No matter how much I drink, I’m up at eight the next day, at the top of my form. I let them go at around 30p a capsule…”He doesn’t really do much, he confesses, beyond writing poetry, or reading it. “I even feel guilty if I’m reading a novel, because I think I should be reading Homer again. I just came downstairs each day, picked the one I was going to do that day, and wrote.” Still, when one poem reads in its entirety: “On the ceiling – a footfall made with the heel of a hand” and another “Like a handprint – laid with the heel and the toes in sand”, it was hardly what the rest of us would call hard graft He grins “They were the good days. When you realise it’s only going to be a one-liner, you’re out of the house by nine o’clock, you’re finished.” What does he do then? “I might get into Huddersfield, which is a real treat, and go round the shops, have a sandwich and a cake.” The excitement! “Oooh, I’d never go there at night” he agrees, sending himself up “If I’m feeling really exotic, I go to Leeds.

In the space between poems, you somehow forget how to do it, where to begin It was good to be task- based for a while. They briefly occupied the town to buy medicine for their leader’s asthma, and escaped with ten soldiers as hostages, later leaving them by the road stripped of their clothes, to make their own way home. Along a road to the east lies the valley of the Yeso where four more guerrillas died, including Tania, the only woman among them In July there was a plane crash here. On a secret airstrip, a Brazilian Cessna hit a red Toyota bearing a load of cocaine.

Helicopters circled, US agents appeared, unknown bodies were borne away – the results so similar, the ideology so different, for drugs not guerrillas now rule the jungles of east Bolivia.The Vallegrandinos are expecting up to three thousand visitors and participants for the festival in memory of El Che. There are about 250 hotel beds in Vallegrande, in six residencials, adapted from historic colonial houses Some are pleasant and pretty, but they offer few facilities Each room may have four or five beds in it. The communal showers sport terrifying arrays of electrical wiring about 12 inches from the showerhead. Maybe that’s why I never managed to get hot water out of them. Like Scarborough, it’s very bracing.During the festival there’ll be accommodation in private houses Take your own soap, towel and loo paper. A camp site is also being organised but it can be bitterly cold at night.

As one of the founders of the Fondacion Ernesto Che Guevara says: “There’ll be discomfort and disorganisation, but what an encounter with Latin American culture and music, what a spirit of solidarity, justice and liberty. As Newsweek, that symbol of North American culture, splashed all over its cover in July: Che lives!”Bolivia Fact file: GETTING THERE Fly from London to La Paz or Santa Cruz via Miami, Caracas, Buenos Aires or Sao Paolo. From La Paz to Santa Cruz, there are daily flights ($90) and many buses, which take about 24 hours, but are cheap. There is also the “Death Train” to Santa Cruz from Corumb in Brazil for the more intrepid. This is scheduled to take a day but has been known to take three or more in wet weather. It is notorious for the sort of demanding-money-with-menaces you get when there is serious drug smuggling about.ACCOMMODATION:There are six guest houses in Vallegrande, with a total of about 250 beds. In normal times a bed costs about $3, and you get what you pay for.

Whatever happens, take a sleeping bag – there’s going to be a drastic shortage of beds. Private accommodation brings direct contact with families, but you’ll have to speak Spanish, or at least take an adequate phrase book. Camping: Vallegrande is in the mountains so provide for cold nights. Loo paper is never provided; take your own towel and soap too.THE FESTIVAL OF CHE GUEVARA5-11 October 1997: From Santa Cruz to Vallegrande there are buses ($4) and taxis ($60) which will surely soar in price for the festival. Regular buses are packed, and must be booked a day or two in advance at the Santa Cruz bus station. There are counters for each private firm in the basement: look for the signs of Senor de los Milagros or Flota Bolivar.