Alberto Granado, RIP

The NY Times reports:

lberto Granado, who accompanied Ernesto 'Che' Guevara on a 1952 journey of discovery across Latin America that was immortalized in Guevara's memoir and on-screen in "The Motorcycle Diaries," died in Cuba on Saturday. He was 88. ...

Granado and Guevara's road trip, begun on a broken-down motorcycle they dubbed La Poderosa, or "The Powerful," awoke in Guevara a social consciousness and political convictions that would help turn him into one of the most iconic revolutionaries of the 20th century. ...

Granado was born Aug. 8, 1922, in Cordoba, Argentina, and befriended Guevara as a child.

As young medical students, the two witnessed deep poverty across the continent — principally Chile, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela — and their stay at a Peruvian leper colony left a particularly deep impression.

They parted ways in Venezuela, where Granado stayed on to work at a clinic treating leprosy patients. Guevara continued on to Miami, then returned to Buenos Aires to finish his studies.

Granado was described this way by Jon Lee Anderson:

[He was]"barely five feet tall and had a huge beaked nose, but he sported a barrel chest and a footballer's sturdy bowed legs; he also possessed a good sense of humor and a taste for wine, girls, literature and rugby."

May he rest in peace.