Budget for 3 Months in South America

OK, so our overall budget blew out to about double what I originally projected. For the two of us we spent $10 800 (not including expensive tours like Galapagos or Pantanal) which is about $1800/person/month and $60/person/day. Including those two expensive tours the total for us two was $16 700.Travelling South America was certainly not as cheap as I thought it would be and certain things would be just as expensive as in Australia if not more. We mostly stayed in hostels and splurged a bit on good food and some cool activities but the expensive tours aren't included in the total as they don't reflect day to day expenditure. 

Breakdown per country

Brazil

$90/person/day

We spent the 3 weeks in Brazil and spent $3785 for the two of us by far the most expensive country we visited. Transportation encompassed 57% of this as we had were booking flights relatively late.

Accommodation: $640, $15/person/night.

Transport: $2184, mostly flights and some buses. It's such a big country flying was a necessary expense.

Food: $500, $12/person/day. Cheap but not good food.

Activities: $382

Extra (not included in total): Pantanal 3 day tour, $1100 per person. Not worth the amount of money we spent on it and would have been better in the dry season.

Argentina

$50/person/day

We splurged a bit in the 10 days we spent in Buenos Aires, enjoy fantastic food and going out every day. Our quality of life was far higher than in Brazil and for much less.

Accommodation: $224, $11/person/night.

Transport: $303. Cheap public transport around the city, most of this cost was the bus ride for the both of us from Buenoas Aires to Santiago.

Food: $236, $12/person/day, awesome food for a bargain price.

Activities: $28, did lots of things like rollerblading around the park and went to a tango dance hall.

Chile

$69/person/day

We got very lucky in Chile and got free accommodation and home cooked meals with our wonderful friends so this cut down on the budget for the first half but San Pedro, Atacama desert was expensive due to the high amount of daily tours we did. The outlined budget below is just for our San Pedro portion.

Accommodation: $108, $18/person/night.

Transport: $180, bus for two from Santiago to San Pedro.

Food: $135, $22/person/day.

Activities: $213, did 4 half day tours.

Bolivia

$42/person/day

Bolivia was cheaper than other countries but e didn't find any three course meals for $1 like someone was telling us. Sadly I was really sick at this time and couldn't make it to a computer to budget properly but food and accommodation was relatively cheap.

Peru

$60/person/day

Peru was a good combination of fun and affordable. We were living it large and thought we were splashing the cash big time but the figures end up being very reasonable. 
Accommodation: $188, $12/person/night.

Transport: $429, a few bus rides a lots of cheap taxi rides - about $2-5 per trip.

Food: $381, $13/person/day. We absolutely splurged on food in Peru and went to a few fine dining places which were still cheap for what we were used to.

Activities: $427, we did a lot in Peru and bought a few things like alpaca jumpers which added to this. Still a cheap place to do fun things.

Extra (not included in total): G Adventures 5 day Inca Trail for $934 per person, worth it considering the staff they bring along to support you and the service you get.

Ecuador

$58/person/day
Relatively cheap place to travel around but honestly besides the Galapagos non of it felt like value for money after Peru.

Accommodation: $256, $16/person/night.

Transport: $104, mostly taxi rides including $25-35 taxi rides to and from Quito airport

Food: $282, $17/person/day. Cost more than Peru yet definitely nowhere near the quality. Disappointing.

Activities: $54, went to see the dolphins in El Morro and visit the middle of the Earth.

Extra: 5 day Galapagos Cruise + 1 day land tour on Isabella Island. Total for two people was $3484. Also spent an extra $436 on extras like entry fees, tips and snorkelling hire. 

Itinerary for 3 months in South America

Now that we're on our North America leg I've really come to miss South America. I miss it for all it's uniqueness and vibrancy. We spent three months there in total but this isn't really that long when you consider we visited 6 countries which equates to only about 2 weeks per country. How can you possibly say you've come to understand a place in 2 weeks? I do feel that we managed to cover the most important places to us but there are certainly places we felt we cheated and plan to visit on the next trip. 

