November 2019 | SMITHSONIAN.COM 53Located near the
Caribbean Sea
and the Escam-
bray Mountains,
the exquisitely
preserved Span-
ish colonial town
of Trinidad was
once the center
of the Cuban
sugar trade.
Ernesto Guevara
got his fi rst
Harley as a teen
even before he
had a license.
Chevrolet Impala. The sleek, emerald green vehicle,
with the E and O missing from the silver-lettered
brand name across the hood, exuded historic charm.
Next to it was another relic: a rickety-looking, mil-
itary-gray motorbike—the replica of La Poderosa
used in The Motorcycle Diaries fi lm. The producers
had given it to Che’s old traveling companion, Alber-
to Granado, who died in 2011 and willed it to the cen-
ter, Camilo explained. They were reasonable conso-
lation prizes for not getting into the study, I thought.
Che’s real car and a movie prop—the perfect balance
of history and myth for his memory today.
As for me, I’d read volume after volume about
Che’s peculiar character while researching my bookon Cuba, studying his mix of romanticism and icy
calculation, his monkish self-discipline, his caus-
tic humor and infuriating moralizing. But learning
about his family life had added another dimension,
and an extra level of sympathy. Che followed his
revolutionary mission with a determination that im-
pressed even his many enemies, but he also wrestled
with inner doubts, and knew what he was sacrifi cing.
Writing to his wife from the Congo, he apologized to
her for sometimes seeming a “mechanical monster.”
And yet, the image that lasted from the trip was from
the museum in Santa Clara, where the photograph
showed Che smiling as he fed the baby Ernesto with
a milk bottle. It’s a contradiction the kids have had to
make their peace with. I thought of what Ernestito
had told me with a shrug: “Che was a man. You can
see the good and the bad.”FOR MORE of Tony Perrottet’s adventures in Cuba,
go to: Smithsonianmag.com /havana