After successfully surviving 2.5 months traveling around Europe and then a month traveling to French Polynesia and New Zealand, we pivoted south in April for a month of travel around South America. We had traveled to the continent twice before: in 2014, we spent time in Buenos Aires and Argentina’s Patagonia region and, earlier this year, we spent a little over a week in Cartagena and the Colombian coast. But there was so much else to see.
So, we planned the following month-long trip to five countries:
- Fly into Buenos Aires and spend the day and night
- Take a ferry over to Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay, rent a car, and drive up the coast
- Take a ferry back to Buenos Aires (this time from Montevideo) and spend an afternoon and night
- Fly to Argentina’s Mendoza wine country and spend several days there, including celebrating one of our birthdays
- Fly to Santiago, Chile, and spend a couple of days exploring the city
- Fly to Iguazu Falls, Brazil, and spend a couple of days marveling a this natural wonder
- Fly to Sao Paolo, Brazil, and spend a couple of days there – exploring the city and exploring the Rosewood Sao Paolo even more
- Fly to Cusco, Peru, and get a car immediately down to the Sacred Valley region. Cusco lies at an elevation of more than 11,000 feet – more than double that of Denver – so we headed out of this elevation to acclimate in Urubamba, at 9,000 feet (not down to Denver’s level, but every drop helps).
- Spend almost a week in the Sacred Valley hiking and checking out lost Inca cities, culminating in back-to-back visits to Machu Picchu over 2 days
- Head BACK to Cusco after acclimating, and spend a couple of days there checking out its unique combination of Spanish colonial architecture built atop Inca palace foundations
- Fly to Lima and spend a day and night there, then fly home
A map of the trip locations is here (as well as updated on the Map / home page of WolfeStreetTravel:
The trip easily exceeded our expectations (which, for one of us, were kinda low). Highlights included:
- The super cool-vibe beach town of Jose Ignacio on the Uruguay coast
- Mendoza wine country and horseback riding through wineries for tastings and lunch to celebrate the birthday
- Peru’s sacred valley and the hikes and Inca ruins we experienced there
(Lowlights included Santiago, Sao Paolo (other than the Rosewood), and Lima. We have decided that we are definitely not big city travelers. We’ll continue to visit major cities that we haven’t experienced before, but our sweet spot is definitely medium to small towns [the epitome in our experience continues to be Ronda, in Spain’s Andalucía region]).
Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay – the country’s oldest city:
Onward and up the coast to Montevideo, Uruguay’s capital:
And finally, Uruguay’s cool-vibe beach town of Jose Ignacio:
And just inland, one of the four best hotels of our trip: Fasano Punta del Este.
And its resident kleptomaniac Uruguayan crab-eating foxes, one of which stole a right Birkenstock, size 45, which was never recovered (although was finally replaced in Santiago).
And then over to Argentina’s Mendoza wine country, home to the country’s signature red (and the favorite red of one of the WolfeStreetTravelers: Malbec.
Accommodations at Cavas Wine Lodge in the heart of Mendoza wine country – outstanding.
Pretty cool ride through multiple vineyards to multiple wineries for tastings and lunch on Lisa’s birthday:
Villa roof deck on another one of the four best hotels on the trip:
An hour hop across the Andes to . . .
Santiago, Chile:
Very cool Chilean Pre-Columbian Museum, including the Inca’s stone and bronze weapons used heroically but futilely against the Spanish conquistadors:
Back over the Andes and to the center of the country (and border of Argentina and Brazil) to Iguazu Falls.
Even more extensive than we had imagined:
And more powerful than Victoria Falls on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe when we visited there in 2018:
Yes. Yes there is.
Another flight – this time domestic – to Sao Paolo, home not only to the largest urban population in South America but also tons of pretty cool street art:
And Rosewood Sao Paolo:
Then, across the Andes again for the last time – to Peru’s Sacred Valley:
The 15th-century royal estate and later Inca citadel of Ollantaytambo:
Our first Incan walls:
The next day, a three-waterfall hike up a mountain, culminating in a visit to an even older Incan village site.
Then, after a train ride to Aguas Calientes, Machu Picchu!
After acclimating, we headed back up to Cusco to actually stay there for a couple of days.
One of the many 14th- and 15th-century Inca palace walls, atop which monasteries, churches, or manors were built by the Spanish. The walls in Cusco were even more impressive than those Machu Picchu or Ollantaytambo.
Cusco’s main square and cathedral . . .
Inside of which is a uniquely Peruvian painting of the last supper:
The native artist included guinea pig (cuy) as the main dish and portrayed Francisco Pizarro as Judas on the lower right:
Last night in Cusco at Belmond’s hotel-built-on-a-Spanish-monastery-built-on-an-Inca-temple; another one of the best places we stayed.
We’ll post a lot more on all of these locations after we finally get around to the backlog of some prior trips.
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