Day 19 – Banos to Riobamba

Due to yesterdays bike ride, I woke up this morning with an arse that only someone who has lived through a Michael Barrymore pool party can sympathise with.

There was a lot of rain overnight and even more into the morning, but not like the rain in England, this was real rain, if you have been to the tropics you know what I mean. These raindrops were like brussel sprouts – couple that with a town that has a drainage system designed to handle the odd spilt Pina Colada and you have a lot of water on the ground. We waded from our hostel to the bus station and as luck would have it managed to catch a bus that was aqua-planing out of town that very minute.

Our destination was Riobamba and (apparently) the starting point for one of the worlds epic train journeys. Unfortunately, for me it will have to stay apparent as the train only has 40 seats and only runs every three days – less over Christmas, so the next available seat was ten days away and this town doesn't have ten minutes worth of stuff to do, let alone ten days.

To revitalize my sagging spirits, I went for a slap up dinner in a dubious looking barbeque shack and pointed to the most enormous steak you have ever seen, however this was not your ordinary steak, nay, I soon discovered something was most amiss, this certainly wasn't Aberdeen Angus, unless that is, Aberdeen Angus is a nag running in the 3.30 from Kempton.

Ciara's keen grasp of the lingo soon deduced that we had been saddled with a 'mare of a mane course, she was distraught, however she is now stable. She would like me to point out that we did not intentionally eat one of these magnificent beasts, but I imagine her ticket to this year's Horse of the Year show may not turn up.

I also would like to apologies to all animal lovers out there and promise never again to partake. That my friends, is straight from the horse's mouth.