The Motorcycle Diaries

Broke and hungry, Guevara and Granado continue northward to Lima, "eating now and then whenever some generous soul took pity on [their] indigence" (108). At one point, they are stranded in a village called Anco because of a landslide. They try to distract themselves from hunger by swimming in a river, but the water is too cold. Eventually some men take pity and give them some food. They borrow a pot and start cooking, but have to abandon the task when the landslide is cleared away and traffic begins to move.

On the road, Guevara and Granado endure bitter cold and hunger that "was like a strange animal, living not just in one particular part but all over our bodies, making us nervous and bad tempered" (109). They arrive in Huancallo and set about cooking, but are interrupted again: a truck headed for Oxapampa, where the mother of a friend lives, offers them a ride. They leave with the truck, hoping their friend's mother will feed them well.

The road down the mountain is narrow and dangerous. Guevara and Granado, conscious of the 200-meter drop at the road's edge and aware that a crash means certain death, wait nervously, "ready to jump for solid ground at the first sign of any accident" (109).

The truck arrives without incident at the village of La Merced, where the men eat, sleep, witness a murder being reported in the Civil Guard post, and bargain for an inexpensive ride. One of their fellow passengers is the man, described as "an ostentatious mulatto" (109), who reported the murder, and whom Guevara and Granado thought looked like a murderer himself. However, they change their minds:

At one of the stops along the road he bought us a meal and throughout it, lectured us on coffee, papaya and the black slaves, of whom his grandfather had been one. He said this quite openly but you could detect a note of shame in his voice. In any case, Alberto and I agreed to absolve him of any guilt in the murder of his friend (110).

The men are disappointed to learn that their friend's mother no longer lives in Oxapampa. His brother-in-law feels obligated to offer them hospitality, and though they realize they are "dead weight" (110) to their host, they are far too hungry and broke to be excessively polite. They eat as much as possible, swim in the river, and relax until the second evening, when their host finds them a ride to Lima. Eager to be on their way, Guevara and Granado accept, but the driver takes them only halfway to Lima before abandoning them. Dismayed, the friends realize they have been tricked.

In San Ramón, where they are stranded, Guevara and Granado meet some drunks and use their "'anniversary' routine" (111) to wheedle food. The routine is a performance in which the friends "accidentally" reveal that they are Argentinian and broke and pretend to be celebrating the anniversary of the day their trip began. The strangers inevitably offer to buy a round of drinks, and the friends coyly refuse a few times before revealing that Argentinians only drink when they are eating. The routine works, as always.

The next day, the two men, still hungry, go to the local hospital, introduce themselves as a medical student and a biochemist, and ask for food. Guevara writes: "In such a surprise frontal attack, the poor doctor could do nothing but agree to buy us a meal from the restaurant where he himself ate" (112).

The men soon find a ride to Lima. After the driver hits an enormous pothole, they learn that he has poor eyesight. The truck's owner climbs on board further down the road and feeds Guevara and Granado all the way to Lima.

Guevara and Granado arrive in Lima "at the end of one of the most important stages of [their] journey, without a cent or much chance in the short term of making any money, but…happy" (113).

Guevara finds Lima pretty and more modern than Cuzco. He praises the city's cathedral, which he describes as slender, graceful and stylized, with a joyful lightness very different from the heavy, dark interior of the cathedral in Cuzco. Marveling at the gold embellishments inside the cathedral, he writes: "This vast wealth enabled the aristocracy to resist the liberating armies of America until the last moment. Lima is the perfect example of a Peru which has not developed beyond the feudal condition of a colony. It still waits for the blood of a truly emancipating revolution" (113).

The place in the city the friends love best, however, is the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology; they visit often, in order to remind themselves of Machu Picchu.

The friends pay a visit to Dr. Hugo Pesce, a prominent leprologist. He greets them warmly, allows them to stay in the hospital overnight, and treats them to several meals and enjoyable conversations at his home. They tour the leprosy hospital and the laboratory in between running errands and visiting the museum.

On Sunday, Guevara and Granado watch their first bullfight. They are very excited to see it, but Guevara expresses disappointment with the reality of the fight, in which a novice toreador killed his bull in an inept way, causing the bull to suffer rather than delivering a swift coup de grâce. Guevara writes: "Art, I see none; courage, a certain level; skill, not much; excitement, relative. In summary, it all depends what there is to do on a Sunday" (114).