Brazil (March 2013)

In total we spent 3 weeks here where we mostly flew from city to city. I think that this was a good amount of time here consider how large the country is. It was the most expensive country we visited so staying too long can really squeeze your budget. We started in Rio and spent 4 days there. It was a great place to start the journey and there was so much to do there. We saw Christ the Redeemer and visited the famous Copacabana and Ipanema beaches. We then made our way by bus to Paraty which was nice but the beach wasn't that great and I would have preferred to have gone to Ilha Grande which we heard many good things from other travellers about the beautiful beaches there. Another bus to the historical town of Ouro Preto where we spent two days, mostly taking photos of churches and walking up hills. We then visited Sao Paulo for four days. This a frenetic and over populated city where we had a great experience meeting some lovely locals but otherwise didn't find much to love about the acutal city. We then took a bus to Bella Horizonte then a flight to Salvador in the Northeast of Brazil. Salvador was one of my favourite cities and we spent 5 days there exploring the Afro-Brazilian culture and spent an extra two days in the small nearby beach towns of Imbassai and Praia do Forte. I'd skip the former but loved the latter, even though it was super touristy. We then flew all the way across to the Cuiaba where we started our 3 day tour into the Pantanal, large wetlands area known for wildlife. Due to it being the wet season (March), this was a dissapointment as there are more chances of seeing Jaguars and other cool animals in the dry season. I wished we'd saved our money instead and went to Bonito instead to see the wild macaws and do the fish swim instead. We then flew to Iguassu Falls and spent one full day on the Brazilian side and the next on the Argentinian side. Do both sides and do the boat ride as well. It's really really fun! Note: We applied for our Brazillian visa's in Australia a month before leaving.

Argentina (March/April)

We spent 8 days only in Buenos Aires which was a good amount of time. We planned on spending some of that time in Mendoza, wine country. But since we absolutely fell in love with the food and culture of BA and don't love wine we ended up going straight from BA to Santiago. This was a 24 hour bus ride but going over the Andes along the way made it feel like more of a scenic tour and definitely recommended even if going through Chilean customs takes ages. We would love to come back one day and see more of Argentina and do Salta and Mendoza as well. We hear they are both lovely. But I would still go back to BA for some more amazing steak. Note: You have to pay a $100 reciprocacy fee and print out the receipt before entering the country.

Chile (April)

We spent 12 days in Chile, 5 of those in Pucon. Stunning volcanoes and lakes with amazing friends, we had such a good time and I just wish we had more time to go further South to Patagonia and do the W trail in Torres del Paine but I hear that is a trip in itself and by April it would have been way to cold for unprepared travelers that  we are. We also spent four days in the northern tip in San Pedro doing daily tours in the Atacama desert. Our favourites were the salt lagoons and the Space tour. From there we started our four day tour to the Bolivian salt flats.

Bolivia (April)

I couldn't really enjoy Bolivia due to altitude sickness but the tour to the salt flats had some stunning scenery and of course the salt flats themselves are so special. We also then spent 2 days in La Paz and 2 days in Lake Titicaca. This was enough and I really can't say I overly enjoyed htis part of the trip.

Peru (May)

We spent just under 3 weeks in Peru and honestly I could have spent more. Such a stunning country with so much to do and great on the budget too. We spent two days acclimatising in Cusco before doing a 5 days Inca Trail trek with G adventures which was hard but infinitely rewarding. Another two days in Cusco afterwads recuperating and then two days in Lima, exploring the ceviche in Miraflores. We spent two days in Ica visiting the oasis town of Huacachina and sandboarding (exhilirating) and one day in Paracas looking at sea lions and penguins. Then another two days back in Lima, this time in Barranco district which is a bit less touristy and more interesting then Miraflores. 

Ecuador (May)

A 28 hour bus from Lima is the city of Guayaquil where we booked our Galapagos tour. This was such a stress point for me but worth it. We originally wanted to squeeze Columbia in before we went to Galapagos but realised that we wouldn't really be giving Columbia the days it deserved plus we weren't sure how long it would take to find a good Galapagos tour and didn't want to risk not having enough time to do it. So Columbia went on the 'next time' list. We spent two days organising the tour, one exploring the city and two days in Playas on the beach and checking our dolphins in the mangroves at El Morro. Honestly, with all the amazing wildlife and beaches that awaited at Galapagos we could have skipped Playas but we had time to kill. We spent 2 weeks in Ecuador but the best part was the Galapagos, the only major tour we did that not only met but far exceeded expectations. We spent 7 days at Galapagos with two of those in transit on flights. This was the perfect amount of time that allowed us to see everything without getting excessively expensive and repetitive. We only had one full day in Quito to visit the equator for a science lesson before we flew out to Los Angeles, USA. 

Lagunas and Uyuni Salt Flats in Boliva

From San Pedro we were to go on the three day tour to the Uyuni Salt flats. On the way we would see lots of lagoons, old rock formations and unique Bolivian wildlife. It was pretty much 1 hour of bumpy road, half hour of photographs at a site, then back onto that bumpy road again. We started at Green Lagoon or Laguna Verde and took some snaps. There were also some pretty cool Geysers as well but by that stage I had been thrown in the jeep for a few hours now and the rotten egg smell of the sulfur was not going well with the nausea I was feeling. The landscape and rock formations along this barren landscape were of the like I've never seen before. Stunning.

