Dec-Feb in South America

Glowing

Hi

If you had about 2 or 2.5 months to spend anywhere in South America (between Dec & Feb), where would you go (taking into account climate and safety and without spending an absolute fortune!)

Thanks!

jackbhoy

Southern Brazil - esp. Rio (carnival in early Feb a must!!!), Ilhe Grande, Iguazu.

Uruguay - great food/drinkl/people and cheap.

Buenos Aires - amazing city, very cheap.

shrapnel222

i'd posted here yesterday but as usual these days- boards crashed and so did my message:D Weathewr wise, you'll be fine, it'll be summer.Anyway the gist of it was figure out what or where you really want to go, and pick, let's say 3 adjacent countries and work (not litterally) your way through them. for example i did peru ecuador and colombia by bus in 3 months, and there were so many things i still missed out on due to lack of time. basically, adventures can take time, like for example if you want to do a trek in the rain forest, it'll take you a day or 2 to get to a good launch area, then 3 to 5 days in the forest then back etc.. or if you want to do the inca trail and macchu picchu, it takes you a day or 2 to get to cuzco, 2 or 3 days to acclimatise to the altitude and then another 3 or 4 days of trekking... what i'm trying to say is that time flies when you're over there, so you need to figure out your must sees are, and then go with the flow, but not to try and cram everything in.
try and post a few of your ideas and then we can help you work something out.

Glowing

Thanks Shrapnel. Yeah I'm just back from a year's travel, so I know how how quickly time flies, and how you can never fit it all in no matter what! (although why you'd want to try, I don't know!)

I was thinking of Peru, Bolivia and Argentina - the Inca trail is a must (did you do it?), I love cities, so Buenos Aires will be on the map too. Assuming I only have 2 months, i'd have to break it down to 3 weeks, 2 weeks, 3 weeks or something similar. I don't mind spending extra on internal flights- does anyone know of any decent booking websites? I've heard that flights into Bolivia are expensive too ....!

shrapnel222

i did do the inca trail, but actually did something much much better. We took a bus from cuzco for 12 hours (pretty painful experience considering this was a local bus full to the brim and designed for peruvians who are all 5 foot, and i'm 6 foot 3, so ended up standing, completely squashed, i didn't even need to hold on to anything due to the fact we were so tightly packed, so just rested my head on other peoples heads and tried to sleep:D ). Anyway this bus took us a few valleys further than where the inca trail starts, and so we had a 3 day trek starting at 2500m and making our way to a pass at over 5000m in the most breathtaking landscapes and not a soul in sight (we only saw 4 other people in those 3 days), and then you link up to the inca trail just a few hours in to where the trail starts. This was crazy, after 3 days alone, you are now surrounded by tourists, loads of americans with just a little rucksack, complaining how hard it is, whilst their porters have run ahead to make their meals for them, prepare their tents, and heat some water for their aching feet. The trail was fun, and certainly not easy (we'd miscalculated food wise so were on a tin of tuna a day for the last 2 days), but loved it, had a great time, and got up at 4 on the last day, and ran in the dark with our torchlights to get to the sun door at macchu picchu before dawn and watch in awe as the sun rises and you get your first glimpse of macchu picchu bathed in sunlight... Breathtaking. What's brilliant as well is that when you do the inca trail, you get 4 hours in macchu picchu with next to no one around. When the trains start coming in around 10, the place is swamped by 1000s of people, but by that time you've done your tour and can just go around listening to guides telling their stories. great memories

Glowing

Wow! Sounds pretty amazing.

So let me get this right - you did a 3 day trek BEFORE you joined the inca trail? (so then you did another 4 days?)

shrapnel222

hehe, yup, and it was definitely worth it. Before Peru, i'd never been above 3200 metres and that was skiing so doesn't really count as you spend your time going downhill, but going uphill, smoking a pack a day, was pretty tough. the final 400 metres going up to 5100 was like, two steps- breather-two steps breather. We lost about 9 kilos each in a week, and we really didn't have them to lose, but man, were we fit when we finished.