Solo in South America: A Backpackers Trip to Peru

Traveling alone has its ups and downs. At one moment it can be liberating and exciting, at the other it can be lonely and dangerous.

Being a young female traveling alone in South America is turning out to be quite the experience. It has been extremely easy to be sucked up by other traveling groups, a group of 3 from Washington State, USA, a couple of guys from Calgary, Canada, another solo traveler from New Zealand.

Traveling alone is one of the freest ways of traveling because there isn't anyone to hold you back, to challenge your decisions, to whine about the food.

On the other hand, there's nobody to help you when you get sick, no one to watch your back so that you don't get robbed, and no one to add extra insight into a dismal looking situation. But despite the setbacks, I find it to be a more enjoyable way of traveling the world.

Arriving in Peru back in September, I stepped out of the airport only to be bombarded by taxi drivers clambering for fresh meat. Unlucky foreigners were being herded into vans with promises of fancy hotels, exciting tours and great deals.

I unknowingly stepped into the wrong taxi cab and when I was left standing outside the bus station in Lima searching for my money to buy a bus ticket I realized that my new stack of soles had been taken by the 'kind' taxi drivers.

After being harrassed outside the bus station by a rapidly speaking Peruvian who wanted me to stay at his hostal and having lost my money to carelessness, I seriously thought about returning south to Chile where the people had been friendlier and the taxi drivers hadn't scammed me.

Enter the two Canadians; one fluent in spanish and the other had arrived the day before with the biggest smile on his face. Just hearing a familiar language made me feel better and I started talking to the two of them as we waited for the bus to Cuzco.

We ended up traveling together for the next week and a half, having wild adventures walking the train tracks to Machu Picchu for seven hours, leaping into the bushes to hide from the trains, trying to sleep on the freezing dirt floor in the house of an old woman who took pity on us and made us mate.

But after a week and a half of traveling with them, they decided to travel east into Bolivia while I had other locations in mind. Thus using the ease of a solo traveler we parted ways, exchanging email addresses and promises of pictures, and I boarded a bus to somewhere new.

The best part of these adventures are the friends that are made and the stories that are heard. People from Israel, England, New Zealand, USA, Germany,  Japan, and so many more far flung countries, everyone has a unique story to tell and advice to be given, and almost all are willing to talk with and exchange information with a fellow traveler.

So while you might be technically traveling alone through foreign countries, there is always the opportunity to meet up with other people for an hour or for a week, but there is always the freedom of leaving them without a fight and heading off to explore new places and new people on your own.

Heather S. USA

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