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One of the hottest travelogues to hit the shelves of late is none other than Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara’s The Motorcycle Diaries (2003), in which the young medical student recounts his eye-opening journey in 1951–52 through Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Venezuela, Peru and Colombia by motorcycle. Although only part of it takes place in Argentina, it’s a must-read.
In Bad Times in Buenos Aires (1999), Miranda France touches on everything from the quality of Argentine condoms to the country’s obsession with psychoanalysis, in a wry account of her stay in the capital while working as a journalist in the 1990s.
If you’re wandering down to Patagonia (and even if you’re not), pick up Bruce Chatwin’s In Patagonia (1977), one of the most informed syntheses of life and landscape for any part of South America. For a glimpse into some gripping Patagonian mountaineering, read Gregory Crouch’s Enduring Patagonia (2001), in which the author details his ascents of Cerro Torre’s brutal west face and several other wild climbs.
Nick Reding’s The Last Cowboys at the End of the Earth: The Story of the Gauchos of Patagonia (2001) takes place mostly in Chile, but is equally pertinent to the conditions and changes in neighboring Argentine Patagonia. It’s part travelogue and part history and filled with memorable characters.
Frequently reprinted, William Henry Hudson’s Idle Days in Patagonia (1893) is a romantic account of the 19th-century naturalist’s adventures in search of migratory birds. Also check out his The Purple Land (1885) and Far Away and Long Ago (1918).
Make a special effort to locate Lucas Bridges’ The Uttermost Part of the Earth (1947), which describes his life among the indigenous peoples of Tierra del Fuego.
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