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I have a very distant memory of reading this in college, though picking it up now, I confess I couldn’t remember a thing from that first read. Like most tiny wannabe revolutionary students, I had an ardent love for what Che Guevara represented, though I was pitifully ignorant of the details of his life. I’ve been dusting off some old college-era books lately, and I thought that this one deserved a more serious study.

What one gets from reading this little travelogue is a taste of Guevera’s natural talent for beautiful writing, and an incredible insight into the profoundly transformative power of traveling. The young man who first plans this motorcycle trip across South America with his friend Alberto Granado is a restless medical student who will suddenly be exposed to things his comfortable upbringing had shielded him from: poverty, exploitation, discrimination and human suffering on a scale he had never imagined before. This trip will plant the seed of revolution in his heart, and years later, when Guevara prepared this collection for publication, he felt the need to remind readers that his story was no one of heroism but a simple honest account of what he saw and his reactions to it. This makes it a very personal account of how one’s social consciousness develops, and where the will to change the world comes from.

I imagine people who read this now are already pre-disposed to agree with the young Che, but there is something nevertheless beautiful and moving in these pages, in following the footsteps (and numerous bike breakdowns) of this young man who would be transformed by this trip. He describes the continent he is exploring in such vivid details, and with such love. While I wish it was longer, the final few pages are so powerful that I did not close the book disapointed.

A wonderful glimpse into the mind of a man who would leave a mark of great significance on history and culture.