The Motorcycle Diaries

Guevara begins this chapter with "We had come to a new phase in our adventure" (55). Indeed, life without La Poderosa is harder, and he and Granado must hitchhike or work to earn their passage for the rest of the journey. Before, passers-by were moved to pity by the sad state of the motorcycle. Now, without La Poderosa, the men depend more on others but have lost the advantage that La Poderosa conferred. At this point in the story, the men also begin to pursue their medical interests more intently.

When they arrive in Valparaíso, they find a place to sleep in a truck stop. Guevara describes their fellow lodgers as "parasites whose name ends in hominis" (55). Soon, however, a fellow Argentinian who has heard of their arrival invites them to eat with him and to visit him at home the next day. They eat a good meal, and spend the next day exploring the city.

Guevara describes Valparaíso:

The madhouse museum beauty of its strange corrugated-iron architecture…is heightened by the contrast of diversely colored houses blending with the leaden blue of the bay. As if patiently dissecting, we pry into dirty stairways and dark recesses, talking to the swarms of beggars; we plumb the city's depths, the miasmas draw us in.