Patagonia, Alone. (*)
Beginning and end of a travel report? This is not the case. Instead, this is a collage of my own experience and quotes from well-known sailors, adventurers, famous writers, settlers, naturalists. Quotes from unknown great people too who had either explored or imagined Patagonia. The photographs of my travels through Patagonia try to evoke -in some way- the selected citations.

William Hudson wrote: “We know that the more deeply our feelings are moved by any scene the more vivid and lasting will its image be in memory. A fact which accounts for the comparatively unfading character of the images that date back to the period of childhood, when we are most emotional. Judging from my own case, I believe that we have here the secret of the persistence of Patagonian images, and their frequent recurrence in the minds of many who have visited that grey, monotonous, and, in one sense, eminently uninteresting region.”

You will get to know the travellers from their own daries and publications. And then, maybe venture into virgin lands full of myths and secrets, misfortunes and legends. Where the chimerical can still be perceived. Where the tiny and the immensity share the same scenario. Where Tehuelches and Selknam among other natives were exclusive inhabitants of these territories just 150 years ago.
Patagonia beats deeply in my soul. I go there from time to time. However, I’d rather say that I always return there.

(*) The origin of the title of this book “Citas a solas en Patagonia” (translated as “Having a date in Patagonia”) is a play on words in Spanish. A “cita” (“date” in English) is an encounter (in this case alone) but also makes reference to a piece of a text taken out from a written work, that is to say a quotation.