88 pages • 2 hours read
Che GuevaraThe Motorcycle Diaries
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1992A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 39-42Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 39 Summary: "The San Pablo Leper Colony"
Guevara's health improves somewhat. Guevara and Granado visit the leper colony, which houses 600 patients in "typical jungle huts" (121). The colony is like a village, with its own judge, its own policeman, and a "rhythm and style of its own" (121). They accompany Dr. Bresciani on his rounds as he compiles data for a study of nervous leprosy, the variety of the disease prevalent in the region.
One part of the colony houses approximately seventy healthy people. Guevara notes that it lacks crucial resources, such as electricity, a refrigerator, a laboratory, a microscope, a microtome, a technician and a surgeon. He also observes that there are very few blind people in the colony. Granado spends some time performing bacilloscopes, while Guevara devotes his time to the leper colony.
In their spare time, the men fish, swim, play football, and play chess with Dr. Bresciani, or chat with him and the dentist, Dr. Alfaro.
Chapter 40 Summary: "Saint Guevara's Day"
Guevara celebrates his 24th birthday in a cheery mood: "I, just a lad, turned 24, on the cusp of that transcendental quarter century, silver wedding of a life, which, all things considered, has not treated me so badly" (122). He fishes, plays football, and then enjoys a big meal at Dr. Bresciani's house and a pisco-soaked party in the leper colony. ("Alberto is quite experienced regarding [pisco's] effects on the central nervous system" (122), remarks Guevara.)
Guevara gives an elaborate, tipsy toast thanking his hosts for the celebration and honoring Peru and a United Latin America, whose "division…into unstable and illusory nations is completely fictional" (123). The toast is a success and the party lasts until three in the morning.
The next day Guevara and Granado visit a Yagua tribe, whose way of living outdoors Guevara finds "fascinating" (123), and whose lack of vitamin deficiency he finds surprising. That night they play football. Granado is awakened by stomach pains in the right iliac cavity, but Guevara is too tired to help and goes back to sleep.
Monday arrives, and Granado receives penicillin while Guevara, whose foot is infected, chats with Dr. Bresciani. He and Granado make plans to build a raft with Dr. Bresciani's help and travel to Manaos by river.
Between visits to the lepers' compound, parties, fishing, and shopping for supplies along the Amazon, Guevara and Granado build their raft. The patients in the leper colony prepare a farewell concert; Guevara recalls the musician's deformities in vivid detail. The patients make speeches in their honor, and Granado responds in kind, mimicking Perón's mannerisms for effect.
Guevara and Granado depart on their raft, the Mambo-Tango.
Chapter 41 Summary: "Debut for the Little Kontiki"
The chapter opens with Guevara and Granado afloat in the Amazon. They attempt to dock at the town of Leticia, but "the contraption refused to go anywhere near the bank; intransigent, it was determined to set its own course down the middle of the river" (125). Frustrated, the men float by Leticia despite their best efforts. The next town is Manaos, ten days away, and they are out of food and fishing hooks. They have also floated into Brazil without having obtained the proper visas and neither man speaks Portuguese.
However, they are exhausted and decide to sleep. When he wakes up in the morning, Guevara is dismayed to find that the raft has drifted to the right bank of the river near a house. Seeing Granado still asleep and feeling unequal to the situation, Guevara goes back to sleep.
Chapter 42 Summary: "Dear Mama"
This chapter consists of a letter from Guevara to his mother on the occasion of her birthday. He recounts the journey from Iquitos to the leper colony at San Pablo, mentioning that the nuns at the colony scolded him and Granado–and reduced their rations—for missing mass. He mentions his Pan-American speech and the farewell party with the patients.
Guevara tells about falling asleep and waking up to find the raft has run aground. After that episode, the men decided to take turns keeping watch all night. Much of the letter is about food: Guevara recounts how he lost a hen when it fell overboard, what kind of fish they caught, and how the fish hooks got lost in the night. He recalls that he and Granado asked the owner of the house near which the raft had run aground to take them up-river, out of Brazil and back to Leticia.
In Leticia the friends find a place to stay and book a flight to Colombia. While they are waiting, they are invited to coach a football team and end up playing on the team themselves.
Once the men arrive in Bogotá, they find food and, after some difficulty, some chairs in which to sleep at the hospital: "We're not terribly poor, but explorers with our history and stature would rather die than pay for the bourgeois comfort of a hostel" (128).
Afterwards, the leprosy service accepts Guevara and Granado as guests and even offers them jobs. However, a run-in with the local police over a misunderstanding about a knife convince them to leave soon for Venezuela–not, however, before catching a football match between Millonarios and Real Madrid. "There is more repression of individual freedom here than in any country we've been to," reports Guevara, "the atmosphere is tense and it seems a revolution may be brewing" (128).
Guevara ends the letter affectionately and with a political aside: "A huge hug from your son, who misses you from head to toe. I hope the old man manages to get himself to Venezuela…[b]y the way, if after living up here for a while he's still in love with Uncle Sam…but let's not get distracted, Papi can read between the lines. Chau" (128).
Chapters 39-42 Analysis
These chapters contain Guevara's most sustained interactions with leprosy patients. Again, his primary way of relating to them, at least in the Diaries, is as social beings rather than medical patients or "cases," although the deformities of the band who play at his and Granado's farewell party seem to have made a strong impression on him, as he reports them both in his own diary and in his letter to his mother.
This section is significant in that it contains Guevara's first proclamation of Pan-Americanism in the Diaries; characteristically, he reports what seem to be his own sincere political statements and gives a humorous and slightly ironic account of Granado's Perón impression, almost in a single breath. His suspicion of the U.S. is evident, as well, from his remark toward the end of the letter to his mother. In short, this section shows us a politically-engaged Guevara, and one more preoccupied with serious matters than the Guevara of the beginning of the book.
