The Cycle Diaries

Armed with a copy of The Motorcycle Diaries, Julian Sayarer sets out on his bicycle in a quest to follow the 1952 journey of Ernesto "Che" Guevara through Latin America.

From the emptiness of the Argentine Pampa to the vast Atacama Desert and the mighty Amazon River, the road reveals the story of Guevara himself and of indigenous Mapuche communities confined to reserves, of lumber wars, of copper mines, coca plantations and oil pipelines.

Bringing the Diaries into a new century, Sayarer explores what has changed and what has stayed the same, taking in the history of the Cold War and the colonial conquest that came before it. His journey also shows that global politics can never truly be left behind, introducing him to socialist pensioners who have retired outside the US and beyond the reach of the FBI, and to refugees of war trying to treat their trauma with ayahuasca. Meanwhile, meetings with Palestinian diplomats and a distant diaspora offer a reminder of events that are impossible to escape even half a world away.

The altitude of the Andes and Altiplano and the roaring headwinds of Patagonia make for a rarely easy ten-thousand-kilometre trip, but Sayarer is propelled by a desire to understand a century and a continent shaped by war and empire, and finds in the pedal strokes of adventure a small act of resistance: the simple freedom of life on two wheels.