Southern Summer, Argentina, Chile and Y Wladfa Gymreig 21st Jan

We have already bought our tickets for La Trochita departing at 2-00 pm so we head into town to buy some lunch and look around the shops.
The trip lasts a total of 3 hours, just over an hour's steaming each way and about 50 minutes at the Mapuche reservation at Nahuel Pan. I took a few pictures in the museum and around the station before departure. This first one is the tableau as you enter the rather crumbie museum.

Meet the staff. These are the guys in the guards van. 

The classic front on view of the engine. The lower grill that looks a little bit like a snowplough is what they called a cow catcher in the old wild west. 

I don't apologise for taking quite a lot of photos of this because I liked it.

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The engine is fired by fuel oil which gives out a black smoke and doesn't quite smell the same as coal but makes it much easier on the footplate. 

And this is why they need the cow catcher. Some sharp photo shooting by Helen.

At the turn around point. This is something we used to do before the selfie, it's called the someonelsie.

 Please indulge me in just one more.

These are some of the offerings from the Mapuche people showing off their traditional knitting skills. They do however like to keep their subjects up to date. Can you see a famous Premier Division football club and at least two Hollywood characters? Come on Annabel.

This is the salamander. It's a wood burning stove that people gathered around for heat, warm up their soup or mate and most of all socialise. Our seats were just to the right of the fuel box and therefore would have been the best seats on the train. We had a most solicitous guide who provided us with an English speaking headset. Finally a few more shots of the wonderful scenery and a glimpse of the team who would stop the traffic to let the train pass then dash on in their next crossing.