This week, Her Campus Exeter spoke to Emma, a second year Geography student who travelled South America last summer. Keep reading to find out what she got up to and for some travel tips!
Where did you go?
I went away with my best friend for a month and we went to Bolivia, Peru, and brazil. Via Miami!
What planning was involved?
We had to plan 12 different flights and our hostels in each place. We also had to plan how long we were going to stay in each place, how we would move from one country to another, what sites we could fit in in the time, how much money we were going to need in each place, and what to take for all the different types of weather. It was -2 degrees in La Paz in the night but in the day, you would get burnt in 15 minutes due to the altitude. In Brazil it was 30 odd degrees.
How did you choose where to stay?
La Paz had direct buses into Peru so it seemed like the ideal place to start our travels. We looked at hotels online on TripAdvisor and general review websites to see the prices. We never paid more than £10 a night for a hostel, most of the time it was about £5. We didn’t book all our hostels before we went, we booked about half of them and then left the rest to be flexible since we weren’t sure how organised South American transport was.
What did you do whilst you were out there?
We made the most of everyday and got up at about 7 or 8 am. In La Paz we got a map of the city to see what we could fit in because we were only there for about a week. There was a cable car running through the city as it was between mountains so we got a cable car up and then down the other side of the city. We begun a 5 day hike to Machu Picchu and stopped off for two nights on the floating islands of Lake Titicaca before going up to Cusco to see Machu Picchu. We then travelled back to La Paz before getting on four internal flights to get us to Rio, they didn’t do direct! From there we stayed in Rio for five days for the end of the Olympics and went to the closing ceremony. We went along Copacobana beach to see the samba dancing and everyone was really happy. From there we then flew back to the UK via Miami.
What were the toughest moments?
It was tough when we were travelling because we were trying to do it cheaply; we booked flights in the middle of the night and overnight buses when you wanted to be in a nice warm bed. The showers were cold and we didn’t feel particularly clean the whole time, but the people we met were great so it didn’t really matter. It was mainly the traveling between places which was annoying, we took massive rucksacks and that was always an issue when we weren’t staying in once place and we had to hike up into high altitudes. In La Paz I almost fainted because of the altitude!
What were the highlights of your trip?
Back in La Paz we did death road which was probably my favourite day, it was so cool. We started at 4000 m above sea level in the morning, it was freezing cold and we were on mountain bikes and we cycled 56 km downhill on an unmade road that used to be the only road that lead to the Amazon in Bolivia. It was 4 m wide and 3 vehicles used to fall off it every month. By the end of the trip we had travelled down to 1000 m above sea level. We had started along snow-capped mountains and at the bottom it was like jungle heat. We were left to cycle at our own speed, such an adrenaline rush, probably the best day ever!
Would you recommend it to someone else?
Would definitely recommend this to someone else, it was a once in a lifetime experience and I feel like it’s good to do it when you’re young because you don’t mind having stuff cheaper or missing out on a good nights sleep to see the sites. And it wasn’t that expensive, we manged to do the whole thing for £2000.
Top tips for someone planning a trip to south America?
- If you’re going to go backpacking always keep toilet roll, hand sanitizer, a portable phone charger, and a schedule of your plan and flights on you.
- Don’t plan too much because you will get somewhere and want to stay another day, or meet people and want to stay an extra couple of days doing fun things that you didn’t see online.
- Really do your research so you can plan what you can realistically do
- Don’t worry about staying in hostels, they are really fun and everyone there is travelling. Even in a room of 12 people you can still sleep, and you make great friends.