The Motorcycle Diaries

£7.99

These are the diaries written by Che Guevara through South In January 1952, two young men from Buenos Aires set out to explore South America on 'La Poderosa', the Powerful One: a 500cc Norton. One of them was the twenty-three-year-old Che Guevara, the other one was the thirty-year-old Alberto Granado.

Written eight years before the Cuban Revolution, these are the diaries written by Che Guevara, during this riotous motorcycle tour, full of disasters and discoveries, high drama, low comedy and laddish improvisations.
During his travels through Argentina, Chile, Peru and Venezuela, Che's main concerns are where the next drink is coming from, where the next bed is to be found and who might be around to share it. He becomes a stowaway, a fireman and a football coach; he sometimes falls in love and frequently falls off the motorbike.

Guevara writes surprisingly beautifully and withour any hint of formality or stiffness. Trough his accounts leaks the Ernesto who was before becaming entangled in politics - an account of laddish humour and street life, a Latin Jack Kerouac.
Within a decade the whole world would know his name. His trip might have been an adventure of a lifetime, had his lifetime not turned into a much greater adventure.

If you want to be inspired further follow this trip on a map...