Aimé Félix Tschiffely

An adventurer at heart, he left Switzerland to teach in England in his early 20s, but found a new passion as a professional footballer and boxer.

[citation needed] He wrote about his ride in a bestselling book called Southern Cross to Pole Star, The Ride or Tschiffely's Ride in which he recounts his epic three-year journey from 1925 to 1928 on two native Criollo horses named Mancha (meaning Spot) and Gato (meaning Cat), direct descendants of horses brought to Argentina by the conquistador Pedro de Mendoza in 1535, the first horses brought to the new world.

After Ride Tschiffely became a famous successful author and moved with his wife Violet to London where he continued to write more books, one of which was a biography of his friend Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham who had died in 1936.

In 1937 he returned to South America and made another journey, by car, to the southern tip of the continent, recording his experiences among the natives and the changes brought on by modernity in This Way Southward (1940).

In February 1998, and according to his final wishes, his ashes were buried next to Gato and Mancha in Emilio Solanet's farm, near Ayacucho, Argentina.