The Motorcycle Diaries

At 3 am, Guevara and Granado wake up to catch their ride. The truck's driver gives them some wooden planks to sit on that keep them apart from "the foul-smelling, flea-ridden human flock" (72) of Indigenous people traveling with them. As the truck ascends the mountain, Guevara is grateful not to smell his traveling companions or to catch their fleas, but also buffeted by an icy wind.

Around dawn, engine trouble related to the high altitude causes a delay. Guevara and Granado brew mate, which seems strange to the Indigenous people. After walking for 3 km, the passengers are allowed to board the truck again. Soon it passes the summit, which is marked by a peculiar monument. The Indigenous people spit as they pass by, and Guevara receives no answer to his question why. Later they learn that the ritual dates from pre-Colombian times and that their traveling companions spit to gift all their sadness to Pachamama (Mother Earth).

On the road, Guevara and Granado regale a man and his son with exaggerated tales of life in Argentina, and the man asks for a copy of the Argentine constitution, which includes a declaration of the rights of the elderly. The men promise to send it to him. Later, they make friends with a schoolteacher who has been fired for belonging to the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA). He teaches them about Indigenous customs and culture and describes the flaws of the current educational system, which damages, shames, and degrades Indigenous people rather than empowering them. The teacher says that a whole new system of education one that would "orient individuals within their own world, enabling them to play a useful role within it" as needed; at present, the fate of educated Indigenous people is to hold a minor bureaucratic post and to hope that their children, with the help of the "miraculous powers of a drop of colonizing blood in their veins," might someday achieve their goals (74). As the truck approaches Ilave, the teacher falls silent.

The truck continues on to Puno without stopping at Ilave. Puno is situated on the bay of a lake, which Guevara and Granado want to explore. They hire a boat and an interpreter who tells them about the fisherman who live "according to the old ways" (75) on the islands in the lake.

Once they return to the port, Guevara and Granado attempt to replenish their mate supply, hoping to buy some from the boats that travel from Puno to Bolivia. However, they are disappointed: mate is rarely consumed in the north of Bolivia.

The men stay overnight in the infirmary of the Civil Guard post. The next day, they find a ride to Cuzco, where they plan to visit an ex-leprologist called Dr. Hermosa.

The truck from Puno takes Guevara and Granado as far as Juliaca, where a drunken police sergeant orders them a round of beers. Guevara leaves his untouched, demurely stating that "in my country…we only drink if we're eating at the same time" (92). The sergeant promptly orders cheese sandwiches and begins to brag about his marksmanship skills. He bets Granado increasingly larger sumsthat he can light the latter's unlit cigarette (in his mouth) with a single bullet from 20 meters away. Granado refuses, and eventually the sergeant tears off his own cap and attempts to shoot it as it flies through the air behind him. The bar owner, irate, goes to the police station to complain.

An officer returns and scolds the sergeant, who claims that no gunshot was fired; rather, it was Granado who set off a firecracker. When the officer asks whether he has any more firecrackers, Granado says innocently that he has run out. After the officer leaves, the angry bartender shouts insults at the friends as they leave her bar in haste.

Guevara and Granado get into a truck, where they meet two young white men from Lima and a group of Indigenous people who refuse to speak with them. The boys from Lima taunt the Indigenous people to show their superiority and share coca leaves with Guevara and Granado.

Once the truck arrives in the village of Ayaviry, the Civil Guard pays for a hotel room for Guevara and Granado, but they are unable to sleep because of the coca leaves. After stops in Vilcanota and Sicuani, they travel for one more day before reaching Cuzco.

Guevara describes the city of Cuzco, which he finds "evocative" (94). For him, there are really two or three Cuzcos, each of which he and Granado admire.

First is the ancient site selected by the first Incas for their city, which eventually became the center of a great empire: "This is the Cuzco inviting you to become a warrior and to defend, club in hand, the freedom and the life of the Inca" (94).

Second is the picturesque Cuzco that charms the tourist with its "colored-tile roofs, its gentle uniformity interrupted by the cupola of a baroque church" (94). Finally, there is the Cuzco of the conquistadors, which can be found in museums and libraries: "This is the Cuzco asking you to pull on your armor and, mounted on the ample back of a powerful horse, cleave a path through the defenseless flesh of a naked Indian flock whose human wall collapses and disappears beneath the four hooves of the galloping beast" (94).

In this chapter, Guevara describes the archaeological sites of Cuzco and recounts some of its history. According to Guevara, it is not clear whether the fortress of Sacsahuamán sprang up to protect the defenseless city, or whether the city grew around the existing fortress built by the Quechua warriors. Either way, it is "the expression of a highly inventive people, intuitive in mathematics" (95). As the Quechua continued to expel enemy tribes away from Cuzco, the settlement spread, and with it stone monuments to the gods: "In this way, expressing their greatness in stone, an imposing Cuzco grew into the city eventually conquered by the Spaniards" (95).

Guevara notes that the city has withstood sacking and conquest, the destruction of the temples, and numerous earthquakes; still, the mighty Inca city has proved no match for colonization, and the place is now "useful only for provoking the admiring grunts of some tourist or other" (96).

Guevara mentions having hiked for two hours in order to visit the ruins of Inca defenses and dwellings in the nearby mountains. Along the Vilcanota River, he and Granado visit Ollantaytambo, the fortress where Manco II resisted Pizarro's troops and founded the Four Incas dynasty. Guevara describes the structure of the fortress, which has been built to be easily defendable; still, the temple in the upper portion of the fortress has long since been looted and partially dismantled.

