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I'm going to be cycling through Central and South America and was wondering what people recommended in terms of phone service. I'll be carrying an old quad band phone with me. Is it really worth buying a SIM in every country? If not does anyone have any suggestions for SIM cards that work in the region?
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Apr 15, 2011 12:07
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Ribsauce posted:It seems to be pretty universally agreed on Guatemala has the best spanish schools, as well as the most inexpensive. I am not sure your plans, but why would you start in Leon for your trip? It is in the middle so you cannot just head in one direction. I only did 3 weeks of school, I can get through the necessities of travel now and hold a basic conversation, but advanced is out of the question. My spanish was close to non existent prior. Also, it did not help I only heard English in El Salvador (btw my favorite place so far, most people skip it). I did a hotel the first week then a homestay for 2 weeks. The homestay was cool except I was sick for a week of it. What kind of prices are you looking at for school there? Is Guatemala a safe place to live? I'm currently up in Vancouver having cycled for 4 months and when I get down to Central America was thinking of stopping for 6-12 months to teach English and study Spanish for my travel through Central & South America. Some people I've spoken to have recommended Costa Rica, I'm open to any suggestions and haven't really done much research yet.
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Sep 9, 2011 21:23
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I'm going to cycle through Central & South America over the next couple of years and having to buy bottled water constantly sounds like it will get How is the drinking water in general? I know it's a huge area and if it helps answer I'll probably be starting in Baja California and heading south.
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Oct 24, 2011 22:28
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How is free wifi access across central America? I've spent the previous 8 months cycling round the US where places like McDonald's are everywhere and so I can always get online. I'll be heading down into Mexico through Baja in March/April and so wondering how things will be there.
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Jan 6, 2012 22:14
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Macunaima posted:Southern Mexico and Mexico City are fine. It was on my bicycle, but I've just ridden from Tijuana -> La Paz, taken the boat across to Topolobampo and then down through Culiacan to Mazatlan, up to Durango and through Zacatecas, Aguascalientes, Guanajuato to DF... had no problems at all.
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Jul 6, 2012 21:50
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r0ck0 posted:I want to visit Costa Rica. How safe is it for blue eyed, blonde hair gringo who speaks no Spanish? Can I rent a car and get around safely from hotel to the beach, jungle preserves? This will be my first trip out of the country, will I need to get vaccinated and if I plan on renting a car an international drivers license? Anything else I should know? thanks That's what Costa Rica is filled with so you'll fit right in. I passed through there back in July for 3 weeks and met more gringos, as you put it, than I've met in my last 18 months in Latin America.
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Sep 18, 2013 04:04
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Aliquid posted:Anyone ever toured on a bicycle in this part of the world? I leave Texas in a week or two and will head south until I run out of money. I'll be hitting up rural areas and small towns, no big cities until I reach South America most likely. I'd love any tips, help, traveling companions, etc. Yup! That's what I'm doing now. Currently in Venezuela. Basic tips, learn some Spanish if you don't speak it, sign up for Warmshowers & Couchsurfing, carry a tent and ask at police stations/fire stations/churches/whoever to throw it up. I've not carried more than 3L on my bike during the past about 30,000 miles although I do have a small bag that can hold 10L that's been folded up at the bottom of a pannier for the last 2 and a bit years. My blog is https://www.onebikeoneworld.com so feel free to contact me through that if you've got more specific questions.
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Oct 6, 2013 20:36
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Aliquid posted:gently caress, you sound like me. I have a 10L dromedary bag that I'm iffy on bringing, and my camping/warmshowers/firestation plan sounds identical to what you've done. Good to know I'm not entirely insane. My spanish is okay, much better written than spoken. You'll pick up the Spanish on the road. I'd never studied it but was doing OK, then spent 5 months at UNAM in Mexico City and now outside of being in a loud party with lots of people chatting together at the same time there's no time I can't hold my own. My 10L bag is so small that there's little reason not to carry it. I assume yours is too!
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Oct 9, 2013 21:29
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Should be fine. I'd focus on studying some Spanish before you go, the Michel Thomas CDs are spectacular and I'd definitely give them a go to get a grasp of the grammar. Then you just need to fill in the vocab holes, grab Anki for that.