The next morning we journeyed on to some more lagoons. There was the Laguna Colorado where the water was all red. And we saw some awesome wildlife. The viscacha, relative of the chinchilla boucing around on the rocky hills, pink flamingos filling up the lagoons and pacuna, primitive cousin of the lama. 

Rarest of all - the great Cambodian flamingo

One of my favourite moments was when we reached a train track in the middle of nowhere. Being so flat despite being so high up we could so that the track went on and on and on. Thinking it abandoned we took some touristy shots of us having fun lying on it like in the old movies. 

Ten minutes later to our suprise we saw this. 

No one was lying on the tracks after that. 

The second night we stayed at at hotel with a shower (though I had a cold one) and salt floors! It was hard to put your stuff anywhere because it would get covered in salt, ditto with walking around in thongs. 

We left at 4am the next morning to watch the sunrise over the salt flats (mostly from the jeep as it was so cold) and then went to Incahuassi Island, the largest 'island' in the Uyuni salt flats. It was a rock mountain covered in stunning gigantic cacti. The trek up the moutain was more than my body could handle but the view from the top, looking over the cacti and the white flats that stretched as far as the eye could see, was breathtaking (sorry about the bad pun). A lady in her fifties overtook us and gave me some breathing tips to deal with the moutain air. That was a bit depressing. 

I took some photos once we finally reached Salar de Uyuni (salt flats of Uyuni) but it's a lot harder than one would think. If you jumped too hard on the salt crust it would give way to reveal water below. You had to be careful not to fall in! White as far as the eye can see. If you look at it on a map of a Boliva the salt flats take up a significant part of it. The enormity of it is the most interesting part.The salt form a honeycomb like pattern on the flats.

We didn't see much of La Paz besides some stalls in the witches markets with lama foeutes and toucan bills for sale. From La Paz we went to Lake Titicaca which is the highest lake in the world. It was so large that it was hard to believe this wasn't the ocean and you weren't at sea level. We got ripped off by the bus company paying premium for a nicer bus seat which we never got and in truth I found Bolivia a really difficult country to enjoy and cannot imagine myself coming back here again. 

Bolivia - You Unravel Me

Traveling non-stop is hard on your body. Your skin starts breaking out because its so dry or you get bed bugs from a dodgy hostel. All these minor things I could cope with. I've aleady given up a lot to be here and that includes creature comforts. However it all started to REALLY fall apart once we landed in Bolivia.

I feel as if this country ran up to me and went "want to know the real South America?" at which point it punched me in the head, kicked me in the stomach then ran away with all my money. Severe altitude sickness left me weak, vomiting, constantly nauseus and gasping for air at the smallest of tasks. At the same time food poisoning from the water in a fruit shake left me with diarrhoea and dehydrated. Some sort of insect had given me a swollen, red right eye and bottom lip. Plus I got a visit from Aunt flow, I needed more red blood cells, not less!

Kevin got really sick on our first night in Boliva where we went from around 2000m to 4500m in one day. He was in terrible shape and I spent the night by his side making sure he had everything he needed. And everyone who knows Kevin knows that he is lean, mean running machine. "If anyone was to get altitude sickness we thought it'd be me" I told one of our room mates. Famous last words. 

But it was partially my fault. I thought I was OK since we've been at elevation for 2 days now. So I had a small amount of red wine with my lama steak on the last night. And I know now that I wasn't drinking enough water. And then we went on that extra bumpy jeep ride to the Uyuni salt flats at 4am in the morning. And then I started throwing up. In fact I can proudly say there's a smudge of vomitus somewhere on those salt flats with my name on it. I took some gratuitous photos and then crawled into foetal position in the jeep for the rest of the day and didn't move. Not for lunch, not for the train cemetory. I was over it. 

But it was not over me. Just as the tour finished in Uyuni we were to take a 12 hour bus that same day straight to La Paz. We were promised a spacious, nice bus. "You don´t take risks in Bolivia" the travel agent told us due to the high liklihood of a drunk driver rolling the bus over a cliff. We got a shitbox that rattled so hard on the poorly made Bolivian dirt roads that I think I deserve some sort of medal for the herculean effort I made not to throw up and defile the one toilet we had on that bus.

On that bus Antoine, one of our lovely tour mates noticed Kevin tucking the blanket over my feet to make sure I didn't get cold. "Oo Toneee you arr so lucky!" he exclaimed in his french accent. I thought he was joking because out of the two of us I'd much rather be in his shoes. But I know he was right. I am very very lucky. To have Kevin who got me countless cups of coca tea, did our laundry, put beanies and socks on me and brought me chicken soup. I can't even fathom what I would have done on my own. So even though Bolivia broke me, Kevin carefully rebuilt me back up again.