Guevara and Granado visit other sites, most notably Machu Picchu. Guevara summarizes the archaeologist Bingham's theory that Machu Picchu was the Quechua's first settlement and a sacred site. According to Guevara, there is some evidence supporting this theory (for instance, the key defenses in Ollantaytambo face away from Machu Picchu, which suggests that Machu Picchu was able to defend the back side of Ollantaytambo), but agreement with the theory is not universal.

Guevara notes that the Temple of the Sun allows one to appreciate the differences between social classes; each group has its own separate section within the temple. Inside the warriors' quarters, there is a structure for physical punishment, which Guevara and Granado try out in order to convince themselves that the punishment must have been an effective one.

Guevara concludes that "it hardly matters what the primitive origins of the city are"; what is important is Cuzco's expression of "the most powerful indigenous race in the Americas" (98), so distant from the city's present-day inhabitants.

Guevara and Granado visit the Our Lord of the Earthquakes Cathedral, where the famous María Angola bell, destroyed by an earthquake in 1950, has been restored at the expense of Franco's government in Spain. As the newly-restored bell is rung for the first time, the band is ordered to play the Spanish national anthem, but to the local bishop's dismay they play the wrong one: the Spanish Republican anthem.

After the ringing of the bell, the bishop parades through the city. Guevara's impression of the parade, with its bronze image of Christ, shining silver altar, and the "violent red" (99) flowers the brightly-dressed crowds throw, is of a pagan festival. For Guevara, the few Indigenous people dressed in European clothing, who march at the head of the procession, resemble the Quechuas who pledged themselves to Pizarro rather than resisting colonization with Manco II.

Guevara continues his sightseeing in Cuzco. After the end of the Inca Empire, he notes, the former capital remained unchanged for many years. Eventually, though, it declined, surpassed by the new capital, Lima. Although there are a few modern buildings in Cuzco, it remains more or less a monument to the colonial past.

For example, the fortress-like Our Lord of the Earthquakes cathedral recalls the glorious past, but in a ruined, decaying way; the gold that adorns it gives it the appearance of "an old woman with too much makeup" (101). Still, the choir stalls, which combine traditional Catholic iconography with Andean carving on native cedar, show "real artistry" (101).

Guevara visits the Basilica of San Blas, which he says is worth a visit for the beautiful carvings on the pulpit: "Like the choir stalls of the cathedral it expresses the fusion of two hostile but somehow almost complementary races" (101).

On final analysis, Guevara concludes that there are few individual works of art in Cuzco that are truly remarkable; it is the entire city that "creates the impression of the peaceful, if sometimes disquieting, center of a civilization that has long since passed" (101).

Guevara reports that, during the two weeks he and Granado spent in Cuzco, they used their letter of introduction to meet Dr. Hermosa, with whom they traveled around the Valley of the Incas.

Dr. Hermosa also secured train tickets to Machu Picchu for the friends. The trains move extremely slowly, thanks to the technology used to ascend and descend the mountains. Guevara and Granado enjoy their travels, becoming friendly with some Chilean swindlers, impressing some footballers with their skill (both Guevara and Granado had played professionally in Argentina). One of the footballers owns a local hotel. He treats Guevara and Granado to a room for a few days and teaches them about Incan culture.

Guevara and Granado are sad to leave, but board their twelve-hour train back to Cuzco. Guevara comments on the appalling conditions in the third-class carriages to which local Indigenous people are restricted, comparing them to cattle wagons and remarking on the hygiene habits of their passengers, who empty their bowels by the roadside and clean themselves with their own clothing, if at all.

Before leaving Cuzco, Guevara and Granado visit the local archaeological museum, which proves disappointing because the museum was founded only after most of the region's artifacts had been looted. Still, the two spend a few days visiting the museum and speaking with the curator, who tells them "of the splendid past and the present misery, of the urgent need to educated the Indians, as a first step toward total rehabilitation" and a way of counteracting the effects of alcohol and coca dependency (103).

Having run out of new acquaintances to make in Cuzco, Guevara and Granado set out for the leper colony at Huambo. They hitchhike, staying in Civil Guard posts and hospitals overnight. During the Easter holidays, when no trucks pass by, they find themselves stranded in a small village, where they spend two days wandering aimlessly.

By the time they arrive in the next village, Huancarama, Guevara is in the grip of a severe asthma attack and Granado must renew his supply of adrenaline. Once he has recovered, the men borrow some horses from the local mayor. Along with a guide, they head into the mountains toward Huambo. On the way, they encounter an old woman and a boy who, speaking Quechua, inform Guevara and Granado that they are the true owners of the horses–they had been riding past the mayor's house in Huancarama when he stopped them and took the horses.

Guevara and Granado return the horses to their owners and continue on foot. They find lodgings near the leper colony and sleep. The next day, they visit the patients. Guevara describes the colony as "disastrous" (105), a meagre half-block in which the patients live their whole lives in unsanitary conditions. Guevara notes that for those who do not come from the mountains, being surrounded by filth and living among fellow patients who do not speak Spanish can cause nervous breakdowns.

The men visit a young girl who bursts into tears, "describing her live as a 'calvary,' a living hell" (105); Guevara finds her description apt, stating that the only decent thing in the hospital is the drug treatment. The hospital staff share horrific stories with the visitors, describing the locals' refusal to interact with anyone who has been treated in, or works at, the leper colony.

Although the hospital staff are proud of a new, larger facility being built a few kilometers away, Guevara observes that it is still inadequate, lacking surgical facilities and a laboratory, and that it is ridden with mosquitoes.

After two days at the colony, Guevara's asthma worsens and the men leave. In Huancarama, they stay with the Civil Guard, then find a ride to Andahuaylas, where Guevara immediately checks himself into hospital.