How travel shaped Che Guevara

Che’s journey  is chronicled in The Motorcycle Diaries, which  directed by Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles

Before he became the Revolutionary icon known as "Che" Ernesto Guevara de la Serna was an Argentine medical student tired of school and itching to see the world. On January 4, 1952, the 23-year-old Guevara and his friend Alberto Granada jumped on an old motorcycle and embarked on an four month trip which then turned into an eight-month journey across South America. He went from Argentina, through Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama and actually up to Miami before returning. The two men encountered increasing poverty and injustice on their journey across the continent. The experiences of distinctive societies, histories, politics and cultures he encountered forever shaped his personal ideologies. Historians and biographers now agree that the experience had a profound impact on Guevara, who would later become one of the most famous guerilla leaders ever. 

"His political and social awakening has very much to do with this face-to-face contact with poverty, exploitation, illness, and suffering," said Carlos M. Vilas, a history professor at the Universidad Nacional de Lanús in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

This video depicts a scene in the movie where, Che with the reality of struggles and social injustice facing many South Americans at the time. In this scene a couple motivation to travel is to seek refuge from political persecution and are in great need of work to survive. When asked by the couple his reason for travel he simply tells them " we are traveling to travel". This scene becomes a sort of epiphany and realization that there are bigger things going on in the world around them.