Is South American Spanish Fluent?

I was supposed to have an English tour guide but he or she never materialized. So I went with a Spanish guide but we had two Spanish speakers who spoke for in English and out of the five of us, six of us, four of us were English anyway so it didn't matter in the end. It can be difficult because it's not like Europe where many people will speak English. A lot of South Americans don't speak English however I do find that South American Spanish is easier to understand than Spanish Spanish. Initially I tried to speak Spanish high Spanish so viva which is the thing going on. And I realised that actually that's not a good way of doing it. They just