The Motorcycle Diaries is a book that traces the early travels of Marxist revolutionary Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, then a 23-year-old medical student, and his friend Alberto Granado, a 29-year-old biochemist. Guevara travelled 8,000 kilometres (5,000 mi) across South America on an old 500cc single cylinder Norton motorcycle. During the journey he is transformed by witnessing the social injustices of exploited mine workers, persecuted communists, ostracized lepers, and the tattered descendants of a once-great Incan civilization. The book ends with a declaration by Guevara, originally born into an upper middle class family, displaying his willingness to fight and die for the cause of the poor, and his dream of seeing a united Latin America.