So, there was my grandfather still fighting to find comfort in his wooden 2nd. class bench; on his way to a strange place called “la Quiaca”. It became so unbearable, especially since the bolts used to attach the wood to the bench were uneven and had sharp edges (“Gaucho engineering” as the Euros used to call that quality), that Alfred started to reevaluate his decision not to accept his brother’s offer to finance a first class ticket. He remembered his brother telling him: “Du Plföckle (you tent-peck)! Do you have any idea how many wealthy and willing Argentinean ladies you can meet on your way north!!! I’ll bet you 150 Gulden (old Schwyzer currency) that you could get married before getting to the dessert up north! Imagine yourself living in this wonderful estate packed with 2,000 heads of cows right next to the beautiful Paraná river! The town Lima was founded on the year you were born and as far as I understand you would be surrounded Swiss, Italians and Germans who have been migrating there steadily!” Straight as my grandfather always was, his reply was to expected: “If I ever marry it will be to a good woman, meine Seele will never be smeared.” Of course Gottfried knew exactly what his little beloved brother Alfred was to answer. This ultimate comment had been his last resort in his hopeless effort to keep Alfredo close by in Argentina. Years later, after my grandfather’s death, in a conversation with my grandmother Gottfried would confess her that right at the moment Alfred had told him about his peril at the railroad company his bones chilled and a tremble crawled his dorsal spine all the way to the base of his brain and stayed there for a long time. Somehow Gottfried perceived in that very instant that he would never get to see his beloved and admired brother ever again. His goodbyes at the train station the day Alfred left; were heartbreaking. Gottfried could not let go, people were staring and Gottfried simply couldn’t hold his tears. His loved Freddy, “bitzli Genosse”, his friend in arms during their Morgarten battles was to leave forever! To this Alfred, the ever pragmatic Swiss, reacted by getting upset and pushing his brother away: “Also Fried! I managed to survive your Morgarten battles, survived a drowning in Ägerisee, got lost for in the Alps for three days in plain winter and now you think this is the last time we will see each other? I will invite you to Bolivia next summer, next year.” With these words, Alfred turned around and boarded the train… Once the train got going and Alfredo got tired of observing the ever expanding urban mass of Buenos Aires started to make his calculations on the trip. He was to cover 2,700kms. By land! On his last long train trip from Rorschach to Hamburg he had travelled 840km, one third of the trip and it had been quite dreadful, even when those trains were modern ones, with proper cushioned seats, not these awful park-like wooden banks… On the other hand his transatlantic journey which took 8 days to New York in 3rd. class couldn’t measure up. For US$142.00 he managed to travel from Hamburg to New York but it was a truly pleasant experience. People were upbeat, looking forward to a new life and he had had the opportunity to meet all sorts of individuals and families, polished some of his dire Spanish and even got to learn some truly lovely songs. DEVELOP FURTHER He guessed that by traveling at 35km/h (22mi) he would reach the border in 51.4 hours or 2.1 days, non-stop. An illusion since schedules did not coincide and, in every mayor city he would have to find our when the next train would leave. His first stretch should not be so complicated since he could take a single trip to get from Buenos Aires to Córdoba via Rosario. “Easy pease” he thought, until he sat on the wooden bench… Then in Córdoba he would have to get on a train to Tucuman, directions up to Tucuman were easy and many had tons of advice on what to do, where to eat, the sights and accommodations. But once he started asking about Jujuy, well people either made a joke on the word: “Jujuy! Yes you will celebrate once you get there!” Or simply stared at him wondering what he meant or, the rumors, of course! Jujuy? It’s a town of Indians, they plague the city so if you want to get somewhere you better make sure you hire a mestizo who speaks whatever they speak. The weather there is harsh and extreme, either cold and wet or warm and humid. And as to the food? Well, my dear German! You better make sure your sausage stomach can digest the Indian’s food. Don’t you forget our Indians hate whites since we have been exterminating them over the last 400 years! So expect anything from them! Wondering if they were right, Alfred only found out that Jujuy had just gained access to electricity a year