The article deals with the author's self-fashioning and disocurse s of Other in the so-called paralle diaries kept by Jiří and Růžena Baums during their travel to South Africa in the late 1930s. The attention is paid not only this renowned couple of travellers but also tu a specific type of travel literature as well as to the ways in which the Baums produced gendered images of Other and, in connection to this, also their cultural identities.