Tschiffely's Ride

Telling of an incredible journey taking almost three years, covering ten thousand miles on horseback, undertaken by a Swiss school teacher, this is a book written in a remarkably simple style. Other reviewers suggested they had read it at school (or maybe while at school) and that makes sense with the writing - it is an easy read, and could quite conceivably be appreciated by younger readers. Having said that, I have just noted that the copy I have is an abridged version - which may account for the simplicity and the often abruptness - I hadn't noticed that discrete notation until now!

The simple style however can't detract from the story - which is quite incredible. Having lived in Argentina, where he worked as a teacher, the author dreamed up the idea of riding his two faithful horses to the USA (initially targeting New York, although in the end he stopped in Washington - mainly due to the actions of a number of car drivers in the USA).

Taking place in 1925 -27, the three Americas (South, Central and the United States of) all proved to be incredibly hospitable to the Swiss legend and his horses. Along his entire journey his reputation preceded him, and one of his bigger issues was how to extricate himself from celebrations after 3 or 4 days. Some towns planned a week long carnival extravaganza for his arrival, and to leave early would have been difficult.

Through an amazing array of terrains and conditions from deserts and jungle, heat, cold, rains, mud, sand, mountains and plains, his two Patagonian horses exceeded expectations and proved excellent at adapting. Tschiffely's close bond with his horses is apparent from his writing, and his ongoing concern for their well-being exceeds the concern he shows for his own.

From Argentina his route took in Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico and the USA.

There are many incidents, a huge number of people he meets and interacts with along the way, and many, many villages towns and cities he passes through - and he shares a glimpse of all of these with the reader. Only a glimpse at times, as he manages to condense such a massively long and complicated journey into a short book. Days would pass in the passage of a short paragraph, and weeks spent in towns for recovery were skipped over quite cleverly, never letting the exciting pace of the journey translate to the tedium that it in reality would have been at times.

As usual there were lots of sections that as I read I though ‘better make a note of that page' as I really wanted to quote a few, but instead I committed the numbers to an already overworked memory. There survives only one short quote which amused me at a lot.
P111-12
...furthermore the horses were at times literally covered in wood ticks and other insects. I found that a mixture of Vaseline, sulphur, and camphor lightly applied to the coats of the horses, especially on the legs, gave excellent results, and I sponged myself every night with creosote diluted in water. In spite of this, I was often full of little red ticks called “coloradillas”, which I picked up in the grass shrubbery where I had to graze the horses. The irritation these pests produced almost drove me crazy at times. Around the waist where the belt made pressure and rubbed, I was raw and bleeding. The perspiration running into these sores burnt so much that I had to apply distilled water with a six percent solution of cocaine, which temporarily had a soothing effect. Yeah I bet it did!

4 stars.