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I'm about to book my plane ticket from Panama to (I think) Bogota, Colombia. Can anyone recommend a cheaper city to fly into from panama city? I'm not particularly picky, I'll travel by bus to Colombia at some point. I'm hoping to hit up every country in South America but I'm running out of time to get my Paraguay visa. I also noticed Suriname requires a visa as well. Does anyone have experience getting visas for those countries at a consulate office in Columbia or Venezuela? Can anyone shed light on bus travel from Venezuela through the Guyanas and Suriname? It doesn't really look like there's much of a coastal route from Venezuela to Georgetown, and I'm thinking about skipping those three countries altogether. What are your experiences couchsurfing through SA? Better luck in some countries than others? Any goons going to be in SA December-January? It looks like CatchrNdRy will be in Equador, but that's going to be near the end of my trip (January). Also can someone point me towards a good resource for figuring travel time by bus from point to point. Hadlock fucked around with this message at 15:35 on Nov 19, 2009 |
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Nov 19, 2009 13:47
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What's the outlook on Manaus, Brazil? DustingDuvet I think you are correct, all of s.america is too big for my plans. From what I can tell, it's an easy ride from Venezuela to Manaus, but it's muddy road south, with no direct route (except by air) to brasilia. Is the road to La Paz any better? I'm thinking about making a short loop through Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador and back up to Colombia
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Dec 2, 2009 05:03
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Nfcknblvbl posted:Will anyone else be in Rio for New Year's? Just booked my flight(s). I'll be in Rio for New Years. Shoot me your info and we should meet up. Will anyone be in Buenos Aires for Christmas?
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Dec 7, 2009 02:29
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email sent. anyone in Buenos Aires between now and Dec 29? or the first half of January?
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Dec 24, 2009 03:13
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Man A posted:I've been in the planning stages of a South American trip for the last couple months.... I don't think I will have the money to see both Machu Picchu and the Galapagos, but I might book an Inca Trail reservation if I can find one under $500. I just got back from Colombia and Peru about two weeks ago (along with some other countries). If you book your train ticket now, you can get a trainride from cusco to aguas calientes (the bus station to machu picchu) for about $120. Or you can take the bus (4 hrs, good roads) to Ollytampbo (sp?) for about $3 and pickup the train there to aguas calientes for around $60 round trip. I couldn't find any tickets last minute from Cusco to AC so I had to do the Ollytambo->AC route. The park entrance fee itself is only about $35 USD. Nobody ever mentions this, but Machu Picchu isn't actually in the middle of nowhere (anymore), there's a bus that will drive you right to the park entrance (at the top of the mountain) for $14 round trip from AC, which is litterally across the river from Machu Picchu. You don't have to blow $500 for an inca trail reservation to go see it. You can do Machu Picchu in a day and still sleep in your hostel in Cusco that night if you plan it right. You'll regret not seeing Machu Picchu for the rest of your life otherwise. I never once felt unsafe taking a bus in Colombia or Peru. I had blond hair and blue eyes (with a fair complexion) so I stood out more than other people, but most people treated me as a curiosity and wanted to know where I was from. They're also a lot more accepting of letting you carry your bag onto the bus rather than stow it underneath. Central america is a crime ridden shithole compared to south america - i.e. theft and danger isn't a huge concern. Bogota was my favorite city and I had no qualms about walking around after 11pm in the la candelaria centro neighborhood. Other travelers told me all sorts of horror stories from every city on the continent but all the victims were females either traveling alone or a pair of females. People in Colombia and Peru are generally very happy with their lives and friendly people on the whole. re: altitude sickness - this is my advice - stay for 4+ days in, and then fly out of bogota (8,600 ft) to lima. Try and get a connecting flight to Cusco within 12 hours to Cusco (12,000 