Alberto Granado, close friend of Che Guevara. Photograph: Javier Galeano/AP
Argentinian Alberto Granado, who travelled with Ernesto "Che" Guevara on a journey of discovery across Latin America that was immortalised on-screen in The Motorcycle Diaries, has died in Cuba aged 88.
Their road trip awoke in Guevara a social consciousness and political convictions that would turn him into one of the iconic revolutionaries of the 20th century.
The two travellers both kept diaries, which were used as background for the 2004 movie, produced by Robert Redford and directed by Walter Salles. Granado was born on 8 August 1922 in Córdoba, Argentina, and befriended Guevara as a child. As young medical students, they witnessed deep poverty across the continent, particularly Chile, Columbia, Peru and Venezuela, and their stay at a Peruvian leper colony left a lasting impression on the pair.
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.
Guevara would later join Fidel and Raul Castro in toppling the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista on New Year's Day in 1959.
Granado visited Cuba at Guevara's invitation in 1960 and moved to Havana the following year, teaching biochemistry at Havana University. He had lived in Cuba ever since.
In his biography of Guevara, Jon Lee Anderson wrote that Granado 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".
According to Cuban television, Granado requested for his body to be cremated and his ashes spread in Cuba, Argentina and Venezuela. Funeral arrangements have not been announced.
Guevara was captured and killed by soldiers in Bolivia in 1967 as he tried to foment revolution in the Andean nation.
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