it off well, when there was talk about politics, disease and what not, we almost always shared a similar view." In 1946, having graduated with an MSc in biochemistry, Granado became a medical assistant to the head of the University of Córdoba's Hygiene and Epidemiology department. He had already developed an interest in Hansen's bacillus, and so the following year took a post as director of pharmacology in a leprosarium. As a result, from 1947 to 1951, Granado studied at a clinical laboratory and at the San Francisco del Chañar Leprosarium. During this time, Guevara made a point of visiting Granado at San Francisco de Chañar. Granado then won a scholarship to Instituto Malbrán, in Buenos Aires. Travels in South America and Europe At the age of 29 and with full-time work as a biochemist, Granado sought one final thrill before settling into a life of middle-class comfort. So between December 29, 1951, and July 1952, Granado embarked on a tour of South America on his beloved Norton 500cc motorcycle — Poderosa II — with his friend Che Guevara. Both kept diaries on the journey, and would stay at the leprosarium in San Pablo, Peru at trip's end. Throughout their continental excursion, they witnessed first hand the poverty of disenfranchised native peoples and their frequent lack of access to otherwise cheap and basic medical care. In particular, the two men were deeply affected in Chile when they visited the American-owned Anaconda Copper's Chuquicamata copper mine and met workers toiling for pennies and suffering from silicosis. Granado later lamented that although he and Guevara were impressed by the mine's high-tech machinery, "this (was) eclipsed by the indignation aroused when you think that all this wealth only goes to swell the coffers of Yankee capitalism." Their encounters with South America's "downtrodden and exploited" such as the migrant sheep shearers, copper miners, and Indian peasantry were a key influence on both their lives. For Granado, it confirmed that there was a wider world to see and help than the middle classes of his hometown, while in Guevara it ignited a burning zeal to tackle the cause of such misery, which he came to see as capitalism. These experiences also galvanized both men in realizing their future vocations — Guevara towards Marxist revolutionary politics and Granado to the pursuit of practical science. Granado's journey ended in Caracas, Venezuela, where he remained to work at