Latin America Diaries

Author Ernesto Che Guevara
The newly published sequel to The Motorcycle Diaries chronicles Che's travels and ever-growing involvement in political struggles from 1953, in his own words. An enjoyable and fascinating look into the development of a revolutionary Hero, this is an essential read.
Publisher: Ocean Press | ISBN no: 978-0-9804292-7-5 | Year:

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In July 1953, just two weeks before the famous attack on the Moncada Garrison by Fidel Castro and others in Cuba, Ernesto Che Guevara, freshly graduated from medical school in Argentina, set off “otra vez” (“once again”) on a journey to explore Latin America. This newly published diary is no repeat of The Motorcycle Diaries (which covered his travels in 1952). The latter showed how he came to understand class and the struggle against inequality – but this sequel reveals his deepening political knowledge of how and why such a struggle should be waged.

The diary begins as of a young graduate travelling “not knowing exactly what it is they seek, nor in which direction it lies”, first to Bolivia then to Peru to see the site of Machu-Picchu, taking  photographs of places visited, Panama, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Nicaragua. Like many tourists, Guevara is aware as he travels by train of his own class position, of attracting attention by his relative wealth.  His companion this time is more serious than the funny and passionate Fuser (Alberto Granado), who Che sorely misses.

However as he travels through Bolivia, in the aftermath of the land reform revolution, and visits Guatemala under  the popularly elected government of Jacobo Arbenz, Guevara becomes no longer the observer, more the participant.  In Guatemala he gets work as a labourer shifting barrels of tar on 12 hour shifts, studies Marxism with Latin American political exiles, gets caught up in the CIA backed military coup and has to flee to Mexico, where he finds work as a doctor and photographer for a news agency.   Che writes to his mother saying his experiences help him explain the actions of US imperialists scientifically but also have driven him to develop a kind of faith.

According to Granado, Che met Fidel by accident in Mexico in 1955 and that meeting gave Che the chance to make “the decisive leap” from “semi-scientist, semi-bohemian, semi-revolutionary to full revolutionary”.  Near the end Che writes to his friend Tita: “A while back some Cuban guys  some revolutionaries, invited me  to help the movement with my medical knowledge and I accepted. ...I’m just waiting to hear what happens with the revolution: if it works out well I’ll head for Cuba…“