Smithsonian Magazine - 11.2019

42 SMITHSONIAN.COM | November 2019

PHOTO12 / UNIVERSAL IMAGES GROUP

F

OR SEVERAL DAYS, Ernesto

Guevara, Che’s son, had been

leading a group of eight on a

motorcycle tour around Cuba.

The escapade was fi lled with

the island’s usual mild chaos

and misadventures, which Ernesto had

tackled with dry humor. “Some of the

potholes out here have names,” he said

of the decaying country roads. “They’ve been here for

so long people are fond of them. They’re like pets.” But

he grew quiet as we began to explore Santa Clara, the

provincial city that encapsulates Che’s short, operatic

life and helped turn him into one of the most recogniz-

able—and yet, little-known—fi gures of the modern era.

As every Cuban school kid knows, Santa

Clara was the site of Che’s greatest victo-

ry during the Cuban revolutionary war of

1956-9. It was then the crossroads of the is-

land’s transportation system and a key stra-

tegic goal in the armed rebellion led by Fidel

Ernesto Guevara

cruises by an

image of his father

on a building in

Havana’s Plaza

of the Revolution,

one of the largest

public squares in

the world.

Che’s

Kid

Hits

The

Road

Why I rode a

Harley-Davidson

around Cuba with

the son of the

revolutionary icon