxi and warned Rumiñahui adventure, which shattered the mountain heart, son of Ilinizas, whose painful tears Quilotoa lagoon formed.
Therefore, the Cotopaxi is almost always cloudy, then hides his shame of having damaged a marriage, Martinez said, as part of a spectacular view of all these mountains and hills. Some call it the "sky train" and other "train harder in the world" by going through the complicated geography, which was tamed with a tenacity and sacrifice that Ecuador wants to honor the resurrection of the tracks.
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