Pilgrimage to Peru

How travellers travelled in the 1970’s

Long before smartphones, apps, tiktok and insta, long before wifi, whatsapp, before the internet, before personal computers, travelllers travelled. They had fold-out maps, poste restante, and the travellers’ grapevine.

The Gringo Trail

This was the age in the 70’s when I embarked on a grand adventure taking on the Gringo Trail - moving south from country to country, through Mexico, Belize, Guatemala and El Salvador, skipping across to Colombia and then moving down the spine of South America - the Andean countries, and eventually reaching Argentina and Uruguay.

Dear Diary - Pilgrimage to Peru

I kept a diary - a very detailed diary, day by day, on what I had for breakfast, the cost of things, who I met and how I got around.

Looking back now, some 50 years ago, it is a window to a different age. Some things haven’t changed, like meeting fellow travellers along the way - somehow running into those same people again, further along the trail.

The Travellers’ Grapevine

We left notes for each other. We wrote letters and sent them ahead to a post office in Quito, or Lima. We cashed travellers cheques.

The Path

My journal is titled Pilgrimage to Peru - it’s now an historical record of one young man’s search within, following a path that is to become a spiritual journey.