November 14, 1978 was a free day at Esquel on Karl Helft's South American steam tour. So Ronald Johnson and I hired a car and driver in Esquel for a drive to El Maiten to catch the weekly southbound mixed train. Unfortunately our car was not in the most outstanding mechanical condition, as the clutch cable broke on the gravel road to El Maiten. From then on the only way to start the car was to move it with the starter until the motor started up, and then to shift gears by synchronizing car and engine speeds. Needless to say, our driver was not keen to make many stops while chasing the mixto, so we had to park on a downhill slope to help out the starter motor, and to make each view point count by hiking to the best places we could find. So here are two photos from our clutch-less adventure.
I still regard this scene as probably my favorite - a tiny train in the vastness of Patagonia