The Old Patagonian Express

by Paul Theroux

  I had expected that I would be the only person to get out at Ingeniero Jacobacci. I was wrong. There was a pair of old men carrying large oil drums as part of their luggage, a woman with one child around her neck and another tagging along behind her, a couple whose suitcase was bound with string and belts, and others who were shadows. The station was small – there was just about room for all of us on the platform. The faces of the people in the second class coaches, who had been woken by the jolt of the stop, the station lights, were fatigued and bloodless. For half an hour the train hissed at the platform, and then it drew out very slowly. It left dust and dim light and silence. It seemed to take the world with it.

  That express train – and how I yearned to be back on it – had blurred distance and altitude. The statistics were given at Jacobacci. We were over a thousand miles from Buenos Aires, and since Carmen de Patagones, which was at sea-level, we had climbed to over 3,000 feet, on a plateau that did not descend again until the Straits of Magellan. In this wind, at this altitude, at this time of night – two in the morning – it was very cold in Jacobacci. No one stops at Jacobacci, people had said. I could disprove that. Passengers had got off the train. I assumed that, like me, they would be waiting for the train to Esquel. I looked around for them. They were gone.

  Where? Into that wind, that darkness, those huts in the desert. They were not changing trains – they lived in Jacobacci. Later I judged it to be a naive thought, but at the time I reflected on how strange it was that there were people – immigrants and the children of immigrants – who had chosen to live here, of all places. There was no water, no shade, the roads were terrible, and little paid employment was possible. However tough the people, they did not have the stamina and ingenuity of the Indians who, in any case, had never lived in this part of Patagonia. To the north-east were the fertile grasslands of Bahia Blanca, to the west the lakes – the Tyrolean paradise of Bariloche. For the sake of a few sheep and cattle, and a baffling stubbornness, people lived in this tiny Patagonian town, where the rail line divided, a railway junction in the desert. But it was a naive thought. Some people required space much more than they required grass or trees, and for them cities and forests were stews of confusion. You can be yourself here, a Welshman told me in Patagonia. Well, that much was true.

  I left my suitcase on the platform, paced for a while and smoked my pipe. There would not be a train to Buenos Aires for three days. A Unesco poster nailed to the station wall told me about malnutrition in Latin America. As in Guatemala, a sign said Use The Train – It Is Cheaper! And another said, The Train Is Your Friend – Be A Friend of The Train! Hanging from a platform post was a bronze bell, like an old school bell. The station master had rung it just before the Lakes of the South Express had pulled out, but no one had boarded.

  The train had gone in one direction, the Jacobacci passengers in another. So only I was left, like Ishmael: ‘And I only am escaped alone to tell thee.’ It was cold in this dismal place, but I had no choice but to wait four hours for the teeny-weeny steam train to Esquel. But I also thought: It’s perfect. If one of the objects of travel was to give yourself the explorer’s thrill that you were alone, that after fifteen or twenty thousand miles you had outrun everyone else and were embarked on a solitary mission of discovery in a remote place, then I had accomplished the traveller’s dream. The train travels a thousand miles from Buenos Aires, stops in the middle of the desert and you get out. You look around; you’re alone. It is like arriving. In itself it is like discovery – it has that singularity. The sky was full of stars in unfamiliar constellations, and even the moon was distorted, like an antipodean version of the one I was used to. This was all new. In the best travel books the word alone is implied on every exciting page, as subtle and ineradicable as a watermark. The conceit of this, the idea of being able to report it – for I had deliberately set out to write a book, hadn’t I? – made up for the discomfort. Alone, alone: it was like proof of my success. I had had to travel very far to arrive at this solitary condition.

  A voice, a frog-croak, said, ‘Tea?’

  It was the station master. He wore a winter coat and a scarf and cracked boots and had a silver General Roca Railways badge on his coat collar. The tiny gas stove in his office afforded some heat, and a small dented tea kettle rocked on an improvised wire grill.

  I thought I had better explain. I said, ‘I am waiting for the train to Esquel.’

  ‘Esquel is a very nice place.’

  This was the view from Jacobacci. He was the first person I had met to praise Esquel. But having seen a bit of Jacobacci I could understand why. People in Belchertown, Massachusetts, always have a good word for Holyoke.

