Alberto Granado | Guevara's sidekick, 88

Alberto Granado Jimenez, 88, the Argentine biochemist who accompanied the young Ernesto "Che" Guevara on his formative odyssey across South America, died in Havana on Saturday.

Mr. Granado, who settled in Cuba in 1961, died of natural causes, according to Cuban state television.

He was born in the Argentine town of Hernando on Aug. 8, 1922. One of three sons of a Spanish émigré and railroad clerk, he studied biochemistry and pharmacology at the University of Cordoba.

It was in that city that he met Guevara, an asthmatic teenager determined to play rugby with Mr. Granado's team. They became friends, sharing an intellectual curiosity, a mischievous sense of humor, and a restive desire to explore their continent.

Like his father, Dionisio T. Granado, Alberto "Che" Granado was politically active. He joined student protests in 1943 against Argentina's repressive regime and, as a result, spent time in jail.

In December 1951, Mr. Granado and Guevara set out from Cordoba on Mr. Granado's overloaded, beat-up motorbike, La Poderosa II, or the powerful one.

Their eight-month journey, both a madcap coming-of-age road trip and a journey of political discovery, made a deep impression on both men and set Guevara on a course that transformed him into a revolutionary icon.

The travelers were moved and shocked by the poverty in which so many South Americans lived. Both men kept journals, which became the basis for Walter Salles' 2004 film, The Motorcycle Diaries, starring Gael Garcia Bernal as the 23-year-old Guevara and Rodrigo de la Serna as Mr. Granado. - N.Y. Times News Service