The Motorcycle Diaries

With the help of a crane driver, Guevara and Granado sneak onto the San Antonio and hide in the officers' bathroom from morning till evening. The toilet, already clogged, grows intolerably smelly after a seasick Granado vomits into it. At 5 pm, when land is well out of sight and their hunger has grown desperate, Guevara and Granado find the captain and announce themselves as stowaways.

The captain scolds them before the other officers, then sends them away to eat and work. Guevara receives the unpleasant task of cleaning the toilet, while Granado peels potatoes. "There is no justice!" writes Guevara, in mock desperation. "He adds a good portion to the accumulated filth and I clean it up!" (60).

After their day's work is done, the men meet with the captain again. He asks them not to mention their previous agreement with him and promises that they will not encounter problems with the authorities when the ship arrives in Antofagasta. He assigns them an absent officer's cabin and invites them to drink and play canasta with him.

They begin work diligently the next morning but run out of enthusiasm by midday. Exhausted, they plan to rest well that night, but instead end up playing canasta with the captain again. They pass the late nights talking about "all the sentimental themes the sea inspires" (60), and the boat soon reaches Antofagasta.

The chapter opens with Guevara speculating about the San Antonio's captain, who must have warned the owner of the next ship he and Granado chose to stow away on: "'Hey listen, they're tigers, they're on your boat now for sure, you'll find out when you're out to sea.' The captain must have let slip to his friend and colleague this or some similar phrase" (61).

In any case, an hour before the ship is due to sail, Guevara and Granado are hidden among (and devouring) the ship's cargo of melons. Suddenly they hear an angry shout and see the huge mustache of the ship's owner. The two friends take their bags and leave the ship.

Their next destination is a copper mine called Chuquicamata. They spend a day waiting for the mine authorities to grant them permission to visit, and in the meantime drink with the San Antonio's sailors. Eventually they hitchhike to a town called Baquedano, halfway between Antofagasta and Chuquicamata.

In Baquedano they meet a husband and wife who are Chilean communists:

The man's shrunken figure carried a mysterious, tragic air. In his simple, expressive language he recounted his three months in prison, and told us about his starving wife who stood by him with exemplary loyalty, his children left in the care of a kindly neighbor, his fruitless pilgrimage in search of work and his compañeros, mysteriously disappeared and said to be somewhere at the bottom of the sea (61).

For Guevara, the couple seem to be a symbol of the world proletariat, and when he and Granado give up one of their blankets to the couple, the miserable night makes him feel "a little more brotherly" (62) toward his fellow humans.

In the morning, the couple head off to the sulphur mines, where “the climate is so bad and the living conditions so hard that you don't need a work permit and nobody asks you what your politics are. 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" (62). Guevara reflects on how unjust the repression of communists is, since the politics of such people is "no more than a natural longing for something better" (62).

Guevara and Granado, meanwhile, find a truck driver willing to take them to Chuquicamata. Once they arrive, the mine bosses tell them they can take a 30-minute tour of the facility and then must be on their way, saying that "This isn't a tourist town" (62). At the mine, the workers are preparing to strike. Guevara and Granado ask how many people have died mining copper there, but the foreman does not know.

Guevara notes that "cold efficiency [on the part of the bosses] and impotent resentment [on the part of the workers] go hand in hand in the big mine" (62). Wondering whether the relation of the proletariat to work might change someday, Guevara writes: "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. They say that's what it's like over there [in the USSR], where the red blaze that now lights up the world comes from. So they say. I don't know" (62).

This chapter describes the structure and layout of the mine, Chuquicamata, and the process by which copper is mined and processed there.

First, Guevara shares his subjective impressions: "Chuquicamata is like a scene from a modern drama. You cannot say that it's lacking in beauty, but it is a beauty without grace, imposing and glacial. As you come close to any part of the mine, the whole landscape seems to concentrate, giving a feeling of suffocation across the plain" (63). The mine is located in a desert, allegedly the driest in the world.

The mine itself "is essentially a great copper mountain with 20-meter-high terraces cut into its enormous sides, from where the extracted mineral is easily transported by rail" (63). Each morning, the miners dynamite the mountain and the ore is transported to a grinder, where it is crushed three times to produce a gravel.

Next, the gravel is placed in a solution of sulfuric acid, which extracts the copper in sulfide form and produces a copper chloride that, when it makes contact with old iron, becomes ferrous chloride.

After that, the ore is transported to the "green house," where it is placed into a bath and receives a 30-volt current for several days. This electrolyzes the salt, so that the copper sticks to thin metal sheets. After 5-6 days, the sheets are smelted for twelve hours to create 350-pound ingots.

