Latin America Diaries by Ernesto «Che» Guevara Read Free Book Online

disembarked, we set off for Panama City.
    Fatty Rojo had left the address of a boarding house, so we went there and were put up in a corridor for a dollar a day each.
    Nothing out of the ordinary that day, but on the next we received a big surprise. Opening our letters at the Argentine consulate, we found one from Rojo and Valdovinos, announcing the marriage of the latter. We were most intrigued, until the girl,Luzmila Oller, 20 arrived and told us all about the wedding and other things. The event had sparked a revolution in her family. The father has done a bunk and the mother refuses to see him, so the guy just gets up and continues on his trip to Guatemala, without a good screw or even, it seems, a serious attempt at passion.
    The girl is very nice and seems quite intelligent, but she’s too Catholic for my taste.
    Perhaps the Argentine consul will arrange something for us or perhaps we’ll write for a magazine called Siete . Maybe I’ll give a lecture. So maybe we’ll be able to eat tomorrow.
    Nothing new, except that tomorrow I am to give a lecture on allergies, saying something about the organization of the medical faculty in Buenos Aires. The students gave me a warm welcome at the college. I met Don Santiago Pi Suñer, the physiologist, and in another context we met Dr. Carlos Guevara Moreno, who struck me as an intelligent demagogue, knowledgeable in mass psychology but not in the dialectics of history. He is very nice and friendly and treated us with deference. He gives the impression that he knows what he’s doing and where he’s going, but that he wouldn’t take a revolution beyond what is strictly indispensable to keep the masses content. He admires Perón. We might be able to publish two articles, one in Siete , the other in the Sunday supplement of Panamá-América .
    Luzmila has received a letter from Óscar Valdovinos, 16 pages long. She exudes happiness.
    I gave the famous lecture to an audience of 12, including Dr. Santiago Pi Suñer, for $25. I wrote an account of the Amazon, $20, and one about Machu-Picchu, probably $25.
    We’re going to move to a place that’s rent free. We met a young painter, not a bad guy. The guys are about to be expelled from theFUA for having visited consulates and traveled in a foundation airplane from Guayaquil to Quito. They’ve got Valdovinos by the balls in Guatemala because he sent a declaration in the name of “some anti-Peronist young Argentines.” I don’t know how it will all be sorted out. We went for a very pleasant walk along the beach at Riomar with Mariano Oteiza, president of the Panamanian Students Federation. 21
    My article about the Amazon has appeared in Panamá-América ; the other is still fighting for a place. 22 Our situation is bad. We don’t know whether we’ll be able to leave, or how. The Costa Rican consul is an idiot and won’t give us a visa. We met a sculptor, Manuel Teijeiro, an interesting man.
    The struggle is getting heavy. Met the painter Sinclair, who studied in Argentina. A good guy.
    The best so far is the trio of Adolfo Benedetti, Rómulo Escobar and Isaías García. All great guys. 23
    We still haven’t checked out the canal properly. We went there the other day but were too late and it was closed.
    I have to add another two names: Everaldo Tómlinson and Rubén Darío Moncada Luna.
    The last days in Panama were a waste of time. The Costa Rican consul wouldn’t give us the visas until we showed him not just tickets out of the country but also tickets in. We had to ask Luzmilato lend us the money. We couldn’t get the camera out, or get the PAA [Panamanian Airlines] to refund the fares to Costa Rica. We missed a farewell party they gave for Luzmila, or rather, I missed it, because Gualo had a complex about the way they regarded us and didn’t want to go. Luzmila was a little cold in the end.
    For the second piece they gave me $15, thanks