backpacking south america

Ever frozen up mid-sentence while trying to speak Spanish, even though you know the words? Been there. In this blog post, I share how I went from total tongue-tie to confidently chatting with truck drivers as I hitchhiked across South America—plus the surprising role grammar lessons in Quito played in unlocking my fluency. It’s a story of nerves, mistakes, and the messy magic of real-life language learning.