Another S. America for December thread

[RainDog]

I'm going to buy a ticket somewhere to S. America from approximately Dec. 13th till Jan. 5th.

I plan on getting a temporary apartment lease/sublet (under $600/m) and getting to know some city a little.
This sort of opportunity is obviously more available in bigger cities. I wouldn't mind going the hostel route, but it would have to be a darn good place if I'm gonna spend 3+ weeks there.

I'm looking for recommendations on where would be a good place to camp out for awhile. It's going to be the beginning of Summer and probably wet and sticky in many places. For this reason, being around an ocean breeze would probably be very rewarding. This needn't be an end all requisite though.

Buenos Aires seems to be a favorite here and was one of my 1st choices, but the pricier air fares and lack of city beaches are negative points. I may save Buenos Aires for Winter (U.S. Summer) travel when nearby beaches won't be as vital.

Right now Lima is looking good with fares under $700 from Miami. I may try to get even cheaper via Priceline "name your own price".

Any cities I should take a close look at? Cities with close by; affordable places to travel would be nice. Quality city culture is important too if I'm going to be dwelling city center. While I would love to stay somewhere out of the city if possible, I don't know how well accommodations and transportation would work out. Any tips are highly appreciated.

Cheers

p.s. if anyone is really wanting to tag along and throw in on an apartment, let me know. However, I would expect you to try to speak Spanish with me and the locals on a regular basis (my Spanish is very poor and I want to work on it as much as possible in the meager three weeks)

[Cancuk]

I would take Quito over Lima. I enjoyed the city much more. Ecuador is beautiful and small, which makes travelling to the beaches easier than in Lima... Yes, I know that Lima is on the ocean, but there aren't any nice beaches close to the city (and as far as I know, in southern peru whatsoever).

In Quito you're super close to hiking in the Andes, with the Amazon jungle to one side, and the ocean to the other.

You won't get Machu PIcchu, but you can go to the Galapagos Islands... which, while compleatly different than MP, blew me away to the same extent (if not more).

[TheMetetron]

Also, there are beaches within short-traveling distance from Buenos Aires if you wanted to go for a side-trip. Not really close enough to visit daily though.

[MicroBob]

Lima is freaking hot then too. No A/C practically anywhere.
Lots of people eating ice-cream all over the place. It's kind of smoggy and crowded and the traffic is lousy although I've never been anywhere else in S.A. to compare it.

Indeed I don't think it's correct to really consider most of Lima much of a 'beach' type city. But maybe if you are able to stay in Miraflores district you could be near some clubs, a really nice mall and also the beach somewhat. This would be more expensive than staying elsewhere in Lima.

I don't know how good those clubs are that I saw that are nearish the beach around MiraFlores.


There are supposed to be some nice beaches and clubs in an area south of Lima called Asia.
It's supposed to be lots of fun and only draws people on the weekends during the summer I guess.
Evidently...from Dec through Feb much of Lima nightlife is kind of dead because so many people head south to the Asia district for a day or two.

Spend all day at the beach and then go to the clubs at night and get a hotel for the weekend.

So staying in the MiraFlores district in Lima and then heading down to the Asia district about an hour + away for a weekend or two might be something worth looking into.

I haven't been to Asia myself. We had to change our plans on the day we were supposed to go. Haven't been to any other cities in South America either except for Cuzco so I really don't know how Lima stacks up. But my experience was that it's mostly just a crowded and hot city and isn't exactly the most attractive of destinations. But Miraflores and Barranco distrcits were okay.

[MicroBob]

Arrrgh. It just occured to me that if Asia distrcit is where I think it is then it would have been reasonably close to the earthquakes there.
While Lima was pretty much unaffected I don't know what happened in Asia. Might not be very tourist-friendly or fun of an area now.

I know there are other beach-type towns to the north of Lima too that are supposed to be pretty nice.

[Cancuk]

What Bob said was one of my problems with Lima. The only "good" part of Lima, is Mirra Flores and Barranco, whcih are both suburbs and really provide very little culture whatsoever. It's where the rich Peruvians live. The vast majority of the rest of the city is amazingly unsafe and sketchy, and i'm usually very confident and don't really get worried... but most of Lima proper just isn't nice.

[RainDog]

[ QUOTE ]
Lima is freaking hot then too. No A/C practically anywhere.
Lots of people eating ice-cream all over the place. It's kind of smoggy and crowded and the traffic is lousy although I've never been anywhere else in S.A. to compare it.

Indeed I don't think it's correct to really consider most of Lima much of a 'beach' type city. But maybe if you are able to stay in Miraflores district you could be near some clubs, a really nice mall and also the beach somewhat. This would be more expensive than staying elsewhere in Lima.

I don't know how good those clubs are that I saw that are nearish the beach around MiraFlores.


There are supposed to be some nice beaches and clubs in an area south of Lima called Asia.
It's supposed to be lots of fun and only draws people on the weekends during the summer I guess.
Evidently...from Dec through Feb much of Lima nightlife is kind of dead because so many people head south to the Asia district for a day or two.

Spend all day at the beach and then go to the clubs at night and get a hotel for the weekend.

So staying in the MiraFlores district in Lima and then heading down to the Asia district about an hour + away for a weekend or two might be something worth looking into.

I haven't been to Asia myself. We had to change our plans on the day we were supposed to go. Haven't been to any other cities in South America either except for Cuzco so I really don't know how Lima stacks up. But my experience was that it's mostly just a crowded and hot city and isn't exactly the most attractive of destinations. But Miraflores and Barranco distrcits were okay.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for the excellent info Bob. I've yet to travel to SA so I've little intuition about where to go. I've found some reasonable places to stay in Miraflores but if Lima is truly miserable and hot then I need to look elsewhere. I don't cope well with heat when I don't have a place to escape to (be it beach or A/C room) for a breeze.

