The Motorcycle Diaries (Spanish: Diarios de motocicleta) is a 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 hitch