A quiet ride back to town from the schoolhouse...

Is it fate? Is it stupidity? No se. Pero Fiona and I found ourselves (after 2 hours in a taxi along the most wonderfully scenic countryside and remote mountains) outside the schoolhouse in the middle of nowhere, where Che Guevara and two comrades were summarily executed. As many of you may already know, I was not going to view, or even venture near the places that were most morbid and too sad for me, including the laundry of the local hospital here in Vallegrande, where his body was brought and put on show like a big fish, the trail of his final push including the river crossing where many of his right hand men and woman (Tania Bunke) met their end and he was captured, and the schoolhouse where he was jailed and shot. I looked at the schoolhouse as I stood outside it, now a information centre of the whole affair, and knew it was where it all happened (even though we had thought it was some miles from the town we'd just arrived in, La Higuera). In fact I read it on the wall -something like "This is the schoolhouse where Che Guevara was held and later executed". Not sure how I missed my resolve to not experience this period of his life, and not sure why I crossed the threshold. Inside was the picture of Che that perhaps I feel worse about than his many depressing photographs as a dead man being propped up by Bolivian military for show and tell - it is a photo of his bent and apparently defeated self, head bowed, being led in shackles before being shot. I had been under the impression that he and his comrades had been killed outside the schoolhouse but when I walked inside I had the destinct impression that it smelled like death. I think I was still under the nearing delusional impression that I wasn't at his site of death. When Fiona read on the wall that he was in fact killed IN the room in which we were standing and clarified that with the curator of the building, I finally came to and said "NO! No puedo quedar aqui (No, I can't stay here)" and made a beeline for the door bursting into the sunlight, with the very emotional knowledge that Che couldn't do that. And perhaps - and I hope this is true for many revolutionary comrades - my being able to leave that place was a sign that it is we who can continue his dream of a free world, a fair world, a fight for justice and peace.

"Patria o muerta!" (Which to me translates to "A fair and equal planet or death!")

Then had dinner in a restaurant tonight that, while not unlike all the other outlets in this town in displaying Che and exploiting his image, including one's of him dead, had giant artistic paintings depicting his dead body on the walls, copies of the classic photos you might find in books and things... I found this particularly disturbing and distasteful and tried to express my views to the owner, who was receptive but appeared surprised. I don't think she gets too many complaints...

Just working out where to go next. We both agree that it should be far, far from this little depressing neck of the woods.

And due to popular demand no puedo... I can't download photos, I just realised now, because my cable is in Cochabamba. Perhaps this nice woman who runs this internet place (not the fodden extorcionista in Samaipata!!! Be warned!) will have one.