In 2002, South African Marianne Du Toit set out to travel from Argentina to New York on horseback, despite having little money, limited experience of horses and no idea how long the journey would take. How was it? No problem, she tells Rosita Boland
Too much planning bogs me down. I get smothered with detail. So I didn't do too much of it before I went." South African-born Marianne Du Toit (37) is explaining how she coped with preparations for what turned out to be a two-year solo trek with horses, from Argentina to Central Park, New York. Her book about the journey, Crying with Cockroaches; Argentina to New York with Two Horses, has just been published.
Du Toit's first visit to Ireland was prompted more than a decade ago by reading an article in a South African magazine about Fungi the Dingle dolphin. At the time, she was living in London, nannying and doing barwork. She had been on the move for some time. When she was 18 and had finished school, she worked as a nanny in Germany. Du Toit then returned to Africa to start a course in Johannesburg in social work, which she gave up as she was getting too "emotionally involved". She went instead to Stellenbosch University to study political science and psychology. After the initial visit to Ireland to see Fungi, Du Toit kept returning, and now lives here full-time.
In 2002, she set off for Buenos Aires, with the intention of replicating the route followed by Swiss-born Aimé Félix Tschiffely, who rode from Argentina to Washington DC in 1933. He spent three years on his journey, and the book he wrote about the experience, Tschiffely's Ride, was a bestseller and is now considered a classic.
Du Toit had some experience with horses from her childhood in Gauteng, South Africa, where her family had a farm, but it was a rather incomplete experience. As she explains in her book: "One of the helpers would get the horses ready, and my brothers and I would go for a somewhat out-of-control gallop . . . Back at the stables we would hand the horses back, having had very little opportunity to learn the basics of horsemanship and horse maintenance."
It's clear that a woman who had never tacked up a horse on her own, yet was planning to trek for thousands of miles doesn't let things like basics get in the way of her dreams.
"I knew I needed money to do the trip, so I looked for sponsors," she explains. Du Toit may just have hit on a new way of funding travel: she simply went out asking companies and corporations for money, which they gave to her, with the expectation of nothing more in return than a mention in the acknowledgements of her book. Her fellow travel writer Dervla Murphy may not approve, but this is how Du Toit raised the €50,000 she estimated she would need on the journey.
In her book, she writes: "Being a girl that does the 'clean, tone and moisturise' routine religiously every night, I knew" . . . at this point, the reader might think that Du Toit intended to ditch the beauty routine while roughing it with horses, but no . . . "I knew I had to get a company to sponsor me with cosmetic products." She didn't actually succeed in doing this.
She wasn't sure before she set out how long the journey would take. "I calculated that I would ride 30 kilometres a day for five days a week and then rest for two days, so I thought it would probably take me 18 months in total. But really, I did that sum to keep other people happy, because everyone kept asking me how long it was going to take, and I had no idea." In the end, it took two years.
Du Toit wanted to ride Criollo horses, which are native to Argentina, as Tschiffely had. She found two in Argentina, one of them in Cordoba's polo club, and named them Mise and Tusa (me and you). Then it was onwards to New York. On the way, Du Toit learned everything she needed to know about horses. The lowest point of her trip was in Brazil, where Tusa got equine infectious anaemia, or swamp fever, and had to be put down, according to the law of that country.
"Before the trip, my uncle told me to keep a diary. I'd never been disciplined enough to keep one before." Du Toit did keep her diary, every day, even after eight hours in the saddle. As she completed them, she sent them back to Ireland, one by one, where the anxious friend she posted them to ended up putting them in a bank vault, so afraid was she that something would happen to them while in her care. "I guess I always had it in the back of my mind that I'd write a book, so I knew the diaries would be important."
Du Toit ended her trip by riding through New York, where she was invited to participate in the Saint Patrick's Day parade. On her return to Ireland, she spent three months transcribing her diaries and then almost two years writing Crying with Cockroaches(there is a fair bit of both in the book).
Du Toit decided to do the book on her own, without the help of publishers or editors. "I knew from the very, very beginning I wanted to have total control over it. I wanted the freedom to write what I wanted." She had invested a sizable sum of her own money in the project, which she hopes to make back through sales of the book, which has a print run of 5,000. There was some €30,000 left from the money she had raised from sponsors, but none of this went toward funding the publishing of the book: all the leftover money has been donated to Pegasus in Sligo, a recently-established therapeutic riding centre for both children and adults.
Crying with Cockroacheswas launched by Bertie Ahern last month. How did she manage to get An Taoiseach to do the honours? "I met him at a charity ball and I asked him," she explains breezily.
Marianne Du Toit may not have written a book about a journey with horses across the Americas that will still be in print in 70 years, as Tschiffely's Rideis. But she certainly deserves recognition for her sheer determination and resourcefulness.
An adventure? No problem - two years from Argentina to New York, by horse. Funding for the adventure? No problem - simply ask for sponsorship, and give the excess to a good cause. Publishing a book about the journey? No problem - do it yourself. Need someone to launch the book? No problem - ask the head of government to do it. A lot done, more to do. The slogan could have been written specially for her.
• Crying With Cockroaches, Argentina to New York with Two Horses,costs €22 and is distributed by Eason's