Paul Theroux · 1979 · rail

Paul Theroux's 1979 travelogue, subtitled By Train Through the Americas, in which he sets out from a snowbound Boston subway platform and travels overland, almost entirely by train, the length of two continents to the bleak end of the line in Patagonia. Misanthropic, funny and brilliant on the romance and squalor of railways. The route runs from Boston to the little Old Patagonian Express in the far south.

1. 1
   Boston

   Theroux boards a local train out of wintry Boston, determined to ride the rails all the way to the bottom of the Americas.

2. 2
   Chicago

   West and south through the United States, the trains growing shabbier and the country stranger as he goes.

3. 3
   Mexico City

   Across the Rio Grande and down through Mexico to its teeming capital, the real journey now begun.

4. 4
   Guatemala City

   Through the small hot republics of Central America, by rattletrap trains and buses, to Guatemala and beyond.

5. 5
   Panama City

   To Panama and the canal, the southern continent waiting across the impassable Darien.

6. 6
   Bogota

   A reluctant flight over the Darien Gap to Colombia, the only break in the long ribbon of rail.

7. 7
   Cusco

   High into the Andes by the great mountain railways, to Cusco and the thin cold air of the old Inca heartland.

8. 8
   La Paz

   Across the altiplano to La Paz, the highest capital on earth, the train labouring among the peaks.

9. 9
   Buenos Aires

   Down at last to the pampas and Buenos Aires, the most European of South American cities.

10. 10
    Esquel

    And on to the very end, the narrow-gauge Old Patagonian Express puffing out across the empty Patagonian steppe.