Argentina

The Motorcycle Diaries – Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara

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This proved to be a far shorter book than I had anticipated, but it was a great read. Ernesto (Che) was living in Cordoba, I must say I was totally ignorant of the fact that he was a doctor, and sets off on a great adventure, south from Buenos Aires, across Argentina to Bariloche and enters Chile at the same border crossing as me! So far, so evocative. The pair head up to Santiago and Valparaiso, ditch the bike (so it’s partly, the hitchhiking diaries) and this is where things deviate, because they use a boat to get to the north, but then via Arica and Tacna to lots of exploring around Cuzco. Like me, Che didn’t have the best time in Colombia and the pair end in Caracas, which is described as a wonderful city. Finishing off my 9 months in South America, this was the perfect time to read this book, which is both critical and celebratory, and also very interesting in the sections when the pair practice their medicine in leper colonies. The South America of the 1950’s sounds deeply different from the late 2010’s.

The Widow Ching Pirate by Jorge Luis Borges

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How intellectual. I chose to read this collection of five essays by celebrated Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges after staying in Palermo, Buenos Aires where I walked up and down Calle Jorge Luis Borges, where appropriately enough there is a bookshop. It started excellently, with the interesting tale of the woman who was the most successful pirate of all time and an interesting biography of New York gangster Monk Easton. His explanation of samurai suicide was a little confusing to me, and the final two essays really went over my head – the first being a fascinating but somewhat baffling story of an extraterrestrial civilisation and the final was Borges seeking to score points about the authorship of Don Quixote, a book I admit not to have read. I enjoyed what I enjoyed, but I’m clearly a philistine.