The Motorcycle Diaries: notes on a Latin America journey, by Ernesto "Che" Guevara
The Motorcycle Diaries: notes on a Latin America journey, by Ernesto "Che" Guevara. This book reminded me vividly of what it was like to be in ones early 20s, that weird mix of brainless adolescent and responsible adult.
When Guevara was 23, he and a friend named Alberto Granado took a trip up the Pacific coast of South America from Buenos Aires, Argentina to Caracas, Venezuela. They went on Granado's motorcycle until it finally feel apart (not that it was in good shape to start with), then walked and hitched, relying greatly on the generosity of passerby.
Along the way, they visited a number of medical facilities, esp. leper colonies (both had medical training), and provided occasional medical services to people in need. They also did a great deal of drinking, cheating, running out on tabs and assorted other doltish behaviors (ah, the 20s).
The revolutionary fervor that eventually made Guevara a household name seems to have been already in place, tho his experiences along the way, esp. in seeing how the underclass were treated everywhere, clearly had a cementing effect. Here are some of his thoughts after touring a copper mine:
"Cold efficiency and impotent resentment go hand in hand in the big mine, linked in spite of the hatred by the common necessity to live, on the one hand, and to speculate on the other . . . we will see whether one day, some miner will take up his pick in pleasure and go and poison his lungs with a conscious joy."
"And how many of those mountains surrounding their famous brother enclose in their heavy entrails similar riches, as they wait for the soulless arms of the mechanical shovels to devour their insides, spiced as they would be with the inevitable human lives -- the lives of the poor, unsung heroes of this battle, who die miserably in one of the thousand traps set by nature to defend its treasure, when all they want is to earn their daily bread."
It's not only an interesting read as a travel diary, but as a portrait of an eventually famous man at the beginning of his adult life, helped considerably by the fact that Guevara was both intelligent and a talented writer.
When Guevara was 23, he and a friend named Alberto Granado took a trip up the Pacific coast of South America from Buenos Aires, Argentina to Caracas, Venezuela. They went on Granado's motorcycle until it finally feel apart (not that it was in good shape to start with), then walked and hitched, relying greatly on the generosity of passerby.
Along the way, they visited a number of medical facilities, esp. leper colonies (both had medical training), and provided occasional medical services to people in need. They also did a great deal of drinking, cheating, running out on tabs and assorted other doltish behaviors (ah, the 20s).
The revolutionary fervor that eventually made Guevara a household name seems to have been already in place, tho his experiences along the way, esp. in seeing how the underclass were treated everywhere, clearly had a cementing effect. Here are some of his thoughts after touring a copper mine:
"Cold efficiency and impotent resentment go hand in hand in the big mine, linked in spite of the hatred by the common necessity to live, on the one hand, and to speculate on the other . . . we will see whether one day, some miner will take up his pick in pleasure and go and poison his lungs with a conscious joy."
"And how many of those mountains surrounding their famous brother enclose in their heavy entrails similar riches, as they wait for the soulless arms of the mechanical shovels to devour their insides, spiced as they would be with the inevitable human lives -- the lives of the poor, unsung heroes of this battle, who die miserably in one of the thousand traps set by nature to defend its treasure, when all they want is to earn their daily bread."
It's not only an interesting read as a travel diary, but as a portrait of an eventually famous man at the beginning of his adult life, helped considerably by the fact that Guevara was both intelligent and a talented writer.