The Motorcycle Diaries () is a posthumously published memoir of the Marxist revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara. It traces his early travels, as a 23-year-old medical student, with his friend Alberto Granado, a 29-year-old biochemist. Leaving Buenos Aires, Argentina, in January 1952 on the back of a sputtering single cylinder 1939 Norton 500cc dubbed La Poderosa ("The Mighty One"), they desired to explore the South America they only knew from books. During the formative odyssey Guevara is transformed by witnessing the social injustices of exploited mine workers, persecuted communists, ostracized lepers, and the tattered descendants of a once-great Inca civilization. By journey's end, they had travelled for a "symbolic nine months" by motorcycle, steamship, raft, horse, bus, and hitchhiking, covering more than across places such as the Andes, the Atacama Desert, and the Amazon River Basin. The book has been described as a classic coming-of-age story: a voyage of adventure and self-discovery that is both political and personal. Originally marketed by Verso as "Das Kapital meets Easy Rider", The Motorcycle Diaries has been a New York Times bestseller several times. Pre-expedition Ernesto Guevara spent long periods traveling around Latin America during his studies of medicine, beginning in 1948, at the University of Buenos Aires. In January 1950, Guevara attempted his first voyage. He traversed through the northern provinces of Argentina on a bicycle on which he installed a small engine. He arrived at San Francisco del Chañar, near Córdoba, where his friend Alberto Granado ran the dispensary of the leper-centre. This experience allowed Guevara to have long conversations with the patients about their disease. This pre-expedition gave Guevara a taste of what would be experienced in his more extensive South American travels. The journey broke new ground for him in activities that would become central to his life: travelling and writing a diary. His own father said that it was preparation for his subsequent long journeys across South America. Guevara relied upon the hospitality of strangers that he encountered, as he and Granado would throughout their later travels. For example, following a puncture, he flagged down a lorry to take him to his next destination. In another instance, in Loreto, he asked for hospitality from a local police officer when he had nowhere to stay. The trip encouraged Guevara's style of traveling that would be seen in the Motorcycle Diaries. By the time he reached Jujuy, he had decided that the