When is a train not a train? When it's a bus.

I feel like I've been hit by a bus on train tracks, which is, ironically enough, what I spent four hours riding on this morning.

I promise I'll come back and write about Intag, Junín, and Otavalo, but right now I'm going to write about Riobamba so I can put it behind me and not think about it ever again.

We got to the city of Riobamba on Monday night, after riding in the bus all day long. Our hotel was seriously the weirdest hotel I've ever stayed in. It was basically an 11-story maze, and there were weird displays of pots and tools and things behind windows in the hallways, and also lots of empty courtyards that I'm not sure you could actually get into.

On Tuesday we drove way up into the mountains. We spent some time walking through a polylepis forest to help ourselves acclimatize, and that was actually kind of fun, if difficult because it was so steep. Then we drove to Chimborazo, the highest peak in Ecuador. We drove up to a climbing refuge around 4,800 meters above sea level, and from there we walked up to another refuge at 5,000 meters. Those were the hardest 200 meters I've ever walked. It was freezing cold and snowing a little bit. At that altitude, breathing sometimes seems like more of a wish than an actual functioning process. I nearly turned around a couple of times, but I did make it to the second refuge. I'm glad I did, because now I can say I've been higher than any point in the lower 48 states, but I don't ever want to do that again.

Coming down was a little easier, and the clouds had rolled in and completely surrounded us, which was neat. We got lunch at the lower climbing refuge, and it was good but I wasn't really in the mood to eat. We sat around the fire and sang Christmas songs while we waited for the ten or so people that had decided to go up higher than the second refuge. Good for them for being adventurous, but I just really wanted to get off the darn mountain.

We had some people suffering from altitude sickness on the way back. One person threw up on the bus, and my friend and roommate Natalie wound up with a horrendous migraine. I think just about everyone, including me, had at least a headache and a little dizziness.

Back at the hotel, I warmed up in the shower, put on my pajamas, and did some Internet-y things for a while. I went down for dinner at 7:00, and pretty much as soon as I got there I got really cold. I didn't feel like eating much, which is rare for me at any time and especially in Ecuador. I just felt completely dead...achy all over like I had strep or something. I went back upstairs before dessert, because I had reached the point where I was shaking uncontrollably. I got in bed about 8:30, and I was just all weepy and couldn't turn it off. I warmed up a little under the covers and had some random huge epiphanies about the story I would be currently writing if I could be doing NaNoWriMo, but I didn't fall asleep for ages. I woke up about five times during the night, alternately freezing cold and burning up.

We left the hotel at the ungodly hour of 5:45 AM, prepared to ride in the bus for 45 minutes before we got to the train station. However, after literally two minutes, the bus stopped and Narcisa announced we were there. So we scrambled, half-asleep, to get our stuff together, and went into the train station. I still felt awful and only had juice and tea for breakfast, and I was still all weepy. We had to sit through this long video about Ecuador's great railroading history, which just made me cry more because it made me miss my grampy. We finally went out to get on the train...and it wasn't a train. It was essentially a charter bus on railroad tracks. We were all very pissed off about that.

I had really been looking forward to the train ride, because my family has such a love of trains (courtesy of Grampy), but I was annoyed and sick and I slept most of the time. There was some really pretty scenery, but it kind of felt like a wasted morning. We got off the "train" and got back on the bus and drove several hours back to Cuenca.

I still feel really icky, but I'm glad to be back to my home-away-from-home. At this point, I can't wait for December 13, when I'll be home for real. I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving tomorrow. I'll be thinking about you while I'm sitting in class.

Days till I come home: 18