I watched Cuba Libre (excellent, and I highly recommend it) last month – the Netflix documentary on Cuba’s struggle for independence/freedom, and one of the heroes of the revolution was Ernesto Che Guevara.
Now, Che is someone I have hugely admired without knowing too many details about the man. I knew him as a symbol of anti-imperialism, anti-capitalism, and equal rights manifested in his ideals of communism. His story is legend: the Argentinian medical student who helped Castro overthrow the US-backed Cuban government and was executed by CIA-backed troops while trying to foment rebellion in the jungles of Bolivia.
There are mixed opinions of him – to some, he’s a brutal and violent man; to others, he is seen as a savior. It’s hard for me to judge (living on the other side of the world), but I was curious and wanted to learn more about him.
What drove him? What led him along this path? Well, The Motorcycle Diaries gives a brief glimpse into the inner man.
Synopsis
Guevara, a medical student from Argentina, took to the road on his motorcycle at 24 with his friend Alberto. They planned a trip through South America with no plans except to open themselves up to the world. They traveled through Chile, Peru, and Colombia and finally to Venezuela.
So how was The Motorcycle Diaries?
This book is somewhat misleadingly titled The Motorcycle Diaries. The motorcycle died within a few weeks of embarking on this adventure.
The road trippers were now bums without wheels, as Guevara wrote. They forged northward, however, through deserts and rainforests by hitching rides, walking, riding horses, and even stowing away on a ship. The pair slept in garages, barns, police stations, and under the stars.
The friends visited iconic locations such as Lake Titicaca and the ruins of Machu Picchu, which Guevara called the pure expression of the most powerful indigenous race in the Americas. They also visited decidedly less touristy locations like a copper mine in Chile operated by an American multinational company. There, Guevara witnessed the exploitation of the mine workers.
The only thing that matters is the enthusiasm with which the workers set to ruining their health in search of a few meager crumbs that barely provide their subsistence.
In Peru, the two Argentines saw the wretched poverty endured by indigenous people treated as second-class citizens.
These people who watch us walk through the streets of the town are a defeated race. Their stares are tame, almost fearful, and completely indifferent to the outside world. Some give the impression they go on living only because it’s a habit they cannot shake.
After sailing on the Amazon River, Alberto and Guevara spent two weeks at a leper colony in eastern Peru, where the humane treatment of the patients impressed the duo.
The psychological lift it gives to these poor people—treating them as normal human beings instead of animals, as they are used to—is incalculable.
The 8,000-mile trip from the Andes to the Amazon impacted Guevara by exposing him to social injustice, economic inequality, capitalist exploitation, and political repression.
I am not the person I once was. All this wandering around ‘Our America with a Capital A’ has changed me more than I thought.
It’s hard to judge this book on its literary merit. This work is like a series of diary entries cobbled into a book. Most of the writing is unimpressive, written in a manner that indicates it wasn’t written to be published. But I loved how it shows these two characters’ growth. The book starts off being a laddish, boozy adventure, but slowly there is a slight change in the tone of the book. Guevara and Alberto have the experience of a lifetime, but these insights into the people they meet make this book more than just a travelogue.
Especially considering the impact this journey made on the future of a whole country (nay continent) and how he remains an influence over revolutionaries and activists worldwide even today, I think this is an important book.
Very enjoyable and a short but worthwhile read!
