Table of Contents
THE OLD
PATAGONIAN
EXPRESS
By Train Through The Americas
1979
PAUL THEROUX
For my Shanghai Lil,
and for Anne, Marcel, and Louis, with love
CONTENTS
1
THE LAKE SHORE LIMITED
2
THE LONE STAR
3
THE AZTEC EAGLE
4
EL JAROCHO TO VERACRUZ
5
THE PASSENGER TRAIN TO TAPACHULA
6
THE 7:30 TO GUATEMALA CITY
7
THE 7:00 TO ZACAPA
8
THE RAILCAR TO SAN SALVADOR
9
THE LOCAL TO CUTUCO
10
THE ATLANTIC RAILWAY: THE 12:00 TO LIMON
11
THE PACIFIC RAILWAY: THE 10:00 TO PUNTARENAS
12
THE BALBOA BULLET TO COLON
13
THE EXPRESO DE SOL TO BOGOTA
14
THE EXPRESO CALIMA
15
THE AUTOFERRO TO GUAYAQUIL
16
THE TREN DE LA SIERRA
17
THE TRAIN TO MACHU PICCHU
18
EL PANAMERICANO
19
LA ESTRELLA DEL NORTE
( 'THE NORTH STAR' )
TO BUENOS AIRES
20
THE BUENOS AIRES SUBTERRANEAN
21
THE 'LAGOS DEL SUR'
(LAKES OF THE SOUTH) EXPRESS
22
THE OLD PATAGONIAN EXPRESS
THE OLD
PATAGONIAN
EXPRESS
By Train Through The Americas
1979
PAUL THEROUX
That train was the one piece of life in all the deadly land; it was the one actor, the one spectacle fit to be observed in this paralysis of man and nature. And when I think how the railroad has been pushed through this unwatered wilderness and haunt of savage tribes . . . how at each stage of the construction, roaring, impromptu cities, full of gold and lust and death, sprang up and then died away again, and are now but wayside stations in the desert; how in these uncouth places pig-tailed Chinese pirates worked side by side with border ruffians and broken men from Europe, talking together in a mixed dialect, mostly oaths, gambling, drinking, quarrelling and murdering like wolves; how the plumed hereditary lord of all America heard, in this last fastness, the scream of the 'bad medicine waggon' charioting his foes; and then when I go on to remember that all this epical turmoil was conducted by gentlemen in frock-coats, and with a view to nothing more extraordinary than a fortune and a subsequent visit to Paris, it seems to me, I own, as if this railway were the one typical achievement of the age in which we live, as if it brought together into one plot all the ends of the world and all the degrees of social rank, and offered to some great writer the busiest, the most extended, and the most varied subject for an enduring literary work. If it be romance, if it be contrast, if it be heroism that we require, what was Troy town to this?
- Robert Louis Stevenson, The Amateur Emigrant
'Romance!' the season-tickets mourn,
'He never ran to catch his train,
'But passed with coach and guard and horn -
'And left the local - late again !'
Confound Romance. . . And all unseen
Romance brought up the nine-fifteen.
- Rudyard Kipling, 'The King'
For my Shanghai Lil,
and for Anne, Marcel, and Louis, with love
CONTENTS
1 The Lake Shore Limited l
2 The Lone Star 23
3 The Aztec Eagle 33
4 El Jarocho to Veracruz 53
5 The Passenger Train to Tapachula 67
6 The 7:30 to Guatemala City 81
7 The 7:OO to Zacapa 97
8 The Railcar to San Salvador 109
9 The Local to Cutuco 122
10 The Atlantic Railway: the 12:00 to Limón 135
11 The Pacific Railway: the 10:00 to Puntarenas 161
12 The Balboa Bullet to Colón 170
13 The Expreso de Sol to Bogotá 195
14 The Expreso Calima 212
15 The Autoferro to Guayaquil 229
16 The Tren de la Sierra 244
17 The Train to Machu Picchu 253
18 El Panamericano 269
19 La Estrella del Norte ('The North Star') to Buenos Aires 291
20 The Buenos Aires Subterranean 305
21 The Lagos del Sur ('Lakes of the South') Express 319
22 The Old Patagonian Express 328
1
THE LAKE SHORE LIMITED
One of us on that sliding subway train was clearly not heading for work. You would have known it immediately by the size of his bag. And you can always tell a fugitive by his vagrant expression of smugness; he seems to have a secret in his mouth - he looks as if he is about to blow a bubble. But why be coy? I had woken in my old bedroom, in the house where I had spent the best part of my life. The snow lay deep around the house, and there were frozen footprints across the yard to the garbage can. A blizzard had just visited, another was expected to blow in soon. I had dressed and tied my shoes with more than usual care, and left the stubble on my upper lip for a moustache I planned to grow. Slapping my pockets to make sure my ballpoint and passport were safe, I went downstairs, past my mother's hiccupping cuckoo clock, and then to Wellington Circle to catch the train. It was a morning of paralyzing frost, the perfect day to leave for South America.
For some, this was the train to Sullivan Square, or Milk Street, or at the very most Orient Heights; for me, it was the train to Patagonia. Two men using a foreign language spoke in low voices; there were others with lunch-boxes and valises and briefcases, and one lady with the sort of wrinkled department store bag that indicated she was going to return or exchange an unwanted item (the original bag lending veracity to the awkward operation). The freezing weather had altered the faces in the multi-racial car: the whites' cheeks looked rubbed with pink chalk, the Chinese were bloodless, the blacks ashen or yellow-grey. At dawn it had been 12° Fahrenheit, by mid-morning it was 9°, and the temperature was still dropping. The cold wind gusted through the car as the doors opened at Haymarket, and it had the effect of silencing the muttering foreigners. They looked Mediterranean; they winced at the draught. Most of the people sat compactly, with their elbows against their sides and their hands in their laps, squinting and conserving their warmth.
They had affairs to attend to in town - work, shopping, banking, the embarrassing moment at the refund desk. Two had hefty textbooks in their laps, and a spine turned towards me read A General Introduction to Sociology. A man solemnly scanned the headlines in the Globe, another thumb-flicked the papers in his briefcase. A lady told her little girl to stop kicking and sit still. Now they were getting out at the windy platforms- after four stations the car was half-full. They would return that evening, having spent the day speaking of the weather. But they were dressed for it, office clothes under eskimo coats, gloves, mittens, woolly hats; resignation was on their faces and, already, a suggestion of fatigue. Not a trace of excitement; all this was usual and ordinary; the train was their daily chore.
No one looked out of the window. They had seen the harbour, and Bunker Hill, and the billboards before. Nor did they look at each other. Their gazes stopped a few inches from their eyes. Though they paid no attention to them, the signs above their heads spoke to these people. These folks were local, they mattered, the advertising men knew who they were addressing. NEED FEDERAL INCOME TAX FORMS? Beneath it, a youth in a pea-jacket grinned at his newspaper and swallowed. CASH YOUR CHECKS ALL OVER MASSACHUSETTS. A lady with that yellow-grey Hottentot colour hugged her shopping bag. BE A SCHOOL VOLUNTEER IN THE BOSTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS. Not a bad idea for the sick-of-it-all briefcase examiner in the Russian hat. MORTGAGE MONEY? WE HAVE PLENTY. No one glanced up. ROOFS AND GUTTERS. GET A COLLEGE DEGREE IN YOUR SPARE TIME. A restaurant. A radio station. A plea to stop smoking.