I went on a low budget, spending what was necessary to make the trip last as long as possible. I left Quito without a return date, with the aim of arriving to the Patagonia of Argentina, a destination I never reached. At some point my trip seemed to end in Bolivia, even in Cuenca, and it would have been a shame since what came later was be the best. For example, Bolivia, the country that I liked the most. If you follow me in these stories, I’ll share with you why it was the best.

I traveled alone. Before I left, I told my friends “let’s go backpacking,” since being accompanied can be seen as safer but, I came to realize that it also limits you a lot. I learned that when you are alone you must and have to relate, and you end up making many friends who, to your surprise, are also traveling without company. Moreover, I met more people traveling on their own than people traveling in a group or with someone. So if you can go just do it, be careful but go. You’ll find yourself creating or joining groups of backpackers who are traveling in the same circumstances as you. Remember that when you start your trip alone, you can go wherever you want without depending on anyone, you move faster, you decide everything faster and you visit the places you want to visit. Anyways, I told my friends “let’s go” and some said “yes!” and to this date I’m still waiting to see if they want to come. At some point I said ok i’m leaving, and I left, I visited places like the one in the photo (the story of how I got here is really great, you’ll see).

So, during the tour I met several types of travelers: backpackers who exchanged accommodation and food for work, those who go for a couple of weeks for vacations, those who save no expense and those who have traveled all over the world and have become wise travelers. The majority of adventurers are from Australia, Germany, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and the United States, very few Latin Americans though. Seems that traveling is something more cultural and you’ll see the reasons why I make this statement. Many people think that money is the limitation for traveling and in parts it’s true, but not entirely.

Anyways, I did meet people from South America, Chileans, Argentinians, I met an Ecuadorian in Cuzco who was coming from Chile to his land in Cuenca, we had some shots at the Loki Hostel bar, putting Ecuador and its flag on the board that showed a marker of the countries that have taken the most shots, with England or Australia on the top places with about 600 shots, something like that. We, Ecuador, only had 11.