Backpacking from one side of the country to another

[Lukeparker]

hey mark , thanks for the site there is a lot of good information that will help me in the coming months , Ive just got a couple of questions. I'm doing some volunteer work in the amazon for a few weeks and then im looking to see as much as the country as i can in a month or two the places i would like to see are places such as machu picchu , Lake Titicaca , igazu falls and end up in Rio at the end of the trip , Ive done some research on flights between places in south America and they have all seemed to be very costly what do you think is the best way on getting to places in south America is ? Ive looked at the bus option which is at least cheaper but again involves 12- 13 hours on a bus. And one final question how safe is Rio for celebrating new years ? i will be with 3-5 other people but Ive read on a lot of websites that you should avoid Rio at this time of year is this correct ? thanks in advance

[AcrylicAce]

Hey, i'm not sure if I am supposed to be responding to posts but since it always takes a little while for mark to read through all the tons of posts I thought I would just give my input. I certainly don't know as much as him but I have spent a little time here so I can just give what I know until Mark jumps in.

The best way to get around imo is taking buses. They are pretty cheap and if you take night buses they go by really fast... a 15 hour bus ride doesn't seem very long if you are sleeping 8 or 9 of the hours. You can also look into flights within the countries... as soon as you cross borders the prices jump up significantly but if you fly from one side of the country to another it is pretty cheap.

I don't know about Rio during new years but I would imagine if you stayed in one of the nicer areas (palermo or recoleta) you would be safe... especially w/ 4-5 other people w/ you.

Mark, just let me know if you don't want me responding to posts... i'll stop if you want, just thought it might be helpful to get some other people responding to posts... don't know if this is how you want to run your website though.

-Kadin

Originally Posted by Lukeparker

hey mark , thanks for the site there is a lot of good information that will help me in the coming months , Ive just got a couple of questions. I'm doing some volunteer work in the amazon for a few weeks and then im looking to see as much as the country as i can in a month or two the places i would like to see are places such as machu picchu , Lake Titicaca , igazu falls and end up in Rio at the end of the trip , Ive done some research on flights between places in south America and they have all seemed to be very costly what do you think is the best way on getting to places in south America is ? Ive looked at the bus option which is at least cheaper but again involves 12- 13 hours on a bus. And one final question how safe is Rio for celebrating new years ? i will be with 3-5 other people but Ive read on a lot of websites that you should avoid Rio at this time of year is this correct ? thanks in advance