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Dec 2, 2013 19:01
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ANYTHING YOU SOW posted:Yeah I’m going to try and get a bit of Spanish down before hand, I’ll look into the Michel Thomas CDs. I’ve done a bit of Duolingo which seems good so far. A bicycle from Guatemala might get you to Colombia in 4 months if you're fairly fit and seeing a bit of stuff, you wouldn't get the whole way without rushing and basically spending all day sat on a bike which is less fun than it sounds, especially if you hit rainy season or a headwind that lasts for the last 2,500km like this one I've been having fun with has.
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Dec 3, 2013 03:19
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Aliquid posted:I've been keeping the slowest pace imaginable (plenty of injuries, sicknesses and lazy time) and I've gotten 2200km south of Ausitn, TX in about six weeks. I'm planning to do Guatemala City to Cartagena in about two months maximum, since there isn't a lot to see. Gonna take my time in Colombia and Venezuela, though. I guess. If you've never been to Guatemala before then places like Xela, Antigua, Tikal, Huehue and Atitlan can easily take 2-3 weeks to enjoy and ride to and from. In Salvador I was in Santa Ana for a few days, San Salvador for a few more. Honduras has a beautiful mountain road that goes from Santa Rosa via Gracias. Nicaragua has Leon and Granada as well as Ometepe and some nice beaches, and a lot of off the beaten path options. If you've got the money Costa Rica can take a few weeks. The Caribbean side of Panama is more interesting than the Pacific, and Bocas del Toro is a cool place to hang out. Then I went from Panama to Colombia via the San Blas and motorboats to Turbo so it was another 7-10 days to get up to Cartagena. Anyone cycling in that area should join the Panam-riders google group. It's a great resource.
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Dec 7, 2013 12:14
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Hadlock posted:Post a picture of your pan american cycle please. http://domluther.smugmug.com/OneBikeOneWorld/South-America/6-French-Guiana/i-RjSF2pR/0/XL/CIMG1158-XL.jpg is from last week when I decided to push my bike along a hiking trail here in French Guiana. 26" is a much better option than 700c purely due to being able to get replacements. No matter how crap it is, it's better to have the option to buy something than not. That awful tyre might only last 500km, but that might be what you needed to get somewhere that has a better option. 700c just isn't available in most places. Schwalbe Marathon Mondials last for a good while, so a pair of those and a spare is good enough for 15,000km+.
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Dec 9, 2013 04:10
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Aliquid posted:Yeah, this I have experience with. I've been riding 700c 32mm Schwalbe Marathons, had a flat a few times because I've been run off the road by big-rigs in Northern Mexico, on roads with no shoulder that slope down to baby mesquite trees. Ugh. I anticipated this, and brought along FOUR spare tubes and a spare tire (a Continental Gatorskin, it's a slick and I was disappointed by that from the Amazon pic). Haven't used the spare tire, patches have been enough to get me through. I didn't expect to see 700c wheels south of the Rio Grande, but I saw them in EVERY major city over 200,000 people. Monclova, Monterrey, Saltillo, Matehuala, Veracruz. I don't know what the gently caress these cyclist blogs are talking about when they opine about the lack of 700c wheel accessories. I have zero experience outside of Mexico, but what I've seen logically should mean that any Central American city over a million people will have parts I can find in little Matehuala, Mexico. Well, what's the advantage of 700c over 26"? I can say that I've met cyclists who have 700c and have told me that they've had problems finding things. Sure, there might be places where you can get 700c in large metropolitan areas, but why lock yourself into that problem when it can be avoided by getting 26"? ShaggiusPrime posted:Just met a guy in Bogota who was coming from Venezuela. I believe he said it's 60 to $1 at the moment. Go to https://www.dolartoday.co and you'll see the rate. When I changed in Cucuta before going into Venezuela it was almost the same as it said on the page, although that was about 42 back 3 months ago. Sad Panda fucked around with this message at 00:48 on Dec 19, 2013 |
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Dec 19, 2013 00:45
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Aliquid posted:Yeah, I crossed from Texas to Piedras Negras in mid-October. Yeah border crossings are never fun by yourself on a bike. Trying to keep an eye on everything while you get pushed towards a building that you're obviouly not allowed to bring your bike into, and then standing in line forever. Definitely agree with the India thing. Guatemala felt so much poorer than Mexico. Be prepared for a much lower amount of places to eat in random towns. If you cook, it might bother you less, but it was pretty common that I'd be told to keep going to the next place to eat. And then of course it was the Central American speciality of... fried chieken. Hope you like that. Central American food is on the whole a let down after the delights of Mexico.
