This Way Southward: The Account of a Journey Through Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego

by Aimé Tschiffely

Tschiffely rides again ! But this time in a 30 horse-power Ford. The most famous equestrian explorer of the twentieth century decides to make a perilous journey across the Atlantic. His mission? To return to his old haunts in South America and undertake a harrowing 7,000 mile journey through Argentina, across the inhospitable regions of Tierra del Fuego and over the majestic Andes mountains. One of the finest travel writers of his day, Tschiffely packs his story with a host of adventures and colourful characters including riding with gauchos and staying with the legendary Ona Indians. In addition "This Way Southward" details the adventurer's emotional last meeting with his two legendary Criollo horses, Mancha and Gato. These were the equine heroes Tschiffely had ridden for 10,000 miles in 1925 from Argentina to Washington DC, and who were now living in retirement on the wild South American pampas. Lavishly illustrated with maps and numerous photographs taken by the author, "This Way Southward" is a rare treat for anyone interested in the travels of this famous traveller. No equestrian travel collection is complete without this famous classic.

Genres: Nonfiction, Travel

354 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1991

About the author

Aimé Félix Tschiffely was a Swiss-born, Argentine professor, writer, and adventurer. He wrote a number of books, most famously Tschiffely's Ride (1933) in which he recounts his solo journey on horseback from Argentina to Washington DC, an epic adventure that still marks one of the greatest horse rides of all time. Tschiffely was a household name in the United States during the 1930s, meeting with President Calvin Coolidge and appearing in National Geographic Magazine and earning a lucrative living from his popular book sales.

http://www.aimetschiffely.org/

Reviews

[Daren · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book follows the authors travels south from Buenas Aires to Tierra del Fuego, with some side trips into the south of Chile. This time the author travels in a car, rather than by horse, for which he is more well known (in one of his earlier books he travelled from Buenas Aires to Washington by horse). His reasoning for the vehicle - there was insufficient time to travel by horse before the winter, and he couldn't spend two years on the trip.
The winter certainly did follow his efforts, every time he settled in for more than a few days the weather became colder and he had to set off again.

I enjoyed the writing in this. Tierra del Fuego is an interesting sounding place - not written about too often, although he only spent a short time there - more of the book was about the mainland travel. Tschiffely's writing is like a series of short stories. He has many friends and acquaintances in Argentina, and he runs into them in the most out of the way places. So many people seem to know of him due to his earlier exploits, and many ask after his famous horses Gato and Mancha who he visits in their retirement several times in this book.

As well as his stories about places and people, and the chronicling of his current travel, the intelligence / memory of horses gets plenty of time in this book - it is a theme the author returns to a number of times. He has a number of anecdotes to illustrate this, but none more obvious that his own horses reaction to his voice having not seen them for seven years. He also dips into the history of various places, adding a depth to his story.

Three and a half stars, rounded up.