Quotes from book
The Old Patagonian Express

The Old Patagonian Express

The Old Patagonian Express is a written account of a journey taken by novelist Paul Theroux. Starting out from his home town in Massachusetts, via Boston and Chicago, Theroux travels by train across the North American plains to Laredo, Texas. He then crosses the border and takes a train south through Mexico to Veracruz where he meets a woman looking for her long-lost lover. He then takes the train south into Guatemala and then El Salvador where he goes to a soccer match and is amazed by the violence. He then flies to Costa Rica where he takes the train to Limón and Puntarenas. He ended his transit of Central America in Panama where he takes the short train ride across the isthmus. Theroux then proceeds to Colombia and then over the Andes and finally reaches the small town of Esquel in Patagonia. He endures harsh climates, including the extreme altitude of Peru and the Bolivian Plateau, meets the author Jorge Luis Borges in Buenos Aires and is reunited with long lost family in Ecuador.


Paul Theroux photo
Paul Theroux photo
Paul Theroux photo

“Tightfisted people are as mean with friendship as they are with cash--suspicious, unbelieving, and incurious.”

Chapter 5 http://books.google.com/books?id=vrtURNBqzRMC&q=%22Tightfisted+people+are+as+mean+with+friendship+as+they+are+with+cash+suspicious+unbelieving+and+incurious%22&pg=PA94#v=onepage, The Passenger Train to Tapachula
The Old Patagonian Express (1979)

Similar authors

Paul Theroux photo
Paul Theroux 32
American travel writer and novelist 1941
Sinclair Lewis photo
Sinclair Lewis 136
American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright
W. Somerset Maugham photo
W. Somerset Maugham 158
British playwright, novelist, short story writer
Henry Miller photo
Henry Miller 187
American novelist
F. Scott Fitzgerald photo
F. Scott Fitzgerald 411
American novelist and screenwriter
Julio Cortázar photo
Julio Cortázar 29
Argentinian writer
Jack Kerouac photo
Jack Kerouac 266
American writer
Paulo Coelho photo
Paulo Coelho 844
Brazilian lyricist and novelist
William Saroyan photo
William Saroyan 190
American writer
Ilya Ehrenburg photo
Ilya Ehrenburg 1
Russian-Soviet writer and poet