ft). This allows your body to gradually adjust over a week or so before tackling Machu Pichu. Also: cusco centro is hilly as all hell, moreso than San Fransisco, so you'll appreciate the extra lung capacity Bogota's thin air provided you. re: backpack theft - get one of these: http://www.rei.com/product/786932 yes it's tiny, but it will fit in the overhead bin of a marcopolo/busebus bus, counts as carryon for the airplane, and you can stuff it underneath the seat in one of the smaller transit vans. There's also only one zipper into the main compartment, meaning less locks to fuss with. It IS big enough for all your stuff, and I even brought a useless ceramic water filter (takes up as much space as a rolled pair of jeans - buy bottled water it's cheaper for only two months) and a spare nalgene water bottle (two tshirts worth of space). It's also made of heavy duty cordoba nylon that isn't going to tear and need repair halfway through your trip. This was my daypack http://www.rei.com/product/778466 which has the advantage of using a mechanism that thieves can't figure out how to open (it allows for simple one handed open/close though). It also doubles as a stuff sack/pillow. Re: (insert city here) is absolutely poo poo on a Sunday - Most cities are basically vacant on Sundays. Expect to walk twice as far for a coke/advil and wait twice as long for the bus. Plan your travel days around Sunday so you're not missing anything on the other six days. re: other ideas and other countries -Chile and Argentina: Argentina is huge - HUGE - and you're looking at easily a day and a half bus travel from Santiago to Buenos Aires. Rosario is "only" a city of 1 million with excellent nightlife and has less of the "mega city" vibe of BA. If you're going that far south, it's worth calling up American Airlines and talking to their international travel rep. Since I was flexible on dates, they were able to get me a round trip ticket from Dallas-Miami-Bogota with a return of Lima-Miami-Dallas, and then set me up on the "Visit South America" oneworld package http://www.oneworld.com/ow/air-travel-options/single-continent-fares/visit-south-america which can cut your airtravel expenses down significantly. I traveled 12,500 air miles over 12 flights for a smidge less than $2000 after taxes. Also: Stay out of Lima. I got lost for three hours during rush hour and still managed to see the entire city (worth seeing) in 12 hours. Hadlock fucked around with this message at 07:45 on Feb 4, 2010 |
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Feb 4, 2010 07:43
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I would spend 1 night in Lima, 3 days in Cusco/surrounding region, and the rest on a 5-7 day inca trail hike. Wear shoes with good ankle support, Cusco is both very hilly and there are no level sidewalks anywhere (all cobblestone) and can screw up your ankles. I never thought I'd miss level concrete sidewalks in my life.
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Feb 15, 2010 07:59
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I entered Argentina twice after the deadline for when that law had passed. The first time was 4 days after it was supposed to go into effect (Lima->BA direct flight december 24thish 2009), the second time was almost a month later (Montevideo->BA direct ferry, not through Colonia Jan 8th 2010). I paid no money either time to enter the country.
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Mar 3, 2010 07:32
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Going to another country no matter what season > staying at home and playing xbox for 12 days straight, so you've got a point There's a lot of places in the northern hemisphere that speak spanish and will have days longer than 8hrs. Buenos Aires is like, 65-75 degrees in the summer (with heat waves reaching the 90s), but it's not as tropical as you'd like to think. Think Dallas, Texas type winter weather (30-50 degrees). Bring a coat. I would imagine Patagonia that time of year is like going to Alaska or the Canadian Yukon in January. Colombia on the other hand is on the equator, cheap as hell and it's always summer there 
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Mar 8, 2010 02:29
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My sleep sack wasted a huge chunk of my pack space. I plan on leaving mine at home next time. Better use of that space: 4 spare pair of underwear, 8 pair socks, 20 cigars, or a bottle of rum... options are limitless. I'm sure sleep sacks met a market need 10 years ago, but nowadays they just exist to ease the minds of new travelers. I paid for sheets in Florinopolis, Brazil, and Rosario, Argentina; each time I paid about 1USD for the sheets.
