To the Grave
Trip Start
Jan 06, 2007
1
34
37
Trip End
Jul 24, 2007
Vallegrande,
Bolivia
Monday, May 28, 2007
This will be the end to my Che Guevara quest. I've been where he was born and now where he died.
The Grave
After the Cuban revolution he came to Vallegrande, Bolivia to start a new revolution that would spread throughout South America. Having everything he could need in Cuba, he gave it all up and went to Bolivia, to build a revolution there, and prepared to lose his life fighting for his dream, To make Latin America a better place. But before he could make this happen he was executed. Now here I am 40 years later, standing over his grave.It was well worth the rough journey to get here.
Statue
When there is no seats left on the buses here, you either stand or don't get on. So I had to stand in the isle from 6 long hours as the bus ate dust driving down rough depleting dirt roads. The grave site itself was nothing more then a hole in the ground where his body was thrown and a small headstone with his name on it.It's hard to justify coming all this way for that. But for me, it was worth it. Even if I had stand for the 6 hour journey there and back. It's something not many travelers in the area will ever get to see. But I'm glad I did.
Dustin
Comments
Glad you got to go
The more you learn about Che, the more you realize that he was quite a man of pure conviction towards bettering the human condition for those he met, however misunderstood and rejected he was. It is always moving to visit the actual sites of historic events and people. Congrats on making the trek to special places.
Mom, Dad, Adam, Logan
July 12/07
The real Che
Ernesto 'Che' Guevara dreamed of creating the 'New Man' at any cost. During the Cuban missile crisis, he was in favor of a nuclear war because he believed that a better world could be built from the ashes, regardless of the cost in millions of lives. By adhering to his anti-American feelings and pro-Soviet stance, he achieved a role in history that stands for one failure after another, both in Cuba, as well as in all the other countries where he went to promote and disseminate Castro's Revolution.
Ernesto 'Che' Guevara had all the characteristics of a ruthless dictator and opponent of freedom. He believed that the end justifies the means, and he fanatically adhered to this gospel. This 'idealized icon' is the one who, as a modern day Grand Inquisitor, eliminated many of his foes with a single pistol shot to the back of their heads. And he is also the same one who authored these enhancing words printed in the identity booklets of young Cuban soldiers sent to fight in Angola: 'Blind hate against the enemy creates a forceful impulse that cracks the boundaries of natural human limitations, transforming the soldier in an effective, selective and cold killing machine. A people without hate cannot triumph against the adversary.'
The stalinist homofobic hero
Che was a purist political fanatic who saw everything in stark black and white. Therefore he vociferously opposed freedoms of religion, speech, press, assembly, protest, or any other rights not completely consistent with his North Korean-style communism. How many rock music-loving teens sporting Guevara t-shirts today know their hero supported Cuba's 1960s' repression of the genre? How many homosexual fans know he had gays jailed?
Che was a narcissist who boasted that 'I have no house, wife, children, parents, or brothers; my friends are friends as long as they think like me, politically.' This is a role model for today's 'post-political' voters claiming we should get beyond partisanship?
Adding to the ridiculousness of the Che cult is that he was virtually a complete failure. As a medical doctor, he never even had a practice. When put in charge of the Cuban economy at the start of Castro's government, his uncompromising communist diktats ran it completely into the ground, from which it never recovered. Humiliated, and also angry that Castro wasn't fomenting enough revolution abroad, he then tried to lead such quixotic adventures in Argentina, the Congo, and Bolivia, failing miserably everywhere while sacrificing the lives of scores of naïve, idealistic young followers as deluded pawns in the service of his personality cult.
Another reason he fled Cuba in the mid-1960s was the complete mess he made of his private life. Though he preached sexual purity to his colleagues, he was a shameless adulterer who abandoned two wives and many children, some legitimate, others not. As a grandson put it, 'he was never home.' The public Che who supposedly had such great love for humanity privately couldn't stand most folks.