Outside behind the bar, the waitress snaps a cassette into a boom box. The tables fill and travel stories are exchanged. The next morning, one can sit in the dining car, sip coffee, and watch the land change into something like Wisconsin. Gone now are the mesquite and scrub oak of central Chile. Here black and white Holstein cows munch rain softened grass.
Fog surrounds a well-kept dairy farm, then soon dissolves into sunlight.
The Ferrocarriles del Estado is no bullet train. Instead it rolls along slowly and steadily with a certain Latin majesty. At each station it discharges the odd backpacker or two intent on trekking to their favorite park. At Temuco it is the Parque National Conguillio and its Volcano Llaima. Further south the right of way passes near Volcano Villarrica, mighty enough to have its own national park.