Itinerary for South America

80s Child

Hey folks,
Thinking of heading to South America next summer for 4 weeks, the only problem is there is so much to see and do that I'm afraid I'll plan too much and we'll end up spending most of our time on a bus!
We'd love to get in Rio and B.A. (even though we would be in Brazil directly after the world cup which could increase the price dramatically!); we'd like to do Machu Pichu, Iguazu falls etc also.
So basically, I'm looking for any advice at all for this trip!
I know this is a bit all over the place but any recommendations would be greatly appreciated!
Cheers

bleary

I think you might be overstretching trying to fit in machu pichu as well, the trek is about 4 days and you shoould really aclimatise to the altitude. How set are your dates?
Ba to rio via igazu looks v doable, im planning to spend just under 4 weeks doing that this year
I usually look up some of the travel companies like intrepid to get an idea of itineraries but you need to allow more time when you do this planning yourself.
Flights seem quite expensive in ba and rio too.

Meathlass

Well it depends on what side of the continent you'll be on.

You could certainly do BA to Rio via Igazu, the Pantanal and Sao Paulo but as you said it may be very expensive.

You could also fly into BA and make your way overland to Lima, passing through Mendoza, the Andes (check passes as it's winter time), Santiago de Chile, the Salt Flats in Bolivia, La Paz, Lake Titicaca, Machu Pichu (you don't need to do the trek, you can get a train up there), Nasca Lines, Arequipa and then Lima.

Basically I think you need to pick an area and explore that as 4 weeks will fly and the distances are huge e.g. Mendoza to Santiago is 20 hours on a bus.

80s Child

Cheers folks!
Ya, I'm a bit lost to be honest, getting their though! I like the idea of picking an area and going with it. Going up to Bolivia to the salt flats would be something I'd really like to do but, as mentioned, the sheer size of the continent is "the problem". Still, it's a nice headache!

Nicman

Wow, that's a large ground to cover in 4 weeks - doable but you won't remember where you were the day before! We travelled around there for 3 months and met alot of people like yourself, doing it all in 4 weeks and some of them admitted they packed too much in; they didn't have time to enjoy local stuff and local people, didn't have a chance to soak up the culture at all which we had, and from our point of view we thought they missed out big time.

Brazil is massive. But you'd get BA, Rio & Iguazu in no probs. Macchu Picchu is doable without the trek - you can get your tickets as normal for entry and there's buses that leave early mornings from the village...what was it called.... Aguas Calientes. Those go straight to the site so you spend the day there and basically can have the whole thing done with 2 nights there only. You have to weight up what's important to you - are you going to SA to see landmarks or to see and experience a totally different culture?

80s Child

That's a good point. I was talking to a friend of a friend last night as we were having a few beers and he said the same thing, basically he went and travelled non stop for 4 weeks bit he didn't really get to experience what SA is really like. He went to columbia the following year and just travelled and stayed as they pleased and he said that they much preferred this as. I'm thinking we might have to forget about going to central america and focus solely on argentina and chile and maybe hop into rio on da way home!

Nicman

I think you're right, you'd be sorry after. Like that's what we did - we concentrated on a certain few areas and didn't go crazy trying to get as many stamps on our passports as possible (and believe me - travellers do that alot out there, you'll find they almost compete with each other about it!), but we didn't care, felt we had a much more authentic experience overall while still seeing some really wicked stuff along the way. We left ourselves enough time around the travelling to stay an extra few days in any given place if we liked it and felt like it and so we never felt like we were moving on too fast from a place. Like we ended up meeting Argentinians in Salta and staying with them up at their ranch in the mountains...like you can pay to do that kind of a ranch horse riding thing, but this was staying with a normal couple who cooked us steaks and showed us around and brought their mates over for a music sesh! The stuff that can happen when you have the time is amazing - and those kinds of stories are ALWAYS the ones we recount rather than storie s about landmarks etc

80s Child

So we've been looking at a website called gadventures.com. Some nice itinerary here but I don't like the thought of having everything planned to the nth degree. When we travelled in Oz, we had a general idea of what we had to do and booked everything with a local holiday agent when we got there and it was perfect! Is this what others have done in SA, it's just that I'm afraid it won't work as well with the language barrier and everything..
What do you reckon of gadventures.com Nicman?

Nicman

Well it depends on what kind of person you are - some people like having everything planned to a T. We met a couple of people who had the entire itinerary planned like on that website before they got there and it seemed so restrictive - zero spontaneity and they couldn't change plans if for example they met someone who recommended a place to them to stop off for a day or whatever. (Now you also have to take people's opinions on where you should or shouldn't stop with a pinch of salt and gauge what kind of people they are too before taking their advice.)
If you're doing Argentina language won't be a problem and from what I hear the same applies to Brazil unless you're going into the wild a little.

Anyway I understand the need for some sort of itinerary when you just have 4 weeks otherwise there'll be alot of wasted time. What we did was researched pretty much everything, literally stuck a huge map on the wall with places of interest, noted down anything worth noting (how long a bus journey takes from one to the other, the process of booking tickets, possibility of flying, attractions/ activities in the given area etc etc etc), and put a sort of itinerary in place with room for manoeuvre when we got over there.The only thing we booked in advance was our first 3 nights accommodation and our Macchu Pichu tickets which turned out to be a disaster and we ended up having to buy them again when we got there. After that we had researched hostels (made a top 5 list and went to see them when we got to the towns/villages so we didn't waste time looking at crappy hostels) and knew the route we wanted to take but went off on many tangents along the way.

silja

**** Moving from United States to General Travel for more answers *****