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Feb 10, 2014 19:13
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Aliquid posted:Oh god, the customs houses. "No, no, just leave your bike on the street, the crowd around it is looking after its safety!" Bro, please, that bike hasn't left my sight in four months and I will look awkward and talk to the lady through the glass backward as I stare out the door the other direction. I was only in El Salvador for about a week and basically only ate pupusas which became one of my favourite foods... didn't eat any French bread. There's a good amount of cassava/yuca from there onwards. I'm in Brazil now and it's pretty much everwhere.
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Feb 11, 2014 11:11
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Aliquid posted:Dealing with a mild case of Dengue. Not nearly as bad as malaria or other diseases I've had. I'd assume the hemorrhagic version sucks, though. And the great thig about Dengue is that you can't get that strain of it again, you're 1/4 of the way to being immune to Dengue!
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Feb 13, 2014 14:34
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Didn't seem that sketchy when I was there, but I wasn't staying. I was couchsurfing.
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Mar 14, 2014 18:39
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They've got pupusas, of course they're nice. Best food in Central America.
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Mar 15, 2014 21:40
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huhu posted:I'm currently living in Panama and the selection of hiking gear is pretty bad. I'll be flying in to Cusco, Peru to go hiking and was wondering if I can get the following stuff there or should I find someone to bring it down: Nalgene water bottle, water purification tablets, gloves, hat, sleeping bag liner. Costa Rica has a bunch in English too. I'd assume a lot of it is the US influence. Costa Rica is because there are so many foreigners that go that they are marketing towards. Panama, thanks to the canal, attracts lots of international investment surely.
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Mar 23, 2014 21:25
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Aliquid posted:Nope! You should definitely fly. Other than the chartered yachts full of drunk Australians that hit the San Blas islands for a couple days, it's only the hippies hopping speedboats. That takes a week at least, I've heard. I did the speedboat option, because it's a drat sight cheaper than the yacht and flying (bike fees). You have to arrive at Cartí and hope that a motorboat is going up to Puerto Obaldia, I sat round for 2 days waiting, that's about $100 and 10-12 very bumpy hours. Then you stamp out in Obaldia, take a 30-45 minute boat around the corner to Carpugana, stay overnight, stamp in the next morning and then a $40? 2 hour, semi-comfortable bounce to Turbo. Carpugana has pretty beaches, and hanging out with the Kuna is interesting, but I'd not spend 1/3 of my time between San Jose and Bogota doing it
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May 1, 2014 18:44
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Aliquid posted:Your bike take on any rust from that? Nope, but as soon as I landed in Carpugana I went to the police station and used their hose to wash the bike down. Then on arrival in Turbo I went to a local bike shop and paid for the bike to get a tune-up and thorough clean and greasing which took over an hour and cost me 8000 pesos ($4).
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May 1, 2014 22:53
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Inflation is obviously there but with the dolar bue at around 14 things are cheap and it's far cheaper than Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay (the other 3 countries I've been in recently)
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Sep 10, 2014 23:32
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For me, Uruguay was more expensive than Brazil but then my style of travel is different. I'm doing this on a bicycle and so I'm really only able to compare food prices well.
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Sep 11, 2014 01:33
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Hadlock posted:Could you post a one or two paragraph of your experiences bicycling the Uruguay coast? I bounced up and down it for three days (that country is really small after Brazil) but only saw it by bus. My roommate graduates in a couple weeks and is looking at doing a bicycle tour of western europe or south america in the next six months. Sorry! Currently riding through the Bolivian Andes and internet is choppy at the best. I went along the Uruguayan coast in July and while it was OK I definitely missed a lot as if I'd wanted to go to overcast and cold beaches I could have done it back in the UK. Uruguayans are by far the best drivers in the Americas (been everywhere but Chile, Ecuador and Peru) although that's helped by the fact that there is generally a big shoulder and minimal traffic. Even in Montevideo however they were really nice. Lots of people think that Uruguay is a good place for a short one month tour as a new cycle-tourist as it's pretty flat and nice people - as long as you speak Spanish to actually communicate with them. If you've got any specific questions let me know and I'll answer next time I find some internet here!
