In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin

 In December 1974 thirty four year old Bruce Chatwin left a journalistic job in Buenos Aires and went “walkabout” in Patagonia. 

Patagonia is not a precise region but a vast territory that encompasses 900,000 square kilometres of Argentina and Chile at the most southern part of the South American continent. 

The result of his travels was this book that I finished reading as we approached Ushuaia. The book was published  in 1977.

Paul Theroux, a travel writer I have enjoyed immensely over the years wrote a review of the book. He wrote “In this uttermost place on earth, legend matters more than literature - stories of outlaws, cannibals and giants…… His book is pure pleasure - full of incident and anecdote and the oddest of facts imaginable. He has fulfilled the desire of all real travellers, of having found a place that is far and strange and seldom visited……. In Mr Chatwin’s book it is exciting, boisterous and bizarre, populated by Indians and exiles. The exiles are various - Welsh farmers, Russians, French and German emigres, members of the Bahai religious sect (“Ha I kill the ungodly” says one of these threatening Mr Chatwin with a machete) and a pompous prince,  HRH Prince Philippe of Araucanian and Patagonia.”

A most enjoyable read. Bruce Chatwin was born in 1940 and attended Marlborough School (a school my parents nearly sent me to). He then worked at Southeby’s eventually becoming one of their youngest directors. He abandoned his job and became a journalist with the Sunday Times between 1972 - 1975. He died in 1989 at the age of forty-eight.