Brazilian director Walter Salles (C) poses with Alberto Granado (L) and Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal (R) during a photocall for his film entry 'Diarios de Motocicleta' (The Motorcycle Diaries) at the 57th Cannes Film Festival, in this May 19, 2004 file photo. Granado, who accompanied fellow Argentine Ernesto “Che” Guevara on a trip immortalized in the film, died in Cuba on March 5, 2011 at the age of 88, Cuba's state-run media reported. -Reuters Photo

HAVANA: Alberto Granado, who accompanied fellow Argentine Ernesto “Che” Guevara on a trip immortalized in the film “The Motorcycle Diaries, died in Cuba on Saturday at the age of 88, Cuba's state-run media reported.

The report said his ashes would be spread in Argentina, Cuba and Venezuela.

The famous trip across South America, begun in late 1951 on Granado's old British motorcycle, supposedly awakened in Guevara a sympathy for the poor and desire for social justice that turned him into a leftist revolutionary.

He was one of the leaders of Cuba's revolution that put Fidel Castro in power in 1959 and was in the Cuban government for several years until leaving to fight, less successfully, in other uprisings.

He died in Bolivia in 1967 while trying to start a rebel force there.

“The Motorcycle Diaries” was based on Guevara's diary of the trip and on Granado's book “Traveling with Che Guevara: The Making of a Revolutionary.” The 2004 film was directed by Brazilian Walter Salles.

At the invitation of his friend, Granado, who was a biochemist, came to Cuba in 1961 and stayed.