The Che revolution.

Thirty-seven years after his death, Bolivia is opening up the Che Guevara trail in a new sustainable tourism initiative, which aims to benefit local people. Words and pictures by David Atkinson.

His image reigns across Latin America from T-shirts to street murals. The French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre described him as “the most complete man of our age” and, as of this summer, he is the star of the hit film, The Motorcycle Diaries, which traces a journey across Latin America by two idealistic young medical students in 1951.

He is, of course, the asthmatic Argentinean doctor turned revolutionary hero, Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, aka Che.

For the people of La Higuera, the remote pueblo in Bolivia’s eastern lowlands where Che was executed by Bolivian troops on 9 October 1967, his presence is ubiquitous along the dusty main drag. The local people have guarded their memories of Che’s final days closely over the years. But all that changed after 8 October this year when a new tourism initiative brings the first international tourists to this Bolivian backwater, located well off Latin America’s traditional gringo route.

The opening of Bolivia’s new Che Guevara Trail represents one of the largest ever initiatives to bolster the country’s beleaguered tourism industry. It couldn’t be more needed. The country has been hit by strikes, blockades and protests since social unrest brought chaos to travel itineraries in October last year.

Last autumn, after a popular uprising, the Bolivian president, Sanchez de Lozada, was unceremoniously dumped and images of violent riots were broadcast around the globe. In subsequent months, the once-busy traveller cafes of La Paz and Sucre were near deserted. In a country where 14.4 per cent of people live on one dollar a day or less, the effect on livelihoods was devastating.

The Bolivian Ministry of Tourism hopes this new initiative will herald a major change in fortune. A £340,000, 36-month project, part financed by DFID, has been managed by CARE Bolivia, the local branch of the international NGO CARE International. The organisers sought and won the support of Che’s daughter in Cuba for the initiative.

“The objective is not to exploit Che’s name but to help local families through the creation of small-scale, tourist-based enterprises as a spin-off to the project,” explains Jacqueline Peña y Lillo, project manager for CARE Bolivia.

“We have been working since 2001 to oversee the improvement of the tourism infrastructure along the trail, with the aim that 500 Guarani families living along the route will directly benefit from the influx of tourism.”

In this respect the project is unusual, if not unique, for Bolivia. By fostering tourism based around the draw of the Che legend, it will specifically generate new income for the indigenous community in what is one of the poorest rural areas of Bolivia. Local families are being employed in new cultural projects, improving the services available to tourists and as official Che trail guides. As the project grows, CARE Bolivia aims to hand over its management entirely to the local community.

One such beneficiary is Juan-Pablo Escobar. One of the newly-assigned official Che guides, Juan-Pablo formerly worked as a thatcher in La Higuera and supported his young family on a meagre income. Now, as well as receiving a salary for guiding, some of the fees tourists pay him will be pumped back into local community projects to raise the overall standard of living across the village.

“I can’t help thinking that, if Che had succeeded in launching the social revolution he was planning for Bolivia, perhaps we would be a better country today,” says Juan Pablo, sheltering from the midday sun in the central plaza.

With that he leads me down a dirt track to a hut, where a small door marked “Museo Historico del Che” opens onto one of the trail’s new cultural attractions, a tiny but comprehensive treasure trove of photos, old newspaper cuttings and Che memorabilia.

Spreading across seven dusty, remote Bolivian municipalities, there are, in effect, three routes through Che country, which retrace the guerrilla fighter’s last journeys – as documented in Che’s final tome, The Bolivian Dairies (published 28 October 2004 by Pimlico, £8.99).

Of the three, the northern trail that runs from Santa Cruz via Samaipata, where the sacred rock of El Fuerte marks one of Bolivia’s most famous Inca sites, and onto Vallegrande, before terminating in La Higuera, is the most rewarding for Che pilgrims. Tour operators in Santa Cruz will arrange three to seven-day itineraries, or independent travellers can throw themselves at the mercy of Bolivia’s bus network as far as Vallegrande, after which a jeep is required; the road is completely inaccessible during rainy season (December to March).

Visitors are encouraged to act responsibly while travelling along the trail, respecting the natural environment and making use of local facilities en route. By frequenting local eateries and places to stay between Santa Cruz and La Higuera, and by taking locally arranged tours that employ official Che guides, tourism activities will provide a vital boost to the local economy that would not normally filter down to local people.

Che had come to Bolivia in 1966 to start a social revolution. However, instead of liberating the rural underclass, he was betrayed and – after being wounded in a gun battle – he was captured and held prisoner in the schoolhouse at La Higuera. His lifeless body was taken the next day to a hospital in nearby Vallegrande, where his corpse was paraded before the world’s media. The bodies of Che and his combatants were secretly dumped in unmarked graves in 1967; his corpse was only unearthed and returned to Cuba in 1997. Under the remit of the project, the tomb is to be converted into a Che museum with photos and memorabilia.

Today La Higuera is dominated by a large bust of Che, erected in 1997 to mark the 30th anniversary of his death. But the schoolhouse remains virtually unchanged from the fateful day of his capture. Except, that is, for a burgeoning collection of revolutionary graffiti, daubed like blood stains across the walls and with tributes from across the globe. Like Jim Morrison’ grave in Paris’ Pere Lachaise Cemetery, the tiny building is becoming a site of international pilgrimage.

“I’d heard that the soldiers had captured a dangerous guerrilla,” remembers Julia Cortes, who was a 19-year-old trainee teacher at the schoolhouse on the day that Che was held captive. Still living close by in La Higuera, she remains one of the last people to see him alive.

“When I met him, he struck me as a person blessed with great charisma and intelligence,” she says. “I brought him soup and we talked; he was very polite and respectful to me. Not at all dangerous.”

As the sun blisters the scrubland and roaming mules seek shade under looming cacti, I soak up the silence and spend a few moments reading the graffiti. As I make to leave, one particular inscription catches my eye on the building’s sun-bleached façade.

It reads: “Through this door one man walked out to eternity”.