They call it the "Nose of the Devil" and tomorrow I plan to ride through it on the roof of a train. The Nariz del Diablo is reportedly a feat of railroad engineering, climbing some ridiculous height over lots of switchbacks at an incline of more than five degrees. They seriously let you sit on top of the train. Think Indiana Jones. It leaves from Riobamba, a rather unremarkable city here in south central Ecuador. It's fun to day. Do it out loud right now. "Riobamba."

With luck I'll be going with Tony and Angela, two Scots I met up with on the bus out of Quito. Tony and I had hung out for a while in San Salvador. We'd been wondering if we'd hook up again since we were heading roughly the same way. Then out of the blue he jumps on the bus from Quito to Baños. His friend Angela from back home is traveling with him for a week or so.

"There are also lots of hot baths."
Baños was really nice. It's situated at the base of several soaring mountains. There are trails up into the hills and we walked up a few... including the one that goes to the statue of the Virgin that watches over the city. There are also lots of hot baths... places where hot water bubbles out of the earth and is piped into concrete places for bathing. I get a little grossed out by going into the ocean, so you can imagine that the hot baths are not for me.

I've been trying to work out a schedule for the next few weeks. See, I have a reservation on April 27 for a tour of the Panaral telescope, the world's largest astronomical observatory in northern Chile. I booked it last summer since they only do two tours a month and you have to reserve months in advance. The problem is Machu Pichu is between here and there and really deserves more time than I may be able to give it if I try to hurry down to Chile for this tour. One possibility is to go straight down to Chile, then come back up into Peru for Machu Pichu. It wouldn't be too far out of the way, I don't think. We'll see.

"Taking pride in sucking."
I'm working on the photos. The net cafes in Ecuador seem to take pride in sucking, so it ain't easy. If I can find a computer with a CD drive, it will absolutely have such a crappy connection that I can't upload anything. And this is in two fairly large cities I've tried. I'll make it work eventually.

And check this out if you want... looks like somebody tried to knock off the president of Ecuador.