before. So he started pondering what king of future expected him, since the further north he moved, the more rudimentary things looked. All in all, he figured it would take him 6 days to cross Argentina, 2.1 days on train and 3 days either relaxing in major cities, sightseeing or making up for loss time. Once at the Bolivian border well, as things stood so far, he had still no idea what would happen. All he knew is that in Bolivia he would have to cross 900km of a completely inhospitable desert. Yet people kept on telling him that commerce between Argentina and Bolivia was booming and that most of the goods passed through the border al “la Quiaca”, so transportation should be readily available. Besides! Bolivia is a poor country, any guy with a mule will take you all the way to la Paz, which is where the goods come from. How little did he know and, how soon would he learn not to trust Argentineans at all. Better put Latin-Americans as a whole! But since he had only met Argentineans and some Chileans so far his disappointment and distrust would center on Argentineans for now, in the first part of his odyssey. So his initial leg to el Rosario of 395kms. Should take him 15:00hrs, 11.2hrs of transit and 3hrs more for delays and brief stops at minor stations Alfred thought. He planned to ride the whole stretch to Rosario and then stop there for a day, to recover and to enjoy the sights. But then the trip started with a 2hr delay. The train had been officially inaugurated in 1908, but little did Alfred know that in the Americas infrastructure, timetables and planning are decided politically. Nothing to do with engineers and planners, even less with the completion of projects; yet completely conditioned on the needs, desires and arrogance of the politicos. An innocent Swiss growing a thicker skin in the land of opportunity… Despite the assurance that this brand new train would travel at 45km/h the trained engineer soon calculated he was travelling at 25km/h if not less. Some math later resulted in a terrible result, his trip to Rosario should last some 15.8hrs non-stop! Plus a 2hr delay in Buenos Aires he was already 20% behind schedule! Besides, he had not been able to get any assertion of any of the train conductors or engineers that they would ride throughout the night! When Alfredo finally got himself to calculate his trip to Bolivia, he realized that with what he had realized so far in his first 4 hours of travel is that the trip would last at least 35% longer! Almost 3 days more! Regardless of his Swisswatch pragmatic thrifty mind, Alfred started to worry about his expedition trough the Bolivian desert. No way was he going to spent more than two weeks on the road, he had already paid for a boarding house in la Paz, having to spend more on this trip due to the setbacks was going to threaten his scarce savings perilously. It had taken him almost 6 months to pay for his trip from Europe to Argentina which meant he had only been saving over the last nine months! And with that money he was supposed to buy his ménage in Bolivia, again. Whatever he had accumulated in Argentina was left behind for his brother or for newly arrived comrades en “la Fraternidad”, so that they could get a head start. He was starting all over for the third time in his life if he included his internships in Switzerland, and was only 22 years old! He then proceeded to read a little bit about the Bolivian desert and started to worry even further. He was heading towards the one of the highest plateaus in the world. Known to be the driest desert in the world, when measuring how much desert he would need to cross, he immediately forgot the stupid bolts drilling his buttocks and fell in shock. Turned his sight onto the beautiful Argentinean scenery and started admiring the endless fields of corn, wheat and flowers. How was he going to digest this shock? Should he retrace his odyssey and run back to his beloved alps? What was he to do? He was heading directly towards God’s hell on earth! How does a man survive in a land without water? After all I almost drowned and froze once due to excessive water, how can a Schwyzer always surrounded by fresh cold water survive in a completely dry land? As his endeavor quickly turned overwhelming and his mind entered a defensive stage where thoughts vanish and fantasies take over he drifted back into Sattel his beloved little Sattel town where everyone knew each other and they, the von Euw’s had been so respected for so many centuries. His eyes started to see the mountains surrounding their land, Mostelberg, Rossberg, Morgatenberg and the water he was nos missing so badly: Ägerisee, der Bibertal, die Muota. Heaven…
Posted on: Sun, 17 Aug 2014 05:24:41 +0000
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