All Che’d out

October 6, 2010: I am so exhausted from my outdoor classes the past few days: Che History 99, Che History 101 and the more advanced Che History 256. I traveled to the tiny village of La Higuera, to see how he lived his last few days before his final battle with Bolivian Army Rangers (NOT the US Army Rangers) who were trained by the CIA.

This village was the area where he was shot in the leg, then later shot in the lower parts and finally was finished off after inconveniently being shot in then the upper parts before being laid out for the world to take photos. Thinking about it, for my non-South American friends…do you even know Ernesto Guevara (aka Che)? He was the man who in 1959, helped Fidel Castro overthrow a Cuban dictator and who also enjoys being on lots of tee-shirts, wallets, hats and wall paintings all over South America.

The best part of the trip was standing at a museum looking at the photos of a man's transformation from an innocent child to who he became...Che...a traveler, a world traveler and to the man who enjoyed starting revolutions and infuriating the French in the process. He somehow single handily destroyed the image of the French beret that as he was photographed in everywhere he went as he smoked fat cigars and held machine guns instead of the typical petite French cigarettes and a paint brush.

The saying is true: “People change”…sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse – it all just depends on what side you are on.

*Photo pulled from dailymail.co.uk