At 54, a post-divorce gap year in South America took me back to my 20s
For The i Paper, Tracey marks a year since her divorce with an eight-day Viventura romp through Peru, Bolivia and Chile — pisco sours in Lima, an Inca blessing on Isla del Sol, cholitas wrestling in La Paz, and 500-plus miles across the Salar de Uyuni — and finds the twenty-something backpacker she thought she'd left in Hong Kong is still very much on the road.
Tracey marks a year since her decree absolute with a Viventura small-group trip through Peru, Bolivia and Chile — pisco sours and causa in Miraflores, a shaman's blessing on Isla del Sol, salteñas and the witches' market in La Paz, cholitas wrestling on a Sunday afternoon, and three days crossing the Salar de Uyuni past flamingo lagoons and pink algae lakes. The piece doubles as a quiet case for midlife solo travel (Saga: women over 50 twice as likely to go it alone; 62% of Intrepid's solo bookings are women aged 45-60) and ends somewhere unexpected — the twenty-something who went to Hong Kong on her own in the nineties isn't gone, she's just been waiting her turn.