South America, advice from those who know!

jebusmusic

I've been reading all of the posts about SA here, lots of good info. I'm planning a "half RTW" trip there late 2010, and I was hoping some of the folk who've been there could advise/comment on my plans?

Route (Basic); Into Buenos Aires, then overland to Iguazu Falls, San Paolo, Rio De Janiero, then to Bolivia (maybe through Paraguay), volunteer work near Santa Cruz (approx 3 weeks), Salt Plains, La Paz, Machu Picchu, Lima, then down through Chile to Santiago, flying on to Auckland. Timescale, approx 3 months, excluding the voulnteering.

We want to take our time, stopping in places of interest for a few days, or more if needed. Travel by bus and train, no internal flights.

My main questions;

Budget, I'm thinking about e3000 per person (there will be two of us), again excluding the volunteering. Enough? We will stay in hostels, cheap hotels, eat local/cook where possible, not too many mad nights out, but want to see the major sights etc, do some tours/trips etc.

Time, 3 months enough or not??

Route, I was originally thinking of flying into Lima and then heading south-east, in reverse order to the above, getting to Buenos Aires, then going across Argentina to Santiago, but getting to Lima appears to be a more expensive RTW flight. How is the route above, missing anything? Better route possible?

Any tips, comments, advice would be really welcome! Planning this is tough!

Naked Lepper

dont bother with sao paulo.. its too big and ****, maybe a few days there but if possible definitely spend more time in rio instead of going to sao paulo

i was in rio and sao paulo in feb and was glad i stayed in rio for the majority of it, sao paulos pretty **** tbh

rio is the most amazing city in the world however, PLEASE do urself a favour and stay here when u are in rio - http://www.terrabrasilishostel.com/


dont stay in copacabana!!!!

preddy

Dito on dont stay on Copa not the tourist spot its made out to be.
Amazing city to see but scary back streets...

Dont think you can travel backwards on a RTW trip ticket so be carefull on that one if your doubling back anywhere.

Skip Lima just a big smokey city get off to Cusco ASAP - Scared Valley Macchu Picchu (bring insect repel) loads to see there, Bumpy Train is 4hrs from (Cusco to Macchu Picchu)

Buenos Aires is amazing wish we spend longer

Made sense for us to go Rio - Iguazu - BA - Lima(Cusco) but if you want to see other places just make sure you keep going same direction east - west or vise versa

Kasycas

I did 3 months Jan-March this year with my boyfriend. It might help to see what we did and on what money as a comparison...

Rio->paraty->iguazu->buenos aires->mendosa->cordoba->salta->salt flats->postosi->sucre->la paz->arequipa->cuzco->the flight through lima to quito until we spent our final week at the galapagos.

Three months for us was perfect money-wise because we couldn't have afforded anymore. We spent ~2,000-2,500 euro per person, per month on living expenses and tourist attractions.

We stayed in hostels but didn't do the cheapest option because we were a couple and tried to always get a double room. We also didn't eat in the cheapest places just because our stomach's suffered a LOT, mostly during our month around Bolivia. However, I don't think we did the expensive option either. On top of all that there's nothing that we didn't do that we wanted to - it was a once in a lifetime trip so we didn't want lack of money to be the reason for us not doing something.

Anyway, the highlights were definitely the mines in potosi and machu picchu and the galapagos. We also loved buenos aires and spent the longest time there (5 nights).

I would think that you might be pushing the time if you're planning volunteer work. If I were you, I'd look loosely at what cities/towns you want to go to and allocate ~2-3 nights per place. That will give you a good idea of how realistic 3 months will be.

Anyway, we had a blog if you were interested in hearing more!
http://thecheapestwayround.blogspot.com/

Hope this helps and you have a great time!!

jobless

i second giving Lima a miss.... nothing to do and worth only going to if you're leaving south america .

gafferino

hey Im actually here at the moment. Just wanted to comment on the budget of 3k. I had a similar idea myself but have blown that budget way out of the water. I think you can do it on that but you will have to be really strict on your budget...really really strict.
Also Brazil is very expensive ...not too far off Ireland in some things so dont spend too long there.