The Motorcycle Diaries (book) not the only person that was editing and reshaping his notes. While Paulo Drinot contends that the Cuban government, as well as others, reworked the texts for self-fashioning or political benefits. However, Drinot also points out that Guevara's introduction explicitly mentions how the notes are "reorganized" and "polished", and that such a practicality should in no way undermine its utility as a historical source. The Motorcycle Diaries (book) The Motorcycle Diaries () is a memoir that traces the early travels of Marxist revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara, then a 23-year-old medical student, and his friend Alberto Granado, a 29-year-old biochemist. Leaving
The Motorcycle Diaries (book) Guevara's older friend, Alberto Granado, a biochemist, and Guevara, decided to take a year off from their medical studies to embark on a trip they had spoken of making for years: traversing South America on a motorcycle, which has metaphorically been compared to carbureted version of Don Quixote's Rocinante. Guevara and the 29-year-old Granado soon set off from Buenos Aires, Argentina, astride a 1939 Norton 500 cc motorcycle they named "La Poderosa II" ("The Mighty II") with the idea of eventually spending a few weeks volunteering at the San Pablo Leper colony in Peru on the banks of the Amazon