The Old Patagonian Express preparing for the journey. photo © Lorraine Caputo
For weeks I have continued to ride that narrow-gauge track winding through my memory.
Three times have I ridden the Old Patagonian Express – and each time, it was a different experience.
The story I shared in A VOYAGE INTO HISTORY : The Old Patagonian Express was based on my experience in late 2008. The time before that, in 2005, I rode in the rear car with the local inhabitants. Both of these times, the train went only as far as Nahuel Pan, and the train was segregated: the high-paying tourists rode in special cars; the local inhabitants rode in a separate compartment.
But how the service had changed so much in 10 short years!
It is that first time, in late 1998, that has been winding through my mind. You see, back then, it was a much different journey. All passengers rode together. There was no separation of the locals from the tourists. And La Trochita (as the Old Patagonian Express is lovingly called), went as far as El Maitén, half-ways to Ingeniero Jacobacci where it connected with the San Antonio del Oeste-Bariloche Tren Patagónico. This Esquel-El Maitén leg of the line has six watering stops: Nahuel Pan, La Cancha, Molloco, Lepá, Leleque and El Maitén, where the repair workshop (taller) is.
What I hold close to my memory’s heart are the wild landscape, far from the modern roads of humans, and the people who live in that region who have no other way to reach home.
Let us get on the Old Patagonian Express of several decades ago – when it still was a local train in which tourists happened to also ride (for quite a bit more money, truth be told).
All Aboard!
Map of the Old Patagonian Express train line. produced by: Moebiusuibeom-en
THE OLD PATAGONIAN EXPRESS
Under this week’s bright sun
& cirrus clouds
La Trochita is prepared
for its journey
Señor Rickert the stationmaster cleans
the windows outside
with a rhea-feather duster
Engineer Juan sweeps the floors
His wife Mary shines
the inside panes
Comedor chairs are lowered
from the wall hooks
Nº 16 chugs into place
& connects
Clicks of camera shutters scurry
through the morning air
A long whistle blow of
of that black steam locomotive
I run & just as it
begins to pull away
hop onto the vestibule
Cecilia calls my name
& trotting alongside
our departure
she takes a last
picture of me
& here I stand on the
open space between cars
Cinders spray over
falling on my hair
& upon this page
We climb above Esquel
Children wave
Bicyclists weave down
the ribbon highway
& in the distance
snow-streaked mountains
divide the earth
from sky
In the old-fashioned first-class
red leather seats
are mosty empty
I pause on the next vestibule
the wagons rocking
& make the leap, turning
the brass knob
into the dining car
There Mary serves me a cup of coffee
After a while other passengers
enter our conversations of trains
& up on the high plains
horses gallop from our
warning whistle
A flock of sheep runs, runs
across the scrub-brush fold
In a dry laguna bed
ten guanacos stand like
brown silhouettes against the
pale silt sand
& across that disappeared water
rheas rush from the rumble
of this petite wooden train
Above a falcon soars
his shadow cast below
LA CANCHA
our first refilling stop
The tanks overflow
water streaming down
the narrow-gauge tracks
Steam roars into the robin-egg sky
The assistant oils the wheels
Bees swarm around the moist pump
Artemesia brushed by photographer-passengers
scents the early afternoon
I close the segunda door
on the comedor discussion
Old wooden benches
for two on one side
for one on the other
Silvered mesh wraps around
the woodstove cold & silent
on this almost-summer day
A Welsh descendent
& a Mapuche share tales
with guffaws
and wild hand-dances
With a short whistle song
we continue on
slowly ascending
A young couple over there
The woman quiets their
crying daughter
She peers into her mate’s eyes
He turns away
to the vista swaying by
His crossed arms rest
on the open window’s sill
A hare escapes
through the thorn bushes
MALLOCO
a half-dozen abandoned log cabins
Their windows & doors agape
In a valley of this undulating land
that white-patched sierra peeks
Sweet herbs swell the air
But once more
our call comes
A small lizard slinks
through tufted grasses
& dried mullein
Four startled sheep scatter
frantically blindly
towards the tracks & away
Barely visible in the near distance
stand four guanacos
with two calves
A hawk swoops on the currents
of the slightly clouded sky
bathed by the black steam
of our trencito
Frightened maras
hop in long strides fleeing
over the Patagonian prairie
LEPÁ
two gauchos await near a cabin
Their loose pants
studded with silver coins
held by woven belts
& tucked into boots
Low-crowned hats shade their faces
They hoist their family’s luggage
up & into these cars
Out on the vestibule
Mary talks with a villager
“Oh, your baby is so precious”
she cradles him in her thick arms
looking into those new eyes
LELEQUE
welcome to Benetton country
Miles & miles of sheep estancias
stretch to any horizon
Here a gaucho departs
wearing a Metallica t-shirt
His well-muscled arms bulge
carrying bags & provisions
for his family
He greets them at the gate
with broad hugs & broad smiles
With his teenage son this father
spars around the shaded yard
Ñandús & chicks
roam this valley
as we make the last
stretch towards
El Maitén
The mountains near & retreat
a bandoneón to the north
closing & opening around
the plains
The dense carbon smoke of Nº 16
swirls across the land
These old wooden wagons
reel & creak with
the clatter of rails
& the chug of engine
poem © 1998 Lorraine Caputo
A homestead on the Patagonian plain. photo © Lorraine Caputo
Journey’s End
In those days, the service went as far as El Maitén. The following day, it would return to Esquel. After all, this was still a local train, to fulfill the transportation needs of the inhabitants of these small hamlets in the middle of nowhere, on these Patagonian plains.
When I debarked in El Maitén, I visited the taller where these mighty steam engines are kept alive. Also just getting off La Trochita was a German locomotive engineer with a shaft under his arm: “Can you replace this?” Sure enough, the workshop would be able to help keep alive a steam locomotive half a world away.
The Patagonian landscape. photo © Lorraine Caputo
For almost thirty years, I have been riding trains (now over 100), from Alaska to Patagonia. As I explained in An Affair Never-Ending, riding the rails became a way to more deeply know (and fall in love with) a country. And I choose to ride trains in which the local people also ride.
My favorite place from which to meditate on the landscapes slowly, rhythmically clicking by is from the vestibule. photo © Lorraine Caputo
