La Higuera
Ultimate stage of our trip on the tracks of the Che in Bolivia, we finallygot to the small village of La Higuera, where 42 years before the Che delivered his last fight and died assassinated after being briefly captured. In order to visit the village and its surroundings and impregnate ourselves well with the atmosphere, we decided to settle down in La Higuera tor two days and two nights.
Getting to La Higuera was already an adventure in itself. From Vallegrande, there is only about sixty kilometers to go through, but in the mountains and the badly damaged roads, it took us no less than 3 hours. These 3 hours are to be added to the 3 other hours we had to wait in Vallegrande looking for a transport, at dawn from 6.45am. As there was no trucks,passing ,by we embarked in the car of a Bolivian man, with his wife (?) and his two children as they were all going to their home village of La Higuera. This man, for whom time was really not money, had no more than 2 pulses a minute and made us wait 2h30 in his car before starting us the engine. Every 15 minutes was a different explanation. A very effective test for our patience and good mood!!
Once away from Vallegrande, the voyage turned out to be quite pleasant. Under the `miaou miaou' and the recurring moanings of a cat locked up and crushed under our large bags in the trunk, we could appreciate splendid landscapes
The Conditions of the guerrilla
Little by little we started to feel very far away from everything. We could start imagining the guerrilleros walking around us, hidden behind the bushes, suffering but leading with determination, their revolution. Contemplating the vastness of the surroundings, the mountains quasi inhospitable and the very rare inhabited or cultivated areas; we wondered how such a small group of men could hope to conquer and dominate a so immense and hostile territory… In addition to this geographic difficulty, we know that the guerrilla had also to face a human problem. Contrary to Cuba, the guerrilleros did not have the support of the peasants who were afraid of them and whom they had to endeavour to convince (in vain). Instead of supplying them with goods and support, informing them or joining their forces, the inhabitants of the countryside avoid them or worse went up to denouncing them… It is for the guerrilleros an important handicap. Due to the lack of food and the ground inhospitality, the guerrilleros quickly turned exhausted, thirsty and starving, and went so down that even had to drink their own urine or eat their horses. Also deprived of any the communication with outside, we wonder how the revolution of Che Guevara could finally have triumphed…
The evening at Irma´s and her stories on the Che
In La Higuera, we feel far, very very far. The village is very calm. When we first got there, we had to wait half an hour before seeing the first human being!! Irma is the woman who accommodates us just next to her house inside the school. In the evening, she serves us food inside her home and start feeding us with stories on Che Guevara. Irma was a young kid at the time, but affirms us that she saw the Che alive and then as a dead body. She tells us how he was locked up in the school on this 8 October 1967, made prisoner, and then assassinated the following day with his two compatriots. She shows us photographs, but dating from after the events. One represents a former guerrillero who made it through the capture and went back to la Higuera some years later in the memory of the guerrilla. He sits in the company of a dwarf woman, who according to Irma had fed the guerrilleros for 13 days right before their last combat close to the village of La Higuera. Odd, this story appears neither in our biography nor in the Che´s diary... We however step backwards and re consider when hearing such stories. The peasants, the witnesses and their families all have impressive stories about the past also involving them, but those are sometimes not logical or coherent with the remainder of the History...
We spent a very sympathetic supper at Irma´s, or rather special, entertaining. In this small and quiet village lost in the mountains, we dine in a very obscure room, hardly enlightened. In front of us sit three Bolivian people, with their deep but typical faces of the countrymen, looking at us while we are eating and talking about the Che. With their strong accents and our limited level of Spanish, we understand half of what they say. Pacundo, Irma´s in-law and also guide for the village, eats beside us. Its plastic denture, with its bright whiteness, contrasts grotesquely with its bearded and wrinkled face. With his cowboy hat, his shirt full of holes, and his quite special smell (Delphine says that he stinks) make him like a very typical character. Our conversations are intersected by kids entering and buying candies with dirty coins. In this quite authentic decoration and under the benevolent eyes of the Che displayed everywhere on the walls, we spend a very interesting evening.
The last fight of the Che and his assassination
The following day, accompanied by Pacundo and his horse, we hike down to the Quebrada del Youro (the Youro canyon). After a good hour and a half walking through damaged paths, we arrive at the place where the Che was captured. During this little excursion, we do not learn more than we already know, but we intensely re live the moments described in the biography of the Che, right in the middle of the scene and surrounded by the spirits of the revolution. We can imagine the guerrilleros around us dispersed in small groups and encircled by several troops from the Bolivian army. The ambushes, the shootings echoing in this immense and wild landscape, around the bushess, the streams and the heavy rocks. The Che, wounded at the leg and enduring a bad asthma attack, carried away by a fellow guerrillero, who suddenly finds himself with two rifles pointed at him and constrained to capitulate. The astonishment of the two soldiers who realize that they have Che Guevara in front of them, the public enemy No 1 of their government and of the CIA, the ultimate goal of all their operation.
The Che just made captive will be brought to La Higuera and laid out in one of the two rooms constituting the school at the time. The following day, under the order of the CIA, he is shot dead. Inside the school, even if it since has been refurbished, we imagine well the Che, there, sitting on this chair, head up and staring strong. It was not such a long ago...
In the village, several statues were built up at the effigy of the Che. The walls of the houses are also covered with paintings and writings, full with quotations reminding us that the Che is not dead and that the fight continues. The village is a true place of worship, where fans, followers of his idealism, and intrigued tourists come to give him homage and cultivate his memory. We are proud to be one of these people.
As in a film
We will spend our last evening eating with another family, at Roberta´s house. Same intriguing environment that the preceding evening, as out of time, we find ourselves eating in the half-light weakly lit up by a gas lamp. Around us, characters move, appear, disappear. Delphine says amused that we could be in a film. I agree and confirm, we really are in another world. Juan, Roberta´s brother plays the guitar (very badly). Two men enter the room with their cowboy hats to buy coca leaves, weighted roughly on an artisanal balance. Like the majority of the other characters around, they appear not to have washed for a very long time, and release a nauseous smell contributing to the charm of our visual hallucination. Shortly after I chat with a teenager who asks me hundreds of questions about France. He was definitely the most real character on the scene!!
In conclusion, we spent in La Higuera an unforgettable time. Far from all and everything and plunged in an intriguing and authentic scene, we could, briefly but intensely, share the rural life of a small community of peasants, and thanks to them re live part of the History.
At the top left, the school where the Che was assassinated.
On the right, his statue with some local animals hanging around