South America - The Route I Travelled

As you may or may not know South America is one huge content containing many countries, so when planning a trip its hard to figure out where you want to go and to get around...

If you know there is one place/country/site that you want to visit, then that’s a great place to start. For my partner and I we always wanted to do Machu Picchu, so this was our starting point. 

Secondly its important to understand the amount of time you have to travel – we had 17 Days, 4 Countries and 9 Flights! We decided that we wanted to see as much as we could in this time period as we originally wanted to do 3 months travelling but was very unrealistic, hence we went for cramming as much as we could into a small time period.

With our 4 Main bucket list items incorporated into our plans the next step was figuring out how to get from once place to another, which is not as easy as you think in South America.

Night 1 (24^th - 25^th April) - Lima, Peru:

Flying from London Gatwick our direct flight was into Peru’s Capital city of Lima. I believe Peru/Lima is the main hub for all tourists visiting Machu Picchu. We stayed 1 night in Lima before flying to Cuzco.

Night 2 – 3 (25^th – 26^th April⁾ - Cusco, Peru:

So, starting out with Machu Picchu we quickly found out from reading so many posts that it is at a high altitude (3000m above Sea Level) and that that’s a major thing! So, to do the Inca Trail (or any hike in that area) it is recommended that you stay in Cuzco for at least 2 days prior to hiking Machu Picchu.

    

Night 4 (27^th April) - Aguas Caliente, Peru:

During our Hike to Machu Picchu we had a tour booked for 2 Days 1 Night and 1 night was spent in the town of Aguas Caliente which I just below Machu Picchu.

        

Night 5 – 6 (28^th – 30^th April) – Cusco, Peru:

We headed back to Cusco after our tour in Machu Pichu, we arrived back late. We had another 2 days to spend here before heading back to Peru, Lima.

Night 7 – 8 (30^th April –2^nd May) – Lima, Peru:

On the night of the 30^th April we were originally supposed to catch 3 flights in a row to reach Boliva, which would have been Cusco to Lima, Lima to La Paz and La Paz to Uyuni, this would have got us to the Salt Flats and would have spent a night there.

However, arriving in Lima, Peru I ended up being very sick and was not allowed to fly. Ended up staying 2 nights in Lima. (sacrificing a night in Bolivia and a night in Argentina, Buenos Aries)

Night 9 (2^nd – 3^rd May) – Bolivia, Travelling to Uyuni:

On the 2^nd May during the night we then got back to the original plan and got a flight from Lima to La Paz, we had a around 4 hours in La Paz before another flight to Uyuni. Once we reached Uyuni, we were able to do the day trip Salt expedition tour.

Night 10 (3^rd – 4^th May) – Bolivia to Argentina Travelling: 

From Uyuni we made our way on the overnight train to Tupiza, which arrived around 4/5am we stopped off for a couple of hours before catching a coach to Villazon.

Once reaching Villazon we crossed the boarder by foot into Argentina, La Quiaca.

From La Quiaca we had to get a 5-hour coach trip to JuJuy, once reaching Jujuy we got a flight to Buenos Aries and then a connecting flight to Cataratas del Iguazu International Airport (IGR). This got us to Argentina’s Side of Iguazu Falls.

Night 11 (4^th- 5^th May) – Argentina, Brazil:

After spending the day in Argentina, we crossed the boarder in a taxi to Brazil and stopped over in a hotel close to the Iguazu Falls.

Night 12 – 16 (6^th – 9^th May) – Brazil, Rio De Janeiro:

Spent the day on Brazil side of Iguazu Falls before heading off to Rio De Janeiro where we spent the rest of our time before flying back to London, Heathrow.

As this is an overview of the itinerary mainly covering the routes taken, I will be posting separately the details for what we got up to in each area.