  He had packed maté leaves (they are from an evergreen tree, the Ilex) into a small cup and inserted a silver straw. The cup was bone, a cow’s horn with crude ornamental writing on it.

  He said, ‘There is lots to do in Esquel. Hotels, restaurants. There are big farms. Go about fifty kilometres and you will find a lovely park – trees, grass, everything. Yes, Esquel is a nice place.’

  He poured boiling water over the leaves and handed me the tea.

  ‘You like it?’

  ‘Very good. I like maté.’ He had put too much sugar in it. It tasted disgusting.

  ‘I mean, the cup.’

  I looked at the cup.

  ‘A cow’s horn,’ he said. ‘It is from Paraguay.’

  The scratches on the horn said as much. I told him I admired it.

  ‘You have been to Paraguay?’

  He shrugged. ‘My wife. Her brother is there. She went there last year.’ He grinned. ‘In a plane.’

  He was nodding, making another cup of tea. I asked him questions about Jacobacci, and the train, and Patagonia. His replies were not interesting. He wanted to talk about money. How much had my suitcase cost? How much was a house in the United States? What did I earn? How much did a new car cost? By way of reply I told him how much a pound of steak cost in Massachusetts. That took his breath away. He stopped complaining and began to boast about the price of sirloin.

  If only he had said, Want to hear something strange? He was old enough to know a good story. But he was half asleep, and it was cold, and nearly three in the morning. So I left him alone and went outside. I walked up the tracks, away from the lights of the station. The wind in the thorn bushes rasped like sand in a chute. The air smelled of dust. The moon on the bushes shone blue across the bumpy monotony of Patagonia.

  I heard a growl. There was a low black hut about thirty yards away, and I suppose my footsteps on the gravel of the railway line had woken the dog. He began to bark. His bark woke one nearby and this nearer one yapped loudly. I have never managed to overcome my childhood fear of being bitten by a dog, and large barking dogs petrify me. There are Irish wolfhounds slavering in my worst nightmares. The most aggressive dogs are owned by old people and lovely women and ugly midget men and childless couples. He won’t hurt you, say these people, enjoying my terror, and I want to say, Maybe not, but I might hurt him. In South America – the fact is well-known –many of the dogs are rabid. They are not the cowering pariahs I had seen in Ceylon and Burma, but sleeker, fangy wolf-like creatures which were encouraged by the natives. There were always dogs in the Indian villages in Peru and Bolivia, looking much more alert than the Indians themselves. The silly things had chased the train. I was afraid of getting rabies. ‘The cure is as bad as the disease.’ It was not an irrational fear: I had seen notices warning people of the dangers of mad dogs.

  One dog, smaller than his bark suggested – about the size of a satchel – pushed through the thorn bushes and hurried onto the track. He crouched and snarled, summoning the other one. I put my hands into my pockets and started walking backwards. I glanced back at the lighted station – I was stupid to have strayed so far. The dogs were now together on the tracks and approaching me, but warily, rushing forward and barking loudly and keeping themselves low. I looked for a stick to beat them with (would a beating madden them a
nd make them killers, or would it drive them away?), but this was the desert. Apart from the few poplars at the station there was not a tree for hundreds of miles. I wanted to run, but I knew they would understand this as a sign of cowardice and pounce on me. I continued to walk backwards, keeping my eye on them and fearing them too much to hate them. Nearer the station I was given hope by the poplars – at least I could climb one and be safe. But there was light here, too; the light seemed to worry the dogs. They kept in the shadows, darting between the railway cars, and when they saw I was safe on the platform they chased each other. They were small, stupid, pathetic and crippled; and from my position of safety I hated them.

  The station master had heard the commotion. He said, ‘Don’t go out there very far. There are a lot of dogs around.’

  I dragged my suitcase to a wooden bench. I had discarded every book but Boswell, and this I started to re-read. My hands were cold. I tucked the book away and put on another sweater, and with my hands in my pockets I lay on the bench, under the sign The Train Is Your Friend. I stared at the lightbulb and gave thanks for not having been bitten by a rabid dog.

