On July 7, 1953, Ernesto Guevara, 25yearold, took a train from Retiro Station in Buenos Aires to set out on what would be his final, decisive trip through Latin America.His travel companion and childhood friend, Carlos Calica Ferrer, recounts for the first time the adventures and experiences of those defining months that led the young Ernesto transformation into Comandante Che Guevara. As in his first trip with Alberto Granado, this second journey was an encounter with the roots of indigenons America, with the incipient people movements and all the beauty and suffering of a continent oppressed for centuries.The name of the sidekick has changed from Alberto to Calica, but the trip, is the same: two freespirits spanning out over South America without knowing exactly what theye looking for or which way is north, wrote Guevara in his travel diary The two friends explore Bolivia, Perú and Ecuador, alternating their enthusiasm for travel and youthful antics with revealing discoveries about social and political reality in Latin America, in the end turning the trip into a profound journey of selfdiscovery that would change them forever.The book also presents previously unpublished photos from Calica personal album that portray the childhood and youth of the two friends in the town of Alta Gracia in the Province of Córdoba, Argentina, as well as their trip together.Alberto Granado, friend of both Ernesto and Calica, prologues the book and finishes with these words: Thank you, Calica, for having brought this breath of fresh air and showing us our friend just as he was, is and always will be: a man of flesh and blood.
