After spending a year traveling through South America in the 70s, Joan finally completed her grand tour with O.A.T.’s The Wilderness Beyond: Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego & the Chilean Fjords adventure.
By Joan Rudloff, 29-time traveler from Palo Alto, CA
In the late 70s, I went to South America for a little over a year by myself. I was young and it was easy. I started in Puerto Vallarta, went through Mexico, and even took Spanish in Antigua, Guatemala for six weeks. While I was there, I climbed a volcano. I met others traveling the "Gringo Trail" and we would hook up and travel together. I traveled at night many times on local buses so as to not pay for a hotel. I spent two weeks on a farm in Honduras, a night in a bus station in a chicken cage in Nicaragua, and ended in Panama a day after Jimmy Carter returned the Panama Canal.
Then I hooked up with friends and we flew to Colombia, which was very dangerous at that time. We went to Southern Colombia for a few days and saw great ruins. Then it was on to Ecuador, my favorite South American country. A friend met me in Quito. From there, we went to Baños and took a boat trip to a lodge on an Amazon tributary. I went to Esmeralda, Ecuador along the coast and was able to get on a boat to the Galápagos, all for the amazing price of $500 for the week. I met up with some new friends and I was off to Peru.
We had fun in Lima and spent time drinking Pisco sours. After Lima, I took a train to Cuzco and then I was off to Machu Picchu where I climbed to the top of the peaks. I stayed in a hostel with a group from Spain and then I went back to Cuzco and the surrounding areas.
From there, I went to Lake Titicaca and spent a week on Taquile Island where the only thing to drink was a soft drink and there were no bathrooms. The bed was straw on top of a hardened bed made of mud.
My last stop was Bolivia. I met some Germans and we took a bus to a small village along one of the roads that is now considered to be one of the "most dangerous roads in the world." We were on a bus with the hood tied on with a rope. The bus in front of us turned over, but we made it. I sometimes see that road on car commercials and I am in shock that I survived. I had planned to go to Tierra del Fuego, but got homesick and started my journey home.
All in all, I was gone exactly a year and lived on $5.00 a day, which included lodging and food and any other things I might need. It was a fantastic year and very inexpensive. I never felt in any danger. Local people were wonderful. I was invited to homes, to a wedding, and on other adventures with locals. People now ask me if I was ever afraid and I say it what a wonderful experience.
I later finished my tour of South America with the fantastic O.A.T. The Wilderness Beyond: Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego & the Chilean Fjords adventure. I have done a few weeks of traveling on my own now and then, but now I prefer to travel with O.A.T. and Grand Circle with friends or alone. Keep on traveling whether by yourself, with friends, or with O.A.T.
Embark on your own South American adventure with O.A.T. during The Wilderness Beyond: Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego & the Chilean Fjords.
