101 años despues

Well it´s not quite the same voyage, but it is 101 years later.


I have learned an interesting piece of my family history while visiting an uncle in Santiago that I would like to share. Walterio Meyer Rusca left Switzerland in 1907 (at age 25) for Chile to work an 8 month contract as a railway survey engineer. He boarded a steamboat in Genova and arrived 3 weeks later in Buenos Aires. From there he went by train to Mendoza, and by small gauge train up into the Andes. He crossed the mountains by horse carriage and continued to the pacific ocean by train. A boat from the port of Valparaiso took him to the north where he worked. The following year Walterio returned to Chile again to work in the South and this time decided to stay.

Cruzando Paso de Juncal

Cuesta de los Buitres

Los ayudantes

Walterio wrote a diary of his travels and work and took many photographs which he would send home to his parents. His Diario de vida 1907-1909 Chile will be published next year in Spanish and German and will include letters and over 100 photos.