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Mar 9, 2010 08:41
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Guidebooks are great IMO, I did Colombia-Peru-Argentina-Brazil-Uruguay using the S.America Shoestring book (2007 edition?). I did use the internet quite a bit for booking hostels while on the road, but when you arrive late at night in a new town, it's great to just circle a hostel in your book and ask the driver to take you there. Having a list of all the major things to do in a town makes it easy to plan your day, and it's the same info you'd find on the internet after waiting 10 minutes for your turn on the computer at the hostel. My Shoestring guide was printed in 2007, but all the tourist attractions were still there, and all the hostels listed were still in the same location  My experience was that 99% of everybody's information comes out of their guidebook while on the road, and internet access is going to be spotty to find for the first few days in a new town. Guidebooks are also great for on the fly itinerary changes. I was going to go to ilha grande in Brazil, but the morning I was going to leave for there they had a mudslide that took out basically the entire island's economy and ended up going to Florinopolis instead based on my guidebook's recommendation. I left my guidebook on a ticket counter in Uruguay and was heartbroken to lose it. I had a bunch of notes, people's email addresses I'd picked up along the way and it was probably my most cherished memento after three weeks on the road. Hadlock fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Mar 9, 2010 |
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Mar 9, 2010 16:53
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KaiserBen posted:5 days in Lima 5 days is a lot of time for Lima. You should be ok if you're planning things to do around the city though.
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Mar 20, 2010 10:19
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Apparently there's a ferry between Panama and Colombia. The last time I researched it they recommended flying from Panama City to the city the ferry was in. That post was dated 2007 or so. No guarantees if the ferry is still in service.
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Mar 23, 2010 07:26
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Too Fresh posted:Quick question: What's the deal with power sockets? I've had a look at wikipedia/other internet sites and it seems to suggest that there are about 3/4 different types used around South America in different countries and each country has multiple types etc. Bookmark these! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mains_power_around_the_world http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC_power_plugs_and_sockets Since you don't live in the US, JP or the EU you probably get the standard "international" chargers which will handle 110-250v @ 50-60hz so you just need a $20 USD "universal adapter" instead of a much more expensive adapter+transformer. I live in the US and the only device I took with me on my trip that wasn't universal was my Gameboy DS of all things but I left it on the plane in Colombia so.. I used this one http://www.rei.com/product/775148 it's pretty rad and did not break, and fit in a lot of outlets that other people's adapters couldn't stay in. It now sits on my desk and I fidget with the sliding parts constantly and it still hasn't broken so it gets an A+ in my book. 
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Apr 19, 2010 19:42
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American Airlines keeps running these $380 roundtrip ticket specials to San Salvador from Dallas. Any thoughts? I'm thinking 2 weeks, hit up the capital cities of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras by bus (they're all within 150 miles of each other it looks like) and then poke around some smaller cities too. Mid to Late May.
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Apr 22, 2010 04:42
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$1000 for airfare, or for everything total including airfare? Mexico city is a lot further than most people think, and the airfare will eat up around $400 round trip. $600 should last you 10 days once you get there no problem. You can probably get a direct flight from PHX. Going to South America your options are a lot more limited; generally if you want a specific date you are going to end up flying out of LAX HOU or MIA, although it's possible to find direct flights from other airports. American Airlines flies twice weekly from DFW to Buenos Aires for example. You might look into combining your Portland->PHX flight into an extended layover. Call up your favorite airline and ask to talk to their international travel department. Expect to pay around $400-600 each way for a ticket to Panama or anywhere south of there. The round trip airfare to South America might exceed your entire budget. Central America is a cheaper bet, and you won't waste two entire days of your trip in the airport.
