UYUNI & EL CEMENTERIO DE TRENES

Not so far from where Butch and Sundance met their fate,
Is a wild west kinda town, perched on a dusty plain,
Ringed by distant hills. In a chinese restaurant,
Rafa and I are quizzed by the slowest talking man
In the world. We chew the fat. The psychology
Of Shakespeare, amongst other topics which the length
Of his sentences leave no space to explore. The
Next day lawless students hold up the high street. Their
Demands are blunt: a roof for their uncovered sports
Hall. Cross the barricade and they’ll shoot in cold blood.

Just out of town is the train cemetery. Rusting
Locomotives by the dozen, Thomas the Tank
Engines endowed with a strange pathos, waiting for
The desert to consume them. Last traces of a
Breed on the verge of extinction. The railway still
Carries freight from Potosi to Uyuni to
Antofagasta on the Chilean coast, a
Coast which was once Bolivia’s and which they still
Claim. Painted on the side of one train are the words:
G W Busch, Como Este Train Terminaras.

11.10.04 san juan