The Motorcycle Diaries

by Ann Wright (Translator), Ann Wright (Translator), Ernesto Guevara (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1996

  $3.61

  Che Guevara's riotous riotous diaries charting his motorcycle odyssey from Argentina through Chile and Peru ending finally in Venezuela. There are the diaries written by Che Guevara during his riotous motorcycle odyssey from Argentina through Chile and Peru ending finally in Venezuela. Most of the journey was undertaken on 'La Poderosa', the Powerful One: a 500cc Norton. Che Guevara's route is no political campaign: it is six months of high drama and low comedy in which the main concerns of Che and his travelling partner are where the next drink is coming from, where the next bed is to be found and who might be around to share it. This is a diary full of laddish improvisations: needing to earn money in Chile where there is an outburst of fires Guevara enlists as a fireman only to oversleep as a house is reduced to ashes; he shoots the dog of one of his hosts fearing that it is a puma on the loose; when grievously affected with stomach cramps he relieves himself out of his bedroom window somewhat to the detriment of the trays of peaches racked below. This lusty travelogue is free of pomp and full of life. Had Guevara's life not become so entwined in revolutionary adventure this would certainly have been the journey of a lifetime.

• Used

  Paperback
  2007

  $4.29

  These are Che Guevara's riotous diaries charting his motorcycle odyssey from Argentina through Chile and Peru ending finally in Venezuela. 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. Written eight years before the Cuban Revolution, these are Che's diaries - 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. Che becomes a stowaway, a fireman and a football coach; he sometimes falls in love and frequently falls off the motorbike. 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.