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Apr 22, 2010 08:57
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I had an interesting situation in December 2009 where the hostel wanted only colombian pesos at final checkout (It was my first hostel experience, I thought USD was ok -- always double check, some will take USD, some won't), and I had spent most of my pesos earlier that day to avoid the ludicrous exchange rates charged at the airport; also it was after the banks had closed and my flight left before the banks opened. I ended up getting escorted at 1am in the morning from Platypus hostel (heart of candeleria) by three employees of the hostel carrying billy clubs the six(?) blocks to the CitiBank ATM across the plaza from Museo del Oro (Gold Museum)*. I didn't have any issues since a group of four fully grown men isn't much of a target. The streets were mostly deserted, I saw maybe three other people, all of them were police officers stationed in the Plaza. That said, the night before I arrived someone had gotten mugged just down the street from the Platypus hostel, which is sort of set back in the alleys. Anyways, long story short, the people who lived there seemed a little jittery about walking back from an ATM after dark. Every story I've heard about someone getting mugged in Bogota it was always a female in a group of one or two. I felt perfectly safe in the Candelaria while I was there during the day; there's so many people walking about and an MP on every corner mugging/beating is not really an issue save maybe pickpockets. *I highly reccomend Museo del Oro, it's a 1st rate museum on par with any fancy museum you'd see in the US and something like $6 USD even with the guided audio tour.
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May 17, 2010 01:16
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I think I paid $4 for a cheeseburger and a beer in Puerto Iguazu at the fancy restaurant with the wood patio on the main drag (you'll know it when you see it). Try their Italian Ciabatta burger it's delicious. There's a grocery store 4-5 doors down the hill from there that has most everything you need. The only have one brand of each item so good luck comparison shopping You can get a 16oz (0.5 kg) sirloin steak with a 600ml beer at a sit down restaurant with cloth napkins a block from the obelisk in BA for ~$12. you can eat pretty well for $6 and most hostels have some sort of kitchen facilities for you to make things as complex as sandwiches or spaghetti. one guy i ran into found a place that serves a .25kg sirloin steak on a hoagie with french fries for $4 about 10 blocks SE of the obelisk in the bohemian part of town. if you're thirsty and on the move a 500ml coke is anywhere from $0.66 usd to $1.25 usd depending on how far from the main drag you're willing to walk. mcdonalds and BK in BA is as expensive to 20% premium over US prices for the same thing (hold the mayo please) edit: those prices are through rosy glasses, proably add 10-15% to those prices at the iguazu grocery store I think I paid $20 USD for a 12 oz bottle of sunscreen. if you're of northern European heritage like i am (and burn like a mother***) i suggest you bring your own. you can buy anything you need on the road, but sunscreen was the one thing that was consistently more expensive there than back home Hadlock fucked around with this message at 07:23 on May 30, 2010 |
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May 30, 2010 07:12
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I bought a dog leg ticket (in addition to a separate, explore south america ticket) from Dallas -> Bogota via Miami and Lima -> Dallas via Miami for about $950 total, only a week before my flight left. If you're on summer break and have a few extra days, and you're headed for Argentina try flying into whatever's cheapest to get you on the continent. Call up American Airlines and ask about their Explore South America package where you can say, hop from Bogota to Santiago to BA and then back to Bogota for $~350. Each leg is only $75-125 but the restriction is you have to spend at least a day in each city. Being on the west coast just makes S.America travel expensive. If you live north of LA you're adding 1200+ miles to your trip just to get to Dallas or Houston. It's another 1200 miles to Miami from there. If you look at a globe, Miami is almost due north of Bogota, Colombia, which is one of the more western cities you're going to visit. Depending on where you are on the west coast you might want to look into flying through Mexico City or Panama. Panama -> Colombia/Venezuela/Ecuador is consistently $550 one way.
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Jun 2, 2010 04:57
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The most I spent per day was by far in Brazil. Everywhere else (Colombia, Peru, Argentina, Uruguay) you could comfortably get around on $30/day. In my experience I had to work pretty hard to crack $60 usd a day unless I had the patience to eat in a proper sitdown restaurant for every meal and bought a lot of drinks for everyone at the bar that night. Anything more than that involved something like hang gliding or a dirt bike rental for the day.