  Rational or not, it was my fear. There are many satisfactions in solitary travel, but there are just as many fears. The worst is the most constant: it is the fear of death. It is impossible to spend months travelling alone and arrive in Patagonia and not feel as if one has done something very foolish. In the cold hours before dawn in such a desolate place, the whole idea seems foolhardy, an unnecessary risk, and thoroughly pointless. I had arrived alone and had nearly reached my destination, but what was the point? I had intended to enjoy myself; I had no point to prove. And yet every day I know this fear. Passing a car crash, reading of a train wreck, seeing a hearse or a graveyard; in the back of a swerving bus or noticing a firedoor that was locked (the firedoors in most hotels I stayed in were kept padlocked at night to prevent thieves from entering), or scribbling a post card and seeing the ambiguity in my sentence This is my last trip – all of it started a solemn death-knell at the back of my brain.

  I had left a safe place and had journeyed to a dangerous one. The risk was death and it seemed even more imminent because, so far, no bad thing had befallen me. It seemed that to travel here, in this way, was asking for trouble. Landslides, plane crashes, food poisoning, riots, blow-outs, sharks, cholera, floods, mad dogs: they were everyday events in this neck of the woods – you needed a charmed life to avoid them. And, lying there on the bench, I did not congratulate myself on how far I had come, that I was within an ace of my destination. Rather, I understood the people who had sniggered when I had told them where I was headed. They were right to mock; in their simple way, they had seen the futility of it. Mr Thornberry, in the Costa Rican jungle, had said, ‘I know what I want to see. Parrots and monkeys! Where are they?’ There were guanacos in Patagonia (‘Guanacos spit at you!’). But really, was it worth risking your life to see a guanaco? Or, to put it another way, was it worth even one night half-frozen on a wooden bench in a Patagonian railway station, to hear the trill of the celebrated Flute-bird? I did not think so then. Later, it seemed such a diverting story I forgot my fear. But I was lucky. Usually, throughout this trip, I had looked out of a train window and thought: What a terrible place to die in.

  I was also worried about losing my passport, my ticket home, or being robbed of all my money; of catching hepatitis and spending two months in a hospital in a desperate place like Guayaquil or Villazón. These were informed fears. ‘We risk our lives every day, just crossing the street,’ friendly people say, to reassure us. But there are greater risks in the Andes and in primitive countries, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool.

  And yet, on that bench at Jacobacci, I was glad I had left everyone else behind. Although this was a town with a main street and a railway station, and people and dogs and electric lights, it was near enough to the end of the earth to give me the impression that I was a solitary explorer in a strange land. That illusion (which is also an illusion in the South Pole and at the headwaters of the Nile) was enough of a satisfaction to make me want to go forward.

  I dozed, but when I did I woke up cold. I tried to stay awake and warm. I went for three more walks, giving the dogs a wide berth. There were cockcrows, but no signs of dawn; and the only sound was the wind, pushing against the station.

  I had arrived at Ingeniero Jacobacci in darkness. It was still dark when I boarded the train. The station master gave me more tea and said I could get into the coach. It was as small as I had been warned it would be, and it was filled with dust that had blown through the windows. But at least I had a seat. At five, people started to gather. Incredibly, at this hour, they were seeing friends and family off. I had noticed this custom all over Bolivia and Argentina, this send-off, lots of kisses, hugs, and waves, and at the larger stations weeping men parting from their wives and children. I found it touching, and at odds with their ridiculously masculine self-appraisal.

  There was a whistle, a steam-whistle – a shrill fluting pipe. The station bell was rung. Well-wishers scrambled from the train, passengers boarded; and, just before six, we were off.

  The moon was bright in a blue sky. There was no sun, and the land around Jacobacci was blue-grey and pale brown. We were out of town before the eastern sky began to glow. I was gladdened by the hills. In the darkness of our arrival I had assumed it would be as flat as the land I had seen at twilight, that wasteland around the village of Ministero Ramos Mexia, where grape-selling boys hopped and chirped in the dust. But this was different, and there were no clouds in the sky, so I had some assurance that it would be a warm day. I ate an apple and took out Boswell, and when the sun came up I went quietly to sleep.

  It was an old train, and although by this time I ought to have been inured to the strangeness of South American railways, I still found it strange. There was a boy across the aisle, watching me yawn.

  ‘Does this train have a name?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘The train I took to Buenos Aires was called “The North Star”, and the Bariloche express is called “The Lakes of the South”. The one to Mendoza is called “The Liberator”. That sort of name.’

