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ARGENTINA
CONTINENTAL
DRIFTER
High
on Argentina
click
on photos for enlargements
I
got high on the Train to the Clouds.
El Tren a las Nubes
is, after all, the world’s fourth-highest operating
railway line. It’s also the most popular tourist
attraction in Salta, Argentina.
Constructed in the early 1900s in response to the discovery
of precious minerals, the railway winds its way north
through thinning atmosphere, across thirteen steel train
trestles, through twenty-one tunnels, over thirty-one
bridges, and climbs up some twelve hundred twisting curves
before reaching an altitude of fifteen thousand feet
at Abra Corillos near the Chilean border. The train returns
to Salta some fifteen hours after departure, making it
perhaps the world’s longest-lasting day trip to
hypoxia.
 The train chugged away from the station on narrow-gauge
tracks that made the faded cars seem oddly toylike. As
the first shafts of sunshine lit the wooden shacks on
the outskirts of town, I opened the window, stuck my
head out, and let the cool wind brush against my face.
Through a tour operator, I had secured a coveted window
seat. I watched the broad dusty plain stretch out to
the horizon. The dark hues of dawn turned beige, brown,
and rust as the sun climbed higher and higher. The sky
took on the look of faded denim. Judging by the desert
landscape we could have been chugging away from Albuquerque,
heading for Phoenix or Reno.
At various points during
the journey, I gazed at the bluest of blue skies, purple
mountains, reddish-brown hills, thorny cacti standing
like so many sentinels in a wilderness that stretches
all the way to Bolivia.
From the lowland tobacco country and across a vast Martian-like
landscape, the train moved northward. We passed through
Quebrada del Toro, a giant V-shaped gap carved though
the mountains by an ancient river. We zigzagged up el
Alisal, gaining altitude at an accelerated clip. At los
Rulos (the Curls), the train corkscrewed uphill like
a dog chasing its own tail in slow motion.|
 The most spectacular moment came as we approached la
Polvorilla viaduct. I had already consumed three cups
of coca tea which had been sold for a dollar each by
a train attendant. Plastic packets of coca leaves were
on sale as well. I stuck a leafy wad between my cheek
and gum the way Walt Garrison used to do in the old television
commercials for Skoal tobacco.
The coca leaf, from which cocaine is yielded, is sold
legally throughout Argentina and as well as in Bolivia
and Peru, where the plant is harvested in abundance.
Traditionalists chew it. Ladies brew it. Inca warriors
were known to munch on it before going into battle. Locals
claim that coca leaves help offset the effects of altitude
sickness. Which, of course, is why I was chewing the
stuff.
When the la Polvorilla viaduct swung into full view,
I became nervous. An enormous web of steel girders rose
two hundred feet above the desert canyon floor. The girders
supported a massive railway bridge that stretched across
the rocky chasm for more than two hundred yards.
As the high-plains air grew thinner, I nearly jumped
out of my skin when the soundtrack to Chariots of Fire
burst from the overhead speakers. The music was part
of the Train to the Clouds audio experience.
Dozens of passengers reached in unison for their camcorders
and leaned out the windows on one side of the train.
The sudden redistribution of weight gave cause for alarm.
I imagined the train tilting over la Polvorilla viaduct
and crashing to the canyon floor in a fiery explosion.
Consequently, I could not bring myself to look out the
window until after the train crossed the trestle.
 Hours later, the Train to the Clouds ground to a halt
at the turnaround point more than two miles above sea
level. Along with the other passengers, I stepped from
the train car and onto a cracked, barren plain that fanned
out to forever. Snow-dusted mountains teetered on the
horizon and propped up an ice-blue sky. The temperature
had dropped to maybe forty-five degrees, which made the
thin swirling air even more difficult to breathe.
Here in the middle of a harsh desolate nowhere, as far
from a triple-shot grande mocha latte as one can possibly
get, a small group of indigenous villagers had gathered
to sell trinkets to disembarking passengers. Young boys
held out adorable baby llamas that blinked innocently
and melted your heart. The baby llamas could be touched
and photographed for a price. Young girls, some of whom
were unwilling to look buyers in the eye, thrust woven
bracelets high above their heads. Adults offered ponchos
and gaucho sombreros which tourists gobbled up.
I stumbled around in a semi-hypoxic daze, sucking at
the too-thin air. "You want coca," said a local
teenage boy, proffering a packet of medicinal green leaves.
I shook my head, realizing that coca leaves don’t
offset the effects of high altitude, after all. They
only take you higher.
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