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Jun 25, 2010 00:31
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Private Snowball posted:vacation to a South American country, a relaxing cheap time during Christmas/New Year. I thought about Uruguay, You can travel from one end of Uruguay to the other by bus in about 18 hrs, for ~$35. I have the bus tickets to prove it. Uruguay christmas + new years is basically spring break or summer vacation for the colleges down there (mostly argentinan girls from BA and Rosario, but a bunch of Uruguan chicks too), the beaches are literally crawling with college age chicks (almost standing room only, very few american style bikinis though) and hostels are hard to book due to the season, but buses come and go every 10 minutes going both directions down the coast. The uruguay coast (once you get out of montevideo) reminds me of all the california 1960s beach scenes at the beginning of "blow". tiny little, awesome beach houses that are still cheap due to the area being undiscovered and mostly unspoiled by tourism. Highly recommended. re: flights to uruguay: just fly into BA and take the ferry to montevideo, it's about a 5 hour trip from BA to Colonia to Montevideo and around $100, plus you get to experience the metropolis that is BA
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Jun 28, 2010 07:17
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Kessel posted:YES YES YES do not miss Iguazu. Quotin' dis. Iguazu and Machu Picchu are the two places you should visit if you're on the continent only once in your lifetime. I can't say this enough. I plan on taking my future kids there someday. The bus systems are great. If I could do it again I would fly to Iguazu, the $90 I saved by taking the bus is not worth the 22 hour bus trip IMO. The scenery in Argentina isn't particularly varied* if you were hoping for the "see the countryside" angle. Some of the buses I would consider on par with first class airflight, and most of the others like business class, but with wider seats. Bring some sort of inflatable pillow you can prop your head against. You can get to Rosario from Buenos Aires by lunch if you take the bus though, and that's a good trip. If I did it again, I'd take the bus to Rosario, spend the day/night there, and then fly to Iguazu the following evening from Rosario, and then fly back to BA or Montevideo from there. *it all looks like north central Texas to me. As you go north to Iguazu it turns to scrub brush (Yerba Mate plantations) and is even less appealing until about 50 miles outside of Iguazu when you get into the outskirts of the jungle. I've heard as you head towards Cordoba (SW of Rosario) the scenery improves.
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Jul 12, 2010 20:35
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I drank the water in every big city I visited, no problems whatsoever. The only water I was ever suspicious of was the water in Lima, but I accidentally drank a glass of the stuff while at a restaurant ~10 blocks from the mira flores neighborhood and nothing foul happened. My general rule of thumb is that if the city has 10 story buildings somewhere, the water is generally safe. Someone mentioned the water not being safe to drink in Cusco? Considering how important Cusco is to Peru's tourism industry, I would guess that their water would be pretty safe. I brushed my teeth with the stuff and drank their water every day for a week with no ill results. Same with the tiny city of Ollytambo, last stop on the Peru Rail before Machu Picchu, perfectly fine. I ran into an Irish guy who was living with some Peruvian lady in Cusco and the only thing he said to beware was the food at some of the mom and pop restaurants off the main paths, and that the water was fine.
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Aug 16, 2010 17:20
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A lot of countries are going to ask to see your vaccination records before they let you in to their country if they see any other s.american passport stamps in your passport. So if you don't plan on going to any other countries on that trip, you should be fine. TBH I got my yellow fever vacc. and nobody ever asked to see my records.
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Sep 7, 2010 18:00
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A prescription for malaria meds came with my yellow fever vacc ($155 in Texas for the appt + vacc, wtf) which I didn't need, but the meds only cost $12 for a 3 month supply (when they say "take with at least 1 liter of water" they are not loving around - your stomach becomes a 7 minute time bomb if you only drink a half liter of water.)
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Sep 10, 2010 05:36
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Tomato Soup posted:And I had to pay $30 then $40 for my anti malarials I took Doxycycline or whatever it's called as my malaria medicine. The cute girl at the pharmacy counter gave me a weird look when I got the prescription for it, and when I got home I found out it's also the same stuff they use to cure syphilis and gonorrhea. I got that instead of the normal stuff since you can start taking it on the plane ride down there (I was on a bit of an accelerated schedule). But yeah $11.75 plus some tax of some sort at Walmart for a 90 day supply in a bottle as big as your fist. Just make sure you drink it with a liter of water
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Sep 10, 2010 17:20
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Getting my vaccines for free made up for it though.
