JOEL GRIFFETT

What might not be clear, probably because I didn’t explain it properly is that Trevithick is unlikely to have gone to Chile, at least this is what I think right now. If I find any leads when I reach Peru this may change, as it was from Lima he may have ventured south when he went on a tour of the mines to learn more about their practices. What might be more clear is how little I’ve spoken of Trevithick himself, only mentioning him in regard to the state of the railroads in Chile. At the rate I’m going it will be nearly 4 months by the time I reach Lima or Cerro de Pasco, where the Trevithick Trail actually begins. I assure you I’m not wasting my time. I am engaging in something known unofficially as the zigzag method, a literal and figurative way of incorporating as much similar material into the same project.

This is why I am passing through places like Antofagasta and talking about men like George Hicks. Similar men from nearby places all bearing similar, fiery personalities. This is why I am currently in Bolivia, a country I hadn’t even planned on going to, to skirt around the margins and get to grips with the wider themes of the book. I went down a working mine in Potosi wearing more safety gear than the miners themselves, I visited the ‘ghost town’ of Pulacayo not far from Huanchaca mine where another Cornishman was nearly assassinated by the locals, all with the intention of understanding mining in South America from the colonial period to the present day. None of this is explicitly ‘The Trevithick Trail’ but without it I wouldn’t have much to write about. George Hicks, Robert Harvey, John and Henry Jose and John Penberthy are all names harbouring fascinating and mysterious stories that have allowed me to expand the premise of my research, the blog and eventually the book that this will become. Trevithick and the others who came after him all share similar traits and these are the things I want to focus on – spirit and character of Cornish individuals – not the nuts and bolts of mining and engineering.

This is an adventure, not an academic exercise. Zigzagging around has given me more time to think and to research my approach as I head further north, to learn more Spanish, and to ensure that I don’t have any more regrets about what I missed or what I should have known or thought about before I left. I’m not an established researcher or author, I’m an idiot. This is as much a learning curve for me as it is an historical adventure. This blog is far more experimental and unfocused than any finished book would be, not least because it’s very easy to forget I’m anything more than a traveller with a travel blog. Everything is getting better the further in it gets. The focus; the encounters and interactions and all of this is possible because I’m in absolutely no rush whatsoever. If I rushed straight for Peru after the lack of findings in Chile I would have missed so much. The digressions and the detours are as integral to the story as Trevithick himself and while it may not seem so streamlined right now, when I shape and mould this mountain of writing (there is so much more written in my notebooks that hasn’t even seen the light of day yet) into something more streamlined and official all this zigzagging, all those times when I wake up and wonder what on earth I’m doing; all those times I explain myself and my intentions horribly and people look completely disinterested will all be valuable experiences as I endeavour to write the first, of many books.