South American Travelling Prostitutes

While in South America last year I came across a phenomenon which I thought was pretty interesting. That would be the "traveling South American prostitute", who were travelers like myself but had chosen, out of necessity, to fund their travels by different means. My first encounter with one of these women was in Quito, Ecuador. I checked into a hostel and went into my room to get settled and organized. I was sharing the room with one other person, a Colombian woman. We started chatting as I tried to take any opportunity I could to practice my Spanish and she told me she was "working while traveling". Interesting I thought, as I didn't meet many locals who backpacked like the gringos did. After a bit more investigation she told me she worked at a puta bar, and then generously invited me to go drink at her bar that evening. Although I had to pass I found the concept intriguing.
She wasn't the last traveling South American prostitute I would meet over the course of my travels. At first I thought it was a bit strange but the more I thought about it the more I came to respect these people. They loved traveling, just as I did. Only they weren't in a position to work hard for 6 months or whatever and then go backpack around the world, for them to save enough money to travel would probably take years. So instead they found another, if somewhat extreme, way of traveling and seeing the world. Although I'm not sure that selling your body is a positive thing I admired the sacrifices they were willing to make in order to explore and discover the world on which we all live.