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DustingDuvet posted:The locals in La Paz and most of Bolivia are unattractive. Really unattractive. If you're a normal guy this should be a pretty big deal. I saw less than a handful of cute girls my entire time there. Echoing this. Traveling from Colombia to Peru, I was convinced that Colombia simply exported all of their ugly women and women over 30 to Peru. Peru must export all of their ugliest women and women over 40 to Bolivia. That is just not a pretty part of the world for some reason.
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Oct 6, 2010 03:30
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a japanese pop icon posted:When you barely have money to eat looking good isn't as important. Well, except to misogynist foreigners! Depends on your standard of beauty! Everyone I encountered seemed healthy and strong, (if a little short, usually signs of malnutrition during childhood). It's just the short and round bodytype, along with incan facial features (big nose, very round, indigenous/mongoloid face) that really throw you for a loop. They were all mostly dressed well and fashionably for their region/social status.... just not (nor trying to) subscribed to western standards. If you were from rural Guatemala you probably wouldn't notice as much. The chinese/vietmanese/khazakstanian/moldovian cultures all are equally as poor and have equal malnutrition issues but are on the whole considered average to slightly above average looking by western standards. I mean you can definitely label me as a chauvinist for stereotyping women, and I'd probably agree with you, but general consensus seems to be with me on this one.
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Oct 7, 2010 02:40
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Destroyenator posted:I'm flying in to BA on Tuesday and I've booked six nights in a hostel there (overcoming jetlag and have the weekend in the city) and after that I'm thinking of visiting Uruguay for a day or two. Head up to Iguazu for a few days (plus a couple of days of buses). I've also been told Cordoba is worth a visit for a few days. Weekend in BA - schedule your travel day for Sunday unless you have something very specific happening that day. The city (continent!) basically shuts down on sundays and any interesting shops you were planning on checking out will be closed. Bussing to Iguazu - just fly. Seriously. It's only ~$100 and is really worth your money in the long run. I took the bus from Rosario to Iguazu (about 4 hours shorter distance) and really wish I could have spent that day (22 hrs!! wasted!!) doing something productive. Otherwise, if you're convinced a bus is the best way, get a prescription for some vallium (it's OTC at most non-chain drug stores (LEGAL there, not  )) which is only about $3 and a pint of rum which will make the rather miserable bus ride go by a lot more quickly. I was leery of doing this but some people who had come the other way gave me some of theirs. Bus stop pharmacies stock it as well but require a prescription there. I am extremely thankful to those kind souls, I was able to sleep through over half the ride. I'll always fly next time I go there.To describe the bus ride from BA to Iguazu, imagine being stuck on a tour bus, going across the states of new mexico, arizona and nevada, but skipping all the major cities and interesting sights. That's about what the ride boils down to. Sand and scrub brush for 20 hrs. It's Yerba mate farms the entire ride up. This is a Yerba Mate farm in northern Argentina:  OR -- you could explore a whole city for a day, and then hop on a plane in the evening to Iguazu. Your choice.
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Oct 7, 2010 02:55
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Adnar posted:The one thing I'd say you need to be prepared for being of Asian decent is you will really really stand out. Heh, I ran in to exactly one asian person the entire month I was down there (when not visiting a major tourist spot like Iguazu). I walked right up to her and started talking in english, gave her directions to the obelisk in BA; it wasn't even a question that she might not have been born and raised there.
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Oct 10, 2010 19:37
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smackfu posted:So this was a while ago but what exactly does a vaccination record look like? I got some vaccines before I went to Thailand (Hep A, Typhoid, etc.) but it was for my own sake, not because of gov't requirements, and I didn't really get any paperwork. Should I try to get some? Mine is a yellow piece of paper about 4x4" folded, and 4x11" unfolded. I got mine from the place I got my vacc at.
