Word: gato
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Dates: during 1933-1933
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...glorified sabbatical. Friends thought him crazy; Buenos Aires' potent newspaper, La Nation, gave him good advice, took his picture when he was ready to start. With no companions but two stocky, middle-aged (15 and 16) Argentine Criollo horses, "thoroughbred in nothing except courage," Tschiffely headed north. Gato (the Cat), Mancha (the Stained One) and their master were two and a half years on the road. Gato came down with an infected leg in Tapachula, Mexico, had to be shipped to Mexico City by rail, but Mancha and Tschiffely made the whole trek (except for a short boat-ride...
...crossed them three times), to Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador. Colombia. Panama, Central America, Mexico, Tschiffely & beasts plowed through jungles, swamps, deserts, mountain passes, across swinging bridges, in fair & foul weather. Once Tschiffely, on a dark night, tried to drive his comrades over a precipice; their horse sense saved him. Once Gato refused to budge; Tschiffely found he was facing a quicksand. Tschiffely refuses to manufacture adventures, but admits that once he had to shoot in self-defense. He often had passport trouble and was occasionally taken for a spy, but by the time he reached Mexico City his fame had preceded...
...With pardonable pride, however, he tells how Mancha, his spirit still unbroken after some 10,000 mi., convinced a Governors Island sergeant he was unridable. After a Jimmy Walker reception in Manhattan, all three sailed back to the Argentine in grand style, Tschiffely to a triumphant homecoming, Mancha and Gato to a carefree old age on their native pampas...