The friends spend Monday at the museum, then visit Dr. Pesce's house for dinner. There, they meet a professor of psychiatry, Dr. Valenza, and enjoy a good conversation, of which Guevara records only one part. He reports Dr. Valenza's description of watching a Mexican film starring the comic actor Cantinflas. Dr. Valenza understands nothing, but the people around him laugh. Dr. Valenza decides that the others don't understand anything, either, and that each of them is laughing at himself and at the flaws in their "infantile civilization" (115). Dr. Valenza concludes that North America, too, is in its infancy: "All America is a sister in this. Watching Cantinflas, I understood Pan-Americanism!" (115).

On Tuesday, the major event is a set of gifts from Dr. Pesce: he gives Granado a white suit and Guevara a white jacket. Guevara comments: "Everyone concurs–we look almost human" (115).

When it is time to leave Lima, the hospital patients pool money to give to Guevara and Granado along with an "effusive" letter (115). Guevara reports that some patients even cried as they said goodbye. He writes: "If there's anything that will make us seriously dedicate ourselves to leprosy, it will be the affection shown to us by all the sick we've met along the way" (115).

The friends leave Lima along with some brothers, the Becerras. The drive itself is uneventful at first, but Guevara soon begins to feel ill. Staying the night in Huánco due to some car trouble, Guevara attempts to give himself an injection, but the syringe breaks and he is unable to do so. The next day is "uneventful and asthmatic" until Granado uses the "anniversary routine" to secure some pisco and the night ends with Granado and one of the Becerras passing out drunk (116).The next morning, Guevara, Granado, and the Becerras leave in a hurry without paying the bill.

For the next two days they make slow progress because of army roadblocks. On the second day, they manage to get as far as Pucallpa only by taking a wounded soldier with them. When they arrive there, they enjoy a farewell meal and wine with the Becerras, who also pay for a hotel room for Guevara and Granado to sleep in.

The friends begin searching for a boat that will take them to Iquitos. After several false starts, they take the best deal they can get: a first-class cabin at third-class prices.

Guevara and Granado board the La Cenepa. Granado joins a game of 21 and, having bet a single sol, wins 90 soles and the contempt of his fellow gamblers. The first full day passes uneventfully. On the second night, mosquitoes invade the boat and Guevara begins to have an asthma attack. He spends the next day lying in hammocks trying to sleep and eventually must "take the drastic measure of getting asthma medicine by the banal method of paying for it" (118). Feeling somewhat better, he admires the jungle on the shores.

Guevara and Granado spend their days on the boat bored, since the only available entertainment is gambling and they are too broke to take part. Additionally, the boat is delayed because the river is low and they must stop travel every night. Guevara's asthma continues to worsen despite his best efforts.

The two friends meet a girl "who seem[s] rather easy,” and one night a "careless caress" from her reminds Guevara of Chichina (118). At first, he thinks of her tenderly, then imagines her "whispering her strange, composed phrases to some new suitor" (119). This daydreaming prompts Guevara to reflect: "My eyes traced the immense vault of heaven; the starry sky twinkled happily above me, as if answering in the affirmative to the question rising deep within me: 'Is all of this worth it?'" (119).

After two more uneventful days, the boat reaches the confluence of the Ucayali and the Marañon, the beginning of the Amazon. For Guevara there is "nothing transcendent about it: it is simply two masses of muddy water that unite to form one" (119). His asthma continues to worsen, and he has no adrenaline; he spends that day and the next lying around, feeling sick and thinking hazy thoughts, until the boat finally arrives in Iquitos.

The men go immediately to speak with Dr. Chávez Pastor, the head of the International Cooperation Service, but he is not in Iquitos that day. All the same, the staff offer Guevara and Granado food and lodging. Guevara remains seriously ill for a few days, unable to get up despite taking adrenaline four times a day and maintaining a strict diet.

After five days, it is time to leave—the El Cisne sails for San Pablo. The friends board the boat, where the mosquitoes torment them all night. They arrive in San Pablo in the middle of the night and the medical director of the leper colony, Dr. Bresciani, arranges a room for them.

This chapter consists of a letter from Guevara to his father, describing the epidemiological situation in the region. Guevara explains that he and Granado are not planning to travel deep into the Amazon interior, where isolated tribes live. He also reassures him that, although most infectious diseases have been eradicated, he and Granado are inoculated just in case.

According to Guevara, diseases caused by metabolic disorders are common in the region because the food available in the jungle is inadequate. (He assures his father that he and Granado have enough access to vitamins to stay healthy.)

Guevara speaks warmly of the respect shown to him and Granado by leprosy hospital staff and admits that, although he is interested in leprology, he is unsure whether the interest will endure. He tells again of the 100 soles given to him and Granado by the patients in Lima, and notes that the patients must have been grateful simply to have been treated "as normal human beings" (121). Guevara explains that, unlike most people, he and Granado were unafraid to make physical contact with the patients; after all, the risk of infection was low, while the benefit of lifting people's spirits by treating them normally was great.