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Oct 12, 2010 06:22
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Pale Fire posted:I'm gonna be in Buenos Aires for a week before heading to Iguazu, is it worth taking the ferry to Colonia, Uruguay as a day trip or should I just plan on staying in Argentina since I won't have a huge amount of time there? Also any recommendations to see/do in Buenos Aires are certainly welcome. Rosario is a 4 hr bus ride (think Dallas to Austin, TX) from BA with a great place to stay (http://www.chepampas.com/) for the night. I left my hostel on foot around 10am after a leisurely morning a block from the obelisk and was at the hostel in Rosario by 3pm. Tons of night life and 4-5 universities worth of college age girls all in walking distance*. Bus back the next morning to BA, or stay a while. I wish I'd stayed another 2-3 nights. Else, stop off in Rosario before heading to Iguazu. In BA: Head to Palmero first, and the park district between it and the water. I wish I'd visited there first. The area around the obelisk looks the same for 10 blocks in every direction (I should know, I spent 3 days exploring it on foot before discovering Palmero). Definitely check out the clubs in BA. Ignore the hostel staff when they say it's nothing worth writing home about. I wasn't terribly impressed with Montevideo after walking around BA for a week. Just looked like more of the same (I might retire there, though). Never visited Colonia though. *Re: our chavanist discussion about smokin' hot chicks according to western tastes edit: be sure and familiarize yourself with maps of BA with the water at the bottom of the map. I'd memorized everything in it's regular N-S orientation in google maps; none of the maps, particularly the tourist and subway maps, are oriented that way. Hadlock fucked around with this message at 05:13 on Oct 20, 2010 |
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Oct 20, 2010 05:08
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Expanding upon the bus chat, there's a blue commuter bus (with yellow accents) that goes between the bus station and the two air ports. Maybe that's what DustingDuvet is referring to, but I recall it being closer to 11 reals. It also goes down the main avenue that the red line follows down towards copacabana. About 1/4 of the people on the blue bus spoke english which really helped me find where I was going. Rio is not a place you want to arrive in at night, alone when it's raining. I've never felt so turned around in my life, and I have a generally good sense of direction.Uppa posted:obvious tourist who speaks no Portuguese Definitely bring a phrase book. I picked up one of those 30-40 page "essential phrases" books. Err- actually it was this book here except I think the cover on mine was purple. This one is blue for some reason. Flipping through the "look inside" it appears to be the same one. Buy this book. It is really good; I managed to get a really good haircut on new years' eve 2009 using the phrases in there "just a trim please" and "not too much off the top", to give an idea of the breadth of phrases it covers for a traveler. The book was originally printed in 1962 or something like that, but there's a reason why they keep printing that one. For $5 it is totally worth it, and is tiny enough you can always find space for it. It got me through a week in Rio and made me some very good friends on the beach at new years. I always heard how Portuguese was a sort of mutation of Spanish. Don't believe them. Immersing yourself in Portuguese after three weeks of Spanish really brings the phrase "it's greek to me" to life. What little Spanish you know will be useless there.
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Nov 17, 2010 05:53
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My experience was that Portuguese is an entirely different language to a non-native speaker. I'd spent three weeks in Spanish speaking south america with no formal Spanish training (I live in Dallas so you pick up some just living in the area), getting around just fine. I was able to very roughly read and pick up some key words in Spanish conversations around me, but as soon as I crossed the border into Brazil I was back to square one, having to re-learn everything. Maybe I have poor language skills when it comes to Portuguese, but that was my experience while I was there for a week.
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Nov 17, 2010 06:22
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Rio to BA by bus is a very long journey (both inland and costal routes), make sure you have lots of stops scheduled to break up that trip. Rio to Chuy (Uruguay border town) is ~22-26 hrs by bus. But yeah, I'm not even sure if you can reserve tickets more than a few weeks in advance. There's plenty of excess capacity, compared to say international air travel which usually books up way in advance. On most of my long-haul routes I usually had two seats to myself to stretch out in. I never had to wait more than 45 min for a bus to anywhere in 4 weeks of traveling, just walking up to the ticket counter, and I was picky about what bus lines I rode on... but I didn't go very far off the beaten path.