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Sep 21, 2014 20:23
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Engin3 posted:Yeah same. As soon as I hit Santa Marta I took my first chance up to Minca and the mountains to escape the heat. You're talking North American winter right? Won't it be raining pretty impressively during that time?
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Oct 8, 2014 00:45
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I learnt at UNAM in DF and it was fantastic. 6 week courses, and definitely about the studying - but not in a bad way. Also, you get to live in Mexico City which is great fun. Best food in Latin America.
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Nov 13, 2014 14:22
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Oh and Michel Thomas Spanish is absolutely glorious for learning Spanish. With the first few CD's of that I skipped the bottom couple of levels of Spanish class at UNAM, although it did lead to some confused looks from the other students who had studied for months/years and I'd studied Spanish for a week and we were in the same class. Obviously it lead to some vocab holes, i didn't know basic words like pen or pencil, but you can fill those in quickly.
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Nov 13, 2014 14:46
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TheImmigrant posted:This is cool. What was UNAM like? I almost took a job teaching there five years ago. I know DF pretty well, but not UNAM. Well the language school is a little distinct from UNAM. It's called CEPE (Centro de Enseñanza para Extranjeros) and is in it's own little part. Of course, it's still on the campus and being an UNAM student can do whatever any other student can do. It's a really great campus, not studied at any other universities that are UNESCO sites. CEPE itself has students from around the world, but mainly Asians and lots of them are on a year abroad, so their results actually matter for something. It helps create an atmosphere where people want to study. A friend of mine studied in San Miguel de Allende for a month, and learnt more in his first week at CEPE than his month in San Miguel and a big part of that is down to the atmosphere. My UNAM student card is also fantastic in terms of tourism because being the biggest university in Latin America it's recognised pretty much everywhere - although not at the above mentioned Machu Picchu - leading to lots of discounts while I travel.
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Nov 13, 2014 18:42
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No idea how many students there are at UNAM, and of course there are various campuses. For those who want to study at CEPE but not in Mexico City there's also a campus in Taxco. http://www.cepe.unam.mx/ is the CEPE page. When I was there I think it was $370 for a 6 week course, which gives you 15 hours a week (M-F 9-12, although there's also an afternoon option) and then you can throw a bunch of extra classes on top of that. Officially you get two supplementary classes in that $370, but you can really go to as many as you like, they just won't count as college credit unless you pay for them (irrelevant for me being from the UK). I would go to 4-5 extra classes giving me 30+ hours of class time a week. I could have gone to more, but my head was collapsing from spending that much time in class, especially as I was busy doing self-study on top of that to fill in the vocab holes I had. But yeah, learning some basics of grammar with Michel Thomas (apparently Paul Noble has a similar method of teaching) on his 8 hour foundation course is great and gives you such a head start.
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Nov 13, 2014 19:59
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I dunno, it's definitely not as cheap as here in Peru/Bolivia where you get yourself soup, a plate of food and a drink for $1.50, but you can live there cheapish. I found a place to stay and paid $200 a month rent for a room, in a decent part of town (right by the World Trade Centre in Napoles) and then food costs are what you make of them. I biked to UNAM every day, so transport was free.
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Nov 13, 2014 20:08
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7-10 days in Panama City seems crazy. You know someone there, but it's not an interesting place really. The canal is cool, the city was different for me, but that's cos I'd just biked through the rest of Central America, but way too much time. Mexico City on the other hand should definitely not be skipped. Fantastic place!
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Dec 14, 2014 06:12
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Harley C posted:Hey, Shipping to Brazil is notoriously slow. It's not even just getting past customs, in the country it's slow too. I was in Salvador, Bahia and my friend there mentioned importing a violin. It took 3 days from Europe to get through customs, and then 3 weeks to get from one side of Salvador to the other. But yeah, before that there's customs and they can stay forever and get hit by large amounts of customs.
