Devil's Nose (Part 1)

When Ecuador set out to build a train line between it's two major cities, Guayaquil and Ecuador, at the beginning of the 20th century, it had to deal with the Devil's Nose (La Nariz del Diablo).

The Devil's Nose is particularly steep mountain about halfway between the two major cities near the town of Aluasi. They brought in an American engineer who designed an unusual switchback to enable the train to get up and down the mountain. It involves stopping the train and going backwards to traverse the switchback.

Laborers were brought in from Jamaica and other British colonies (the Brits were the ones building the railroad), and it is estimated that 2,500 laborers died in accidents blasting out the grade on the Devil's Nose.

Today the Devil's Nose trip from Aluasi is a major tourist attraction. For $20 you can ride a train down the Devil's Nose and back to Aluasi. I takes about 2 1/2 hours with a stop for lunch and a visit to a nice interpretive center that was recently completed. Daniel and I thought we would give it a go.