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Nov 23, 2010 03:16
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sacred posted:At the moment I have set $63 a day to get by on. Which currently includes everything I would do on a day to day basis. i.e. food transport accommodation. Including bus fare from BA to iguazu to Rio, to montevideo back to BA again (if I did it again I would F-L-Y for only 20% more, saving three solid days), staying in hostels every night except one, and including round trip taxi fare at 4am to the hospital in BA (about $40usd I think - running a fever of 104, the hospital visit was free though), I averaged $66/day, with an average of $12-15/day of food and $13/day for hostels. I definitely didn't feel like I was skimping on anything, but I wasn't a big spender either. If you took out the tourist wallet rape of machu picchu and bus fare I would guess $25-35 a day on average for a very comfortable time.
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Nov 24, 2010 03:54
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It was probably just culture shock after visiting Bogota and Lima; Cusco seemed as expensive as Rio. $220/trip is still $55/day which is pretty high considering the total distance traveled, although cheap overall if you really think about it, and totally worth it. But I've spent less per day at overpriced beach touristy towns (in the off season) like Galveston and Port Aransas (Texas Goon checking in) and that includes the bar tab -- and that's in America. But maybe I'm just a cheap rear end
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Nov 24, 2010 10:30
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Tomato Soup posted:Now for a question about Iguazu- Is the Brazilian side of the Iguazu falls worth sneaking over to or is the Argentine side awesome enough to make me not want to sneak over? I'm an American so I'd need a visa for Brazil. Everyone I talked to who had done both said the Brazilian side was better. I didn't do the Brazilian side due to time, but if I had to compare the two, the Argentinian side was like standing half an inch above your bathtub drain with the faucet running at full roar, while the Brazilian side is more like standing on the edge of the tub, looking at the drain. Actually my first impulse was to compare the Argentinian side to the inside of a vacuum cleaner simply because of the noise and proximity to it, particularly the devil't throat portion. Re: trains and visitor center on the Argentinian side; I sort of felt like I was at Disney World's Animal Kingdom with all the majestic views and flowing water everywhere; infographic signs and picnic spots. The brazilian side is more like a nature park trail that happens to butt up against the back side of Disney World.
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Nov 25, 2010 03:11
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BEHOLD: MY CAPE posted:US cash and expect to spend it easily? I had no problem taking $200 a day out of ATMs near the Obelisk in BA. I think the ATM fee was ~$2USD which is about 1%. Most (all?) of the hostels I stayed at only took the local currency. Confirm in writing that they'll take USD before you arrive. Only one hostel took USD as partial payment (at a poor exchange rate), and that's because I'd gone to the hospital the night before and was leaving for Peru the next morning.
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Dec 11, 2010 06:40
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Tomato Soup posted:I'm in Buenos Aires now and the ATM fee is closer to $4 now (15.89 pesos or something like that) and that's not counting the forex fee or the fee your bank charges (Bank of America charges $5 Six days after I got back from South America I got a letter from Wells Fargo saying they were bumping my fee from $2 to $80 starting at the beginning of the next month. I think they caught on to my strategy. What ATM are you going to? I was using the ATM on the NE corner of Cordoba and... Esmeralda(?), about 3 blocks east of the obelisk. Pretty sure it was an HSBC ATM. I think the ATM one block south on Viamonte inbetween Suipacha and Esmeralda was even cheaper. Any thoughts on just getting an account with HSBC and loading up that account with your travel money? HSBC seems pretty invested in the South American market and I never had any trouble finding an HSBC ATM. In theory you should get better forex rates and have the ATM fee waived. BEHOLD: MY CAPE posted:just bring a couple thousand USD  I don't think I ever carried much more than $500 USD + $200 USD worth of local currency (about a week's worth) on me at any time except in Rio. Being a guy I never really had issues with potentially being mugged but I'd be uncomfortable traveling with that much cash strapped to my person here in the US.
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Dec 12, 2010 20:49
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Anyone seen this yet? Pretty amazing stuff. I would have definitely bought an iPod Touch for my trip if this had been available a year ago. The future is now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2OfQdYrHRs
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Dec 17, 2010 07:08
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