  He laughed. ‘This train is too insignificant to have a name. The government is talking about getting rid of it.’

  ‘Isn’t it called “The Esquel Arrow” or something like that?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Or “The Patagonian Express”?’

  ‘The Old Patagonian Express,’ he said. ‘But express trains are supposed to go very fast.’

  ‘They never do,’ I said. ‘I was on an express to Tucuman that arrived a day late. It took us six hours to leave one station, up in Humahuaca.’

  ‘Floods,’ said the boy. ‘Rain. It doesn’t rain here, but it is still a slow train. It’s these hills. See, we’re going around and around.’

  We were. The hills and dales of Patagonia which I had welcomed for their variation and their undeniable beauty were the cause of our slow progress. On a straight track this trip would not have taken more than three hours, but we were not due to arrive in Esquel until 8.30 – nearly a fourteen-hour ride. The hills were not so much hills as they were failed soufflés.

  It was a steam train, and for the first time since leaving home I wished I had brought a camera, to take its picture. It was a kind of demented samovar on wheels, with iron patches on its boiler and leaking pipes on its underside and dribbling valves and metal elbows that shot jets of vapour sideways. It was fuelled by oil, so it did not belch black smoke, but it had bronchial trouble, respirating in chokes and gasps on grades and wheezing oddly down the slopes when it seemed out of control. It was narrow gauge, the small carriages were wooden. First was no cleaner than Second, though First had higher back-rests on the seats. The whole contraption creaked, and when it was travelling fast, which was seldom, it made such a racket of bumping couplings and rattling windows and groaning wood that I had the impression it was on the verge of bursting
apart – just blowing into splinters and dropping there in one of the dry ravines.

  The landscape had a prehistoric look, the sort that forms a painted backdrop for a dinosaur skeleton in a museum: simple terrible hills and gullies; thorn bushes and rocks; and everything smoothed by the wind and looking as if a great flood had denuded it, washed it of all its particular features. Still the wind worked on it, kept the trees from growing, blew the soil west, uncovered more rock and even uprooted those ugly bushes.

  The people in the train did not look out of the window, except at the stations, and only then to buy grapes or bread. One of the virtues of train travel is that you know where you are by looking out of the window. No sign-boards are necessary. A hill, a river, a meadow – the landmarks tell you how far you have come. But this place had no landmarks, or rather, it was all landmarks, one indistinguishable from the other – thousands of hills and dry riverbeds, and a billion bushes, all the same. I dozed and woke; hours passed; the scenery at the window did not alter. And the stations were interchangeable – a shed, a concrete platform, staring men, boys with baskets, the dogs, the battered pick-up trucks.

  I looked for guanacos. I had nothing better to do. There were no guanacos. But there were other creatures – birds of all sorts, small twittering ones, swifts and sparrows, and dark falcons and hawks. Patagonia is, if nothing else, a bird sanctuary. There were owls here, too, and nearer the Andes great eagles; and, in the far south, albatrosses of enormous size. The ugliness of the landscape continued without let-up, and I had no wish to stir from this train. ‘Here also we are grateful to the train, as to some god who conducts us swiftly through these shades and by so many hidden perils,’ wrote Robert Louis Stevenson. ‘So lightly do we skim these horrible lands; as the gull, who wings safely through the hurricane and past the shark.’

  The fellow across the aisle was sleeping. I looked at him and the others, and I was struck by their resemblance to me. I had decided quite early in my trip that I was an implausible traveller – no credit cards, no rucksack, I was not well-dressed enough to be a tourist on a ten-day jaunt through ruins and cathedrals; nor was I dirty or frazzled enough to be a wanderer. People asked me what I did, and when I said I was a geography teacher (‘Easter vacation!’) they doubted me. I mentioned my wife and children: but why was I here and they there? I had no ready answer to that one. Tourists regarded me as a back-slider, wanderers seemed to think I was an intruder, and natives did not understand me. It was hard to convince anyone that I did not have an ulterior motive, that I wasn’t on the run, a con-artist, a man with a scheme. I had a scheme – that was the worst of it – but I did not wish to disclose it. If I had told Thornberry, or Wolfgang, or the lady in Veracruz, or Bert and Elvera Howie, that I was a writer they would have either bolted or, as Bert Howie phrased it, ‘put a couple of layers of shit in my ear’.