What is Jauja?

I first really noticed Jauja when, writing my first guidebook to Argentina in the early 1990s, I visited the alternative Andean community of El Bolsón and tasted some of the most exquisite ice cream ever. Though I had been to Peru, where there’s a city of that name, it never occurred to me that it meant anything more than a place name.

It’s still something of a puzzle to me, even after watching the Argentine director Lisandro  Alonso’s film of the same name (trailer above) on Netflix. I had seen Alonso’s previous film “Liverpool” – a gritty realist effort set, despite the name, in Ushuaia, the world’s southernmost city – but “Jauja” is something else entirely.

To start with, Alonso recruited a big name actor, Viggo Mortensen, as his leading man. That interested me partly because the Danish-American Mortensen shares something of my own Scandinavian heritage but also spent much of his youth in Argentina, where he learned to speak Spanish. Mortensen portrays Danish officer Gunnar Dinesen who, at least in this film, was part of the euphemistically titled “Conquest of the Desert” that displaced the indigenous peoples of what is now Argentine Patagonia in the 1880s.

Patagonia, of course, always attracts my attention, and I’m eager to see whether I recognize the location of any given film. The opening scenes take place in a coastal area where Dinesen and his companions are taking a breather from searching for a deserter who’s become a bandit, and his daughter runs off with a young soldier. It appears to be a western, perhaps resembling US director John Ford’s “The Searchers,” but there’s quite a twist at the end. It's worth stressing, however, that this is not an action movie.

As for the locations seen in the film, I couldn’t catch all the final credits, but one of them mentions the city of Viedma, whose coastline (pictured above) resembles some of the early scenes (including the sea lions along the shore). Alonso probably filmed Dinesen’s search through the mountains at Sierra de la Ventana (pictured below) in southern Buenos Aires province.

Meanwhile, I should point out the ostensible meaning of “jauja” in the Southern Cone - it’s something of a Garden of Eden metaphor, which is ironic in the context of this movie. It’s not, though, in the context of El Bolsón’s ice creamery, which now has branches in other Argentine cities, including my own Buenos Aires neighborhood of Palermo (pictured below).

Argentine Trains Off the Rails, So to Speak

In 1985, we rode this freight from San Antonio de los Cobres to the Chilean border at Socompa.

A couple weeks ago, at work, my wife was to participate in a lunchtime game that required each person on her team to disclose a fact, anonymously, that nobody would expect about him or her; in turn, the team would try to match the fact with the person. When she asked me to suggest what she might reveal, I told her she should offer that she had once hitched a lift on a freight train, which the two of us did from the northwestern Argentine town of San Antonio de los Cobres to the international border, before continuing on toward Antofagasta on a Chilean freight.

The train station at San Antonio de los Cobres, with my backpack at right.

That was in 1985, on the route now known as the Tren a las Nubes (Train to the Clouds); to the best of my memory, it was the last time I rode a long-distance train – as opposed to commuter and tourist trains - in Argentina (or Chile, for that matter). It was enormous fun, as the crew let us sleep in the caboose and, during the daytime, the engineer even invited us up to the locomotive.

At one time, numerous train left from Retiro to destinations throughout Argentina. Today, only a handful do.

Still, I’m often asked about trains in Argentina and, reluctantly, I tell everybody that, unless you’re a fanatical trainspotter or perhaps even a foamer, it’s best to stick to the bus or plane. In the 1980s we often took the train, most notably on our honeymoon from Retiro (pictured above) to Mendoza, a trip from hell that took place during Argentina’s July winter holidays of 1981. We were on a budget, in “Pullman” seats that reclined only slightly, and our car filled up with military conscripts who, at that time, traveled for free as long as they remained standing on a 24-hour marathon. It was not fun.

Estación Constitución in its early days

That no longer happens, partly because there is no more conscription in Argentina but mostly because there are so few trains, and except for the one that runs between Constitución (Buenos Aires, pictured above in early days) and Mar del Plata, they’re pretty dismal. According to the city daily Clarín, a rail network that stretched some 37,000 km in 1950 now covers only 7,500 km, and freight has priority on most of the remaining track. Trains like El Gran Capitán, which until recently connected the capital with the northern city of Posadas, are by all accounts something to avoid (especially in summer, when the weather is brutally hot and humid). It’s theoretically possible to travel by rail from Constitución to Bariloche, but that requires crossing the Río Negro from Carmen de Patagones to Viedma and then waiting six days for the connection.

Yet the trains are full, and that’s because they’re cheap. To quote Clarín, “According to the level of service, the bus can cost nine times more than the train,” which is the only option for many poorer Argentines. The train to Córdoba, for instance, costs 30 pesos (about US$7), while the bus can cost 250 pesos (roughly US$64). For that reason, the trains sell out early: “In high season, it’s better to buy 90 days ahead of time – the rest of the year 15 should be sufficient – and departures are few: the train departs only Monday and Friday.”

That’s why I discourage anybody but the truly determined from taking long-distance trains in Argentina. My friends Darek Przebieda and Analía Rupar of Eureka Travel recommend the Tren Patagónico from Viedma to Bariloche but, even then, they have to admit that the 18-hour trip averages only about 45 km per hour, and a comfortable sleeper bus would cover the distance in half the time. For my part, I’ll stick with an excursion on Esquel’s La Trochita.