New generation follows Guevara’s Bolivian trail

[struggle4progress]

BY DAVID ATKINSON
LONELY PLANET

LA HIGUERA, Bolivia — On a bright day in early October 2005, pilgrims descended en masse onto a remote pueblo in rural southeastern Bolivia to mark the 38th anniversary of the death of Che Guevara. And in the dusty main square of that village, La Higuera, a huge statue of Che presided over a fiesta fit for one of the world’s most charismatic revolutionary leaders.

Devotees of the man known as Che, the ultimate Latin American hero, have long made the journey to this isolated spot, a place overlooked by the established gringo trail through Bolivia. But now, thanks to the creation of the Che Guevara Trail, a revolutionary tourism project tracing Che’s final footsteps during his ill-fated 1967 Bolivia campaign, La Higuera is waking up to mass tourism for the first time.

Bolivian authorities have traditionally lacked the resources to promote its fledgling tourism industry. This project, however, was conceived and executed by the local Guarani people, an indigenous community living in a region of Bolivia where rural poverty runs at 74 percent. Funded by international nongovernmental organizations and local private enterprise, the Che Guevara Trail aims to prove that tourism can be managed responsibly and used to directly benefit local, indigenous communities.

Since the opening ceremony in October 2004, attended by the Bolivian vice ministry of tourism and a brace of international aid bodies, the project has started to take on a living, breathing life of its own. Now entering its second phase, it has been handed back to the Guarani community to manage under the auspices of Fundeche, a collective of interested groups and private enterprises working to promote the trail. <snip>

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