Many young people, by nature, are yearning for adventure.
This has given rise to ‘commercialization of adventure’ through adventure
parks, white water rafting, bungee jumping and other activities, for which
people are ready to spend money. This gives a sense of difference and liberty
to the lives of the participants.
Travel is also an adventure. If someone chose to travel in a
motorbike, across countries or even continents, it will be looked upon by some
people as madness, even now. Fifty years ago, many more people would have said
the same when two friends from Argentina embarked on a trip of Latin America in
their motorbike dubbed La Poderosa (The mighty one).
Alberto Granado and Ernesto Guevara were training to be
doctors and were from extremely privileged families. They had seen the wealth
of Argentina, which was, and still is, a relatively rich country in Latin
America. In their country, they could not see the plight of the native South
American (Amerindian) people, simply because their forefathers had ‘eliminated’
those people centuries ago.
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| Alberto Granado and Che (R) |
Their voyage took them across Argentina to Chile and then to
Peru, Colombia and Venezuela, ending in Miami before they flew home. Their
vehicle, “the mighty one” broke down for good in Chile and they completed the
tour basically by hitch-hiking. This helped them interact with the people on
the ground. As Alberto Granado told to the Irish Times in 2004, it gave them a
chance to “become familiar with the people. We worked, took on jobs to make
money and continue traveling. We hauled merchandise, carried sacks, worked as
sailors, cops and doctors.” What started as a adventure trip ended up being a
lesson in life.
Guevara’s introductory lessons in Communism were in Chile,
where he witnessed the suppression of the Communist Party members, whose
protests against consistent hunger had transformed into “a love for this
strange doctrine.” Later in the trip, they saw how introvert and negative the
Peruvian Aymara Indians looked. They had been under the tutelage of colonial
and then local masters for centuries. The situation was the same until very
recently, decades after Guevara’s murder.
The lessons continued as they went to a leprosy colony in
Peruvian Amazon region. He saw how even simple gestures of kindness meant a lot
to those people who had been discriminated from society.
By the time he went back home to Argentina, Guevara knew that
he was not the one that left on the journey several months ago. He was sure
that “when the great guiding spirit cleaves humanity into two antagonistic
halves, I will be with the people.” He had not become the Pan-Latin American,
Communist revolutionary leader. But, by the time his trip ended, his journey in
the revolutionary path had started.
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