I'll look into Asia district and the post quake scenario as well.

Because Buenos Aires will likely be a fair bit cooler, I'm going to keep my eye on plane fares. Since I'm going to only be abroad for 3 weeks or so, I'd like to be able to spend the $500+ extra that it would cost to fly me that far South on a good time, but maybe it will work out.

Is Quito that much better of an option than Lima? Anyone else have any opinions about Quito? I remember looking at a study abroad program in Guayaquil and deciding it looked like a miserable city. Quito may be quite different.

Ecuador seems to have a few nice beach retreats. Atacames and Montanita seem decent if I decide I want to be part of the party scene.Canoa looks nice for a more tranquil time.

I'll probably hit up the travel section at Borders some more tommorrow.

[MicroBob]

If you've never been to South America i really can't recommend Lima as your first place to go.
Other places might be more touristy but they are that way for a reason: They are attractive.

I'm not really bothered by parts of Lima being sketchy. I just think it's a big, boring city with lots of traffic for the most part.

If you are okay getting away from larger metropolitan areas
then I think you might enjoy Cuzco, Peru near Machu Pichu.
Enough white/english-speaking tourists to make for some fun night-life there in the clubs but you also get something of a taste of 'real' Peru imo. And you can also take a side-trip out to Machu Pichu.


Samantha Brown did a series of Passport to Latin America shows which were pretty good. Might want to see if you can view them on travelchannel.com or on youtube or something.
You can learn quite a bit about Rio, Buenos Aires, Santiago, Cuzco, Machu Pichu, Quito and a few other places down there I think and that can give you perhaps a better idea of what you might like to experience on your trip.

[MicroBob]

I couldn't find the video stream online but they still are showing re-runs on Wednesday nights and Sautrdays I think on travel-channel.

http://travel.discovery.com/tv-sched...120030.32584.x


Sep 12, 8:00 pm
(30 minutes)


Remind Me

Samantha Brown: Passport to Latin America
Punta Arenas, Chile
TV-G

Samantha Brown travels to the most southern point of South America. She hangs with some penguins, meets a few of the last indigenous people in the world, steps into the kitchen to prepare a local treat - cooked beaver, and flies over Cape Horn.

Sep 12, 8:30 pm
(30 minutes)


Remind Me

Samantha Brown: Passport to Latin America
Best of Latin America
TV-G

Join Samantha Brown as she shares the sights, the sounds, the flavors and the spirit of the incredible destinations and people she's met during her adventures in Latin America.


They replay at 11 and 11:30pm eastern that same night.


Sep 16, 10:00 am
(30 minutes)


Remind Me

Samantha Brown: Passport to Latin America
Cusco, Peru
TV-G

Samantha heads to an elevation of 11,000 feet to explore the historic city of Cusco, Peru.

Sep 16, 10:30 am
(30 minutes)


Remind Me

Samantha Brown: Passport to Latin America
Machu Picchu, Peru
TV-G

Join Samantha as she takes us to South America's greatest archeological site - the mystic city of Machu Picchu, Peru!

Sep 19, 8:00 pm
(30 minutes)


Remind Me

Samantha Brown: Passport to Latin America
Cusco, Peru
TV-G

Samantha heads to an elevation of 11,000 feet to explore the historic city of Cusco, Peru.

Sep 19, 8:30 pm
(30 minutes)


Remind Me

Samantha Brown: Passport to Latin America
Machu Picchu, Peru
TV-G

Join Samantha as she takes us to South America's greatest archeological site - the mystic city of Machu Picchu, Peru!

[MicroBob]

[ QUOTE ]
What Bob said was one of my problems with Lima. The only "good" part of Lima, is Mirra Flores and Barranco, whcih are both suburbs and really provide very little culture whatsoever. It's where the rich Peruvians live. The vast majority of the rest of the city is amazingly unsafe and sketchy, and i'm usually very confident and don't really get worried... but most of Lima proper just isn't nice.

[/ QUOTE ]


I don't know if it's THAT ridiculously unsafe. But I was with my GF and her family everywhere I went and they are all from Lima so they know what they're doing and they obviously look like they belong whereas I look like the whitest guy on the planet so obviously stood out somewhat (a 7 year old cousin of hers couldn't stop staring at me because she had never seen blue eyes before).

I suspect I would not have felt terribly comfortable walking around some of the areas on my own.
There's absolutely no way I would drive around there in a half-decent car. That's practically asking to be stalked and kidnapped. Probably wouldn't happen. But definitely a higher risk for a white guy in a nice car.

So even if you go to a richer area like miraflores you have to be somewhat careful.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that Miraflores and Barranco have no culture whatsoever. Especially Barranco. Even as touristy and relatively nice as these areas are they are still Peru and I think you are going to feel like you are experiencing Lima even in these more affluent and safer districts.

But if you want culture and want to 'experience' Peru than I would recommend Cuzco and Machu Pichu. And probably also Arequipa if you want to make the time to swing over there.
I haven't been to Arequipa but my GF's father is from there originally so we'll probably go at some point.
It is supposed to be an interesting city worth checking out.


Must apologize for turning every South America thread into "Bob's personal Peru experience" but that's my only S.A. knowledge.

Some of you guys who know your way around Brazil or Quito or Buenos Aires or anywhere else should really speak up.

I, and others, are interested.