In Patagonia

I have enjoyed reading this travel classic. I have, honestly I have. All good travel/ history should have one reaching for google maps and even reading (at worst) wikipedia and I have been doing that. With that I am keen to go to all the exotic places that the author visited, those places with Spanish names that are seemingly full of not only Latins but Englishmen and Germans and Welsh and have strange natives and had the likes of North American outlaws gallivanting around the countryside. What more could one want from a book like this? It has set the travel juices flowing as all good travel writing should.

But.....I just have the horrible feeling that I might have been better reading this back in the day. That day should have been when I was in my late teens and not my fast approaching old age. Back then this book would have seemed vital, important, an adventure fantasy, a tome to enthuse about to my book reading pals.

Now? It just reads like the writings of a literate backpacker. One who wants to let his family and friends know about his great big adventure while on his travels. One who has the forethought to add a few historical tid bits to tide the adventure over during the rainy days stuck in the internet cafe. Yes! that's it. The type of prose that gets posted on a personal blog or even at worst facebook.

“The book that redefined travel writing” says a quote on the back of my copy. Maybe that was the point, a personal travel writing blog long before a travel writing blog was even thought of. The appeal is the every-man prose. Yep I had to read this when I was young.

Written in my favorite style of travel writing, with personal anecdotes and unforgettable descriptions of people and places, so I enjoyed the time I spent with this book. Sometimes I found it hard to follow his train of thought and a lot of the historical references were unfamiliar to me, but I just kept reading because he writes so well.

The book has sparked my interest in the area and the history, so I count it as well worth the read.