During my childhood and youth in Poland long distance travel meant trains. It was the least expensive and most common way of crossing the country. It often meant long, overnight trips, sleeping in semi-private cabins, grabbing a bite to eat in restaurant wagon and just plain watching the landscape from the windows. I fell in love with train travel back then largely due to the fact I could see the part of the country I never would see traveling by car. It somehow was a different experience, as if I was traveling through a foreign country. It also meant meeting and interacting with other passengers, unlike during car or even bus trips. Those memories always prompt me to seek out train travel and here in Argentina I had such an opportunity.
I have long known of the train that crosses Patagonia from the coast to the mountains and wanted to take that trip. The train which has an apt name Tren Patagonico, conjuring all kinds of romantic images at least in my mind, connects the coastal town of Viedma to San Carlos de Bariloche at the foothills of the Andes in the Northern Patagonia Lake District. It roughly follows the 44th south parallel latitude crossing through the scrub land of central Patagonia and passing through sleepy, dusty towns on its way. The average speed is about 45 km/hr (30 mph) which in turn makes a 700km journey a nearly 18 hour trip! The train makes its arduous trip once a week only on Fridays going westbound and returns on Sunday eastbound. Recent fallout of ash from the volcano Puyehue has covered vast parts of Patagonia which were carried by the western winds. This has made the trip more difficult and slower due to the ashes covering parts of the tracks, closer to the Andes.
We boarded the train in San Antonio de Oeste at about 10:10 pm. The train left on time at 10:30. The porter helped us settle in our private sleeping room with two foldable beds. We enjoyed a tasty dinner of ravioles and breaded meat accompanied by a bottle of Norton malbec in the restaurant wagon. We finally retired to sleep in our comfortable beds past midnight and fell asleep to the rhythmic sound of clattering wheels. Although we have seen the evidence of the ashes on the coast, the immensity of the fallout was only apparent the next morning as we were travelling through the scrubland of central Patagonia. The thick, white dust was visible everywhere outside stirred up by the locomotive at front. Over the hours, the dust had penetrated the inside of the train as well. Outside of our compartment we could see the dust in the air. As we returned to the restaurant wagon for breakfast the porter was handing out face masks, the tables were covered with a thin layer of gray. The waiters and the cook were doing their best to keep the place clean and maintain some feeling of normalcy while some of them were wearing the masks themselves. Crossing the last few villages before Bariloche was depressing. At times it felt as if we were going through a snow whiteout or Saharan sandstorm. I could not help but feel sorry for the people living in the small villages we were crossing where life is hard to begin with without the volcanic aftermath. When we stopped in Ingeniero Jacobacci, the largest town before Bariloche, we could hardly see the sun while the dust and ashes combined thickened the air. What I have seen called for an evacuation of the people. I could not imagine living there under these conditions as did these people for the past 3 months with no end in sight. The ashes are very light and the prevailing Patagonian winds keep lifting them up into the air. As we neared Bariloche, for the last 20-30 miles or so, the landscape cleared a bit and we finally could see the snow-capped Andes against the Nahuel Huapi Lake. Our journey finally ended at 4:15 pm as we rolled in to Bariloche train station announced by the triumphant whistle. At last we made it!
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Analia
Darek
Cecile
