Travel Journal

I’ll never forget the day that I left Rosario, Argentina. I arrived at the train station and purchased my fare. “Usted quiere primera o normal?” the ticket man asked me. “Normal,” of course. My twenty-year-old self wanted nothing of luxuries, even though I would soon find out that “normal” on a rural Argentine train was anything but normal, as defined by my middle class United States upbringing.

The seats in “normal” had no padding, and did not recline in any way. Seat numbers did not exist either. The train car was filled with travelling Argentine families, but these were not the European-looking families I had seen wandering around downtown Buenos Aires. Here, all the people were darker skinned and looked more indigenous. I took a seat next to a harmless looking older man with a respectable thick, gray mustache. He took out a thermos with hot water and offered me some mate. We struck up a conversation. Turns out he used to be a train conductor. We gazed out the window together and watched the passing scenery. Suddenly, the service attendant flitted down the aisle of our 1940’s era train car, and commanded us to close the metal grates that pulled down from our windows.

As if all the passengers knew the drill, hands reached up and noisily pulled down the corrugated metal. What was going on? What were these grates? I looked up to the front of the car where some disheveled hippies were cracking open theirs to catch a view of the happenings outside of the train.

Curious, I followed the lead of the disheveled hippies. I peered out of the window and saw what looked like an endless vista of cardboard-roofed shacks with slum children gathered by the train tracks, hurling flying rocks that whacked against the train. As an especially threatening rock wailed towards my window, I quickly slammed down the metal grate. Luckily, the mate-sharing conductor man beside me had already fallen asleep; I escaped having him scorn me for my poor judgment, as I easily could have gotten an oversized pebble to the face.

As we chugged out of the slum, the train attendant flitted down the aisle once again, assuring us that it was now okay to open the metal grates. As I opened mine, I stared out my window seat speechless, contemplating the sliver of cardboard-addled slum life I had just witnessed. I only saw the scene for three seconds, but it sticks with me to this day.