
Revolutionary hero or despised anti-capitalist, Che Guevara was certainly a great overland traveller and a writer of elegant prose. Pick up a copy of The Motorcycle Diaries to discover how good travel writing with a social conscience can make for compelling narrative.
Recently, I couldn't visit the beautiful city of Cordoba, Argentina without spending an afternoon in nearby Alta Gracia, at Che's childhood home.
For adventure bikers, the centrepiece of the house - now a museum - is [alas only] a replica of La Poderosa, The Mighty One, the 500cc Norton on which he travelled from Argentina over the Andes to Chile. He rode two-up with a fellow medical student but after numerous crashes and a few thousand kilometres the bike gave up the ghost. But they continued on foot, by cadging lifts and blagging their way through South America. The discoveries he made on the trip fueled his political beliefs, which culminated in the Marxist Cuban revolution of 1959.
But if all that had failed he might have had a great career as a travel writer.