Every night, a convoy transports over 900 tons of copper produced in this way to Antofagasta.

Guevara notes that Chuquicamata currently employs 3,000 workers, and that a new plant will soon be built to replace it. He explains that copper is a big business in Chile, which produces 20% of the world supply: copper has become an important metal because it is a key component of certain large-scale weapons. As a result, a struggle is underway between those who think the mines should be nationalized (if less efficiently run) and those who think the mines should remain well-run and privately owned (even if they are owned by foreign companies).

Guevara ends the chapter: "Whatever the outcome of the battle, one would do well not to forget the lesson taught by the graveyards of the mines, containing only a small share of the immense number of people devoured by cave-ins, silica and the hellish climate of the mountain" (64).

Guevara and Granado leave the town of Chuquicamata. They have lost their water bottle, the sun is harsh, and their backpacks are heavy – yet they plan to cross the desert on foot. After walking for two hours, the two men are forced to stop. They rest in a patch of shade, then return to Chuquicamata, where they spend the night in a sentry post at the edge of town.

The next day, they catch a ride partway to their destination. Another truck then takes them to the local railway station, where they meet a local football team preparing for a match. Granado and Guevara are invited to join the team, and are offered food, lodging, and transport to the town of Iquique in exchange for their footballing skills.

During the two days before the match, the friends visit some of the area's nitrate purifying plants. Guevara concludes that mining companies are easily able to extract the region's ore—the top layer of earth contains valuable minerals, and the purification process is relatively simple.

Guevara and Granado's newfound football team wins the match. Guevara and Granado reach Iquique in an alfalfa truck only to find that there are no boats at all in the port. They resolve to find a truck that can take them to Arica.

Guevara and Granado find a ride to Arica, through desolate desert mountains. The austere landscape leads Guevara to reflect on the conquistadors, especially Valdivia, who had crossed this desert at a rapid pace despite the lack of shade and water. For Guevara, Valdivia "belonged to that special class of men […] in whom a craving for limitless power is so extreme that any suffering to achieve it seems natural" (66).

Guevara describes Arica as "a sweet little port" (67) that mixes Chilean and Peruvian influences. The town looks distinctively Caribbean, with its hot weather, palm trees, and subtropical fruit.

Guevara and Granado find lodging at the local hospital thanks to "a doctor, who showed us as much disrespect as an established, financially secure bourgeois can show to a couple of hobos (even hobos with titles)" (67). Before leaving Chile, they take a swim in the Pacific. For the first time, Granado suddenly wants to eat seafood, so they hunt for clams and seafood on the beach and eat "something salty and slimy" that they find, but that is "repulsive" and "wouldn't have made a prisoner happy" (67).

The men eat again at the police station, then head for the border. A van picks them up along the way. At the border, a customs officer who is familiar with Argentinian customs gives them cookies and hot water for mate and finds them a ride to the town of Tacna.

This chapter takes a step back from the main narrative in order to comment on the medical system, economy and standard of living, and political situation of Chile. Guevara begins the chapter by acknowledging that his views have changed somewhat since his journey, but states that it seems inappropriate to interject his current opinions. He summarizes, without further comment, the impressions of Chile he recorded in his travel diary while the journey was unfolding.

He describes health care in Chile as "[leaving] a lot to be desired" (68), though in hindsight he realizes it is actually better than in any other countries. Although medical care is free in the north, hospital stays generally cost money, and some rates are very high. There is a shortage of free public hospitals, and those that do exist have posters in them that ask, "Why do you complain about your treatment if you are not contributing to the maintenance of this hospital?" (68). The hospitals are ill-equipped and lacking in hygiene.

Guevara notes that the standard of living is lower in Chile than in Argentina. In the south, wages are very low and unemployment is high. In the north, miners earn higher wages, but the cost of living is also high, consumer items are scarce, and the climate is harsh.

Guevara describes Chile's politics as "confusing" (68). There are four presidential candidates: the Popular Socialist Ibáñez with "dictatorial tendencies" (68) and Perón-like ambitions; the official government candidate, Alfonso, who fails to take a clear stance; the reactionary tycoon Larrain; and the Popular Front's Allende.

Guevara thinks Ibáñez most likely to win, to exploit anti-US sentiment, to nationalize the mines and railroads, and to expand Argentine-Chilean trade. According to Guevara, Chile has abundant natural resources and can "offer economic promise to any person disposed to work for it, so long as they don't belong to the proletariat" (69). He says that it should rid itself of US influence, but admits that that will be difficult, given US economic interests in the mines.