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Dec 29, 2014 16:53
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I arrived from Uruguay so came with USD. The great thing about USD is that they come in $100 bills, and that's what they spit them out in in Uruguay, and so when I got to BA just went to la calle Florida and found lots of people giving just under the rate mentioned on http://dolarblue.net The alternative is to find someone and change it with them. I stayed with someone on CS for example, and he wanted to buy USD. A fair number of people do, because the peso just keeps devaluing.
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Dec 31, 2014 20:53
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G-Hawk posted:After looking into Banos(and other places) some this morning I pretty much came to an itinerary like this, so good to run into this post after. You could go all the way down to Puyo, but the prettier part is the first 20-25km. I rode up it a few weeks back on my way to Quito, and it was a bit drizzly so there weren't that many riders out. It's great in terms of infrastructure with BEWARE THE CYCLIST signs everywhere, which combined with Ecuadorian driver's general niceness leads to a good time.
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Jan 4, 2015 12:18
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Aliquid posted:I really didn't want to start a new thread, so here goes: http://www.nairaland.com/975632/traveling-mexico-general-enquiries suggests a $36 visa fee and a visit to the Mexican embassy, but beware!!! Nairaland posted:Life in mexico is hard if u can't speak spanish or u don't have someone that can put u through. Mexico Is Survival of the fitest so if u are strong willed and can do and can work well u might just find the facour of God.
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Jan 12, 2015 08:44
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TheImmigrant posted:A couple of things to bear in mind on the US side. Be sure the B visa is for multiple entries. I don't know if State even issues single-entry B visas any longer, but check to be sure. Also, having a valid visa does not guarantee admission to the US. It's unusual, but not unheard of for CBP officials to deny admission to aliens with a valid visa that have successfully been admitted on that visa a week or two prior. Admission is at the discretion of CBP, and Nigeria is in practice a nationality that gets scrutinized more heavily than others. I am pretty sure they're not single entry. I got a B2 visa and it's valid for 10 years and I'm allowed to try to enter as many times as I'd like in that time.
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Jan 12, 2015 16:01
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TheImmigrant posted:About photography, no. I definitely preferred the Argentine side of the falls, where you can get much closer. The Brazilian side has a good panoramic overview for photos, but you'll want to spend more time in Argentina. Cloudiness and rain might be issues, so give yourself a few days if you're looking for high-quality shots. Have the bridges on the Argentinian side been fixed? I was there back in late August and they hadn't been repaired since the serious rain that had fallen a couple of months earlier. Because of that, and the price, I only went to the Brazilian side, and stayed in Foz for 3 days.
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Jan 26, 2015 20:59
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Pvt Dancer posted:From Panama to Colombia I took a small sailing boat for $550 to take a tour in San Blas and sail on to Cartagena. It's part of the tourist trail for people moving between Middle and South America because it's one of the few ways to get across the Darien Gap. Alternatives are a flight, a 1000+ passenger ferry (cheapest) or a speed boat along the coast ($375, but you end up in some shithole on the Panama/Colombia border and spend another day on boats/buses to get anywhere). I did that back in the summer of 2013, so I guess it might have gone up since then, but the speedboat down the coast option totalled around $140 and involved changing in Carpugana, which is one of those MUST GO HERE Lonely Planet beaches. Seemed pretty, but I arrived at sunset and was on the boat to Turbo at sunrise.
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Feb 2, 2015 16:35
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Thesaurus posted:I studied spanish/volunteered/travelled in Sucre, Bolivia, and would recommend it. Not sure the internet is very strong there, though. Definitely cheap. Bolivian internet is awful. Uyuni is basically as good as dialup was, and even in La Paz/Oruro/Sucre/Potosi it was barely passable.
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Mar 16, 2015 17:43
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Saladman posted:Back to South America: How viable is tent camping? If we're considering trekking around the wine country of Argentina, the lake district of Chile, the Atacama, Titicaca-area, Cuzco-and-environs, Cartagena-and-environs, and Costa Rica (just in general)? This would start in mid-September and go through ~Jan 1st, and in the order written (e.g. Argentina -> Lake District -> Atacama -> ...) In what context? There are hundreds (thousands?) of cycle-tourists who camp on a pretty much nightly basis all across the Americas. In the cities it's not that easy, but for example Argentina & Chile have plenty of official camp grounds filled with people having barbecue until 3am.
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May 1, 2015 06:10
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