south america

Back in April of 2012 when we were chaotically planning our year long round-the-world trip, we decided ending it in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for Carnival 2013 would be the best way to celebrate it coming to a close. Knowing that people would be traveling from all over the world to be in Rio for the festivities, we booked our hostel in advance. Way in advance. 11 months in advance. It was very unlike our “bad tourist” habits of doing things last minute. But we knew it’d be expensive if we waited. In fact, prices were already inflated by the time we booked.

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Iguazu Falls was the perfect way to cross the border from Argentina into Brazil and from there we continued our journey to Rio for Carnival, but we had one more stop on the way. Parati is a former Portugese colonial town with well preserved cobblestone streets (or as Auston calls them: cobbleystone) and historic buildings (mainly churches). Getting a bus from Iguazu to Parati wasn’t easy though. We were told that we could take a bus to São Paulo and easily catch a second bus to Parati from there. This proved to be much more difficult than that.

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When you make your way to see the infamous Iguazu Falls in South America, you’re going to want to choose which side to visit in the National Park. And if you chose both sides, you chose right. The falls are formed by the Iguazu River which creates part of the border between Argentina and Brazil – hence the two sides of the falls.

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Three magnificently wine filled days in Mendoza flew by quickly and we needed to start making our way toward our next destination: Iguazu Falls on the Argentina/Brazil border, but first we had to decide what to do in Córdoba for just one day, since it was our stop along the way. Córdoba happens to be the second largest city in Argentina behind Buenos Aires, though Córdoba’s population of 1.5 million pales in comparison to the 13 million people of Buenos Aires.

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After the wine debaucheries of the previous day in Mendoza, we woke up the next morning needing strong coffee in order to catch up on some blog work. We went to cafe near the tourist area of Plaza Independencia. We sat at a table for four inside the cafe and Auston placed his backpack on the empty seat next to him. We ordered coffees and then reached for our computers to use the wifi. This is when Auston realized his backpack was gone. We looked all over the cafe but it was nowhere to be found. Someone had so stealthily snatched his bag that we couldn’t even believe it happened. It had been right next to him and no one but our server had come up to our table.

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From the large and lively city of Buenos Aires we headed next to the small and calm city of Mendoza, Argentina in search for the promising vineyards it’s well known for. We had hoped to visit some vineyards all over the world while we traveled, especially while were in Italy, Spain and Portugal. However, we never made the time for such activities so our visit to the vineyards in Mendoza was long overdue.

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We spent seven fantastic days in Argentina’s capital of Buenos Aires even though we could avoid the reciprocity fee to enter. The European-esque city with that Latin flavor has plenty to offer from it’s mix of architectures, local wines, unique dance styles and fascinating cultural history that’s visibly changing and progressing every year. We were fully engulfed in all there is to experience there and this was in part due to an added travel buddy, Ed from RexyEdventures, who met us in Buenos Aires for our last 3 weeks in South America.

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Once the four day journey from Puno was done we were elated to have finally made it to Santiago, Chile. The charming cities of Arica and La Serena were entertaining stops on our way and we were happy to have spent time there, but we start craving big city life after weeks of deprivation.

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La Serena is a small city in northern Chile that lays just outside its larger counterpart, Coquimbo. It’s one of the oldest cities in Chile second only to Santiago. After our overnight bus ride from Arica, we arrived at the bus station in La Serena far too early in the morning, but thankfully our hostel beds were ready and waiting. We stayed there two nights just as we did in Arica so that we wouldn’t exhaust ourselves from traveling all the way to Santiago from Puno in Peru.

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While visiting Peru, we spent our last four days there trapped in Puno, desperately trying to figure out whether to take a bus from Peru to Chile, or to Bolivia. This was mostly because our travel buddy, Megan, had a flight to catch on from Puno back to the U.S. and we waited there with her. But in addition to that, I also got sick again (but not like the shits from Mexico) with a bad cough that was passed to me by my older sister. As if that wasn’t enough, my upper lip started falling off. It was super weird and the skin just peeled away – not from sun exposure because I am obsessed with Chapstick (SPF 15). Then my eye starting swelling slightly and I gave up. It was time to stay put and rest. I couldn’t even drink wine!

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