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After going through the threads on the travel forum, it seems that South America is woefully underrepresented. Which is a terrible, terrible thing. Especially when, in my humble, humble opinion, traveling in the continent of Allende and Bolivar is much more bang for your buck than the wold world. While the value of the dollar is declining you can still live on 10 dollars a day in Bolivia (By live, I mean live as a king). I have backpacked during two summers throughout the continent, once with friends and once with my significant other. The experience was amazing both times and I had a much better time than the month I spent in London living on cup noodles and sleeping in bathtubs. The countries I have been to are: Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil. Hence the title because I only need three more countries. Six if you count the Guyanas. I don't really know if anyone is interested in hearing about this. The search for a thread like this didn't turn up anything, so forgive me if someone already did this. If people are interested I can post recommendations for any of the countries or larger trips. Advice on what to do in the three remaining countries, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela, would be greatly appreciated. Especially on the difficulties of traveling inside Venezuela with camera equipment and the bans on money changing. Feel free to ask about llamas spitting in your face on the Inca trail, participating in a psychoactive Aymaara ritual, Eating steak for every meal for a week in Buenos Aires or anything that comes to mind.
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May 1, 2008 03:57
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 10:02 |
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To begin if you have a chance to go to carnaval (I imagine thats what you mean by festival since Fortaleza's one is during June) GO, GO, GO! You will hate yourself if you don't Starting with Brazil. 70 a day is a good budget if you want to live it up. Be sure to not eat at tourist places (Prices drop by half if you just walk two blocks away from the beach). I ate everyday at nice places where the locals ate and partied a lot on 50 a day. The biggest recommendation I can make is to figure out public transportation and do things on your own so you don't have to take tours. The difference in tourist and local prices is ridiculous. I met an Australian who payed 100 dollars for a private Corcovado "tour", when the bus there costs 50 cents and the entrance costs ten dollars. She payed 90 dollars to get driven over there. If you take a favela tour take a tour where you walk in the favela. There are guide tours and bus tours. In the bus tour you drive around while a guide reads from a script and makes you feel super scared cuz its soooooooooo dangerous. With a guide tour you get someone who lives in the favela to walk with you for a day, let you talk with people and actually understand what is going on. It is surprisingly safe because people know the tours benefit everyone. At the end of the tour there was a meal of feijoada at someone's house with six other guides, none of them had ever been mugged or anything. We are talking of thousands of tours when added up. I went with Marco Rocinha (That is probably close enough) and had a blast. Personally if I were going to Lima for a week I would not stay in Lima. Lima is a nice city with attractions that can be seen in one or two days at most. The night life is ok, but you are going to Brazil, so you won't be blown away. 5 hours away is the beautiful oasis town of Huacachina, which is where I would spend the week. Huacachina is a oasis town in the middle of huge sands. Imagine watch the sun come up from the top of a sand dune three times as tall as your six story hostel, turning around and seeing a deep green lagoon surrounded by mountains of sand. The beer is dirt cheap, you can sandboard all day, the Swedish girls started taking their tops off because the French girls did and every night a hostel employee makes a fire in the middle of the desert so you can sit around drink and pass a joint. Say hello to Erickson (Peruvian adopted as a baby by Scandinavian parents) if he is still a bartender. If you do go stay at the Casa de Arena. When you go home do you want to have unique stories or just say I stayed in a big city? This page has pretty good pictures. http://www.wackyarchives.com/offbeat/oasis-in-the-middle-of-nowhere.html If you do stay in Lima don't take time to choose what you do. Most people go to every single museum, which you should not to. The museums with caveman dioramas and paintings of noblemen sucked in the seventh grade, and they suck even harder when you are wasting precious time in your South American trip. Read the descriptions of attractions and choose if you want to see the biggest collection of pots in South America in the Museo de Ceramica. (I appreciate culture but six floors of every conde and Virrey portrait in history is not anyone's idea of fun.) There are a couple of things you should do in Lima. The Museo de oro, the catacombs under the main cathedral, la plaza central (For the virgin Mary with a llama on her head) the museum of modern art, El museo de arte italiano, see the ruins out of town, go to the Mercado General and buy souvenirs, take a taxi to the highest point in Lima and go out on the town at least once. Take time to walk around Lima and meet people, especially the centro, as it is a very colorful town that really captures the issues of the country. There was protests every day I was there and talking to people in them was a great experience . Seeing a family of four chase after their escapee pigs in the middle of the city was a beautiful surreal moment which would not have happened if I stayed on the main roads. Drink chicha (Native aguardiente served hot from the pot and made with whatever they had at the time) eat every part of a llama you can find, especially anticuchos which are roasted llama heart kebabs served in Sabritas bags cut in half, and walk off the beaten path to get a whole roasted cuy (Imagine your pet hamster, but it weighs two pounds and has little mole claws). When my freinds and I ate one the locals almost stood up and cheered. My girlfreind recommends Quinoa because it is super expensive over here in the States and so uber nutritious. I don't travel to eat health food and didn't like it, it tastes like oatmeal made out of steel. Also, drink a lot of Inca Kola. Regarding Lima I would stay at the Point since it has a better location and cheaper beer. The Loki is nice if you have a limitless reserve of energy and don't mind not being able to sleep ever. Loki is terribly designed for people who do not want to stay up until eight in the morning and attracts a hard drinking Israeli crowd. Which might be your thing. That turned out longer than I thought. So many good memories. I have a couple of questions. I am flying into Ecuador and making my way to Venezuela to fly back from Colombia. Do you have any recommendations on where to go? What places are overrated on the tour books? Things I should seriously do and which to avoid? I want to visit some national parks in Ecuador, how viable is it for me to rent equipment? Does Colombia deserve its bad rep? JohnnyGuadalupe fucked around with this message at 18:27 on May 1, 2008 |
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May 1, 2008 18:19
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SexyBlindfold posted:Y'know, as a Chilean I've always been curious: What's so great about Chile for you first-world tourists anyway? Why the low self esteem? Valparaiso is one of the most ridiculously beautiful cities in the world. This is putting it up there with Paris, Buenos Aires, Rio, Cuzco and London. Santiago has the history of Salvador Allende, Pablo Neruda, el cerro Santa Lucia, el cementerio General, Colo Colo games (And more importantly fans) and one of the coolest music scenes in the continent. Also you can buy Casillero del Diablo at dirt cheap. I got to see Los tres while I was there and they put up a great show. The only thing is that Chileans are super difficult to understand. Sipo, yapo and all of that. They are not quite as open to help tourists as in other countries and its a bit more expensive. Still, Chile was one of my favorite countries. JohnnyGuadalupe fucked around with this message at 08:01 on May 4, 2008 |
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May 4, 2008 07:53
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Whitefish posted:I'm backpacking in South America for a month this year. We're starting in Rio but spending most of the time in Peru and basically doing all the gringo stuff: Lima, Nazca, Arequipa, Puno, Cusco and then Iquitos (via Lima). At least, that's the plan anyway. We've booked the Inca trail and our flights in and out, but that's about it. Es ese el presidente Fox en tu avatar? Cool. Arequipa is a really fun university town that has a lot to do and is surrounded by natural beauty. You can go on a day trip to do extreme sports (White water rafting, rappelling and the such) and then go out in the night. In Arequipa pay a little bit more for a place from where you can walk home, its worth it. Colca Canyon is famous for the condors and the many little indigenous towns you go through. I would go for the longest trek they offer, three days I think, because I took the one overnight one and regretted it. It is really amazing and a very enjoyable trek with you stopping in small towns along the way.
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May 4, 2008 07:58
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Whitefish posted:Awesome, thanks. Have you been to Iquitos? We're trying to work out the best way to see the rainforest from there. I guess we'll try and get some accomodation in a lodge via some sort of 3-4 day tour. He kind of looks like ex-president Vicente Fox from Mexico. A lot more than Nietzche in my humble opinion. Cool avatar either way though. As for Iquitos I haven't been up there. I went to the Rainforest in Bolivia and had a good time. While I was in Peru we were told that the boats up there where highly unreliable. When we asked for time estimates to go up there see everything and come back, everyone basically told us "We have no idea at all, but probably not more than two weeks." Have you seen "The motorcycle diaries"? That is basically the boat you get on. To me that sounded awesome, but I had a flight to catch and not enough flexibility in my schedule. If you wanna do it go ahead. Just beware that you might be stuck in a shantytown in the Amazon basin waiting for someone to figure out whats wrong with the boat for a couple days. I heard a couple stories of people having the times of their life but missing flights. Make sure you plan accordingly.
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May 5, 2008 23:09
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CatchrNdRy posted:These pictures are great, thanks for sharing. What would you say the Peruvian locals were like? I keep hearing how aloof they are as compared to most of South America. I don´t know what you mean by "aloof", but I would say that Peruvians are really chill. On the other hand most of South Americans are amazingly chill. When we were in Lima my girlfriend didn´t wear half of her wardrobe because she felt that Peruvian men could not stop looking at her cleavage. We also had a somewhat funny story where the entire staff of a hostel peeped into our room because they heard she was sleeping naked. Which I do not have to explain was a bad idea in a ten person hostel room, even if there is no one else there. She did not sleep naked again obviously and we changed hostels the next day. Still get hell for that. Sorry for the terrible answer. Peruvians in my view are aloof, but not really significantly aloof. Good to see this thread is still going, if indeed it is. Have to get some pictures up.
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Jul 22, 2008 02:02
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 10:02 |
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CatchrNdRy posted:I am eagerly awaiting DustingDuvet's specific trip report from Salvador, but I would settle for general advice interacting with Brazilians as an American. What are some common social mistakes? I have some rudimentary Portuguese, so I definitely will attempt to speak. I also am Asian and people abroad always seemed stunned that I could be both. But of course Brazil is very diverse. After going to Sao Paolo I learned that being Japanese and Brazilian at the same time is really common. The Japanese section of the town even has street signs, prices and menus in both languages. Communicating with Brazilians should not be so tough. I traveled through there for about three months using Spanish to communicate. Everyone was able to understand if given enough time. Most people are not surprised by tourists and are actually really friendly to them. If you know a little bit they will help you a lot. My biggest problem was that Brazilian people would constantly start taking to us on the bus, metro or the beach and it seemed that the realization that I spoke no Portuguese did not dissuade them. If anything learn to be direct when you ask a question, be specific and repeat yourself. Brazilians can take forever to give you an address, especially if they are a group of them and they start arguing, not realizing you are walking away looking for someone else to ask.
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Jul 25, 2008 04:35
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