Reset search
Backpacking South AmericaBackpacking South America
SatelliteEdit route

Backpacking South America

December 2023 - April 2024
An open-ended adventure by Laura & Tim Read more
Currently traveling
  • 20footprints
  • 5countries
  • 122days
  • 242photos
  • 11videos
  • 9.6kkilometers
  • 3.4kkilometers
  • 3.2kkilometers
  • 1.9kkilometers
  • 452kilometers
  • 29sea miles
Follow Calendar Share Bucket list
Date ascending
  • Backpacking South America
    Day 5–6

    Wild camp at the beach

    January 2 in Uruguay ⋅ 🌬 25 °C

    Wild camped at the beach after hitch hiking all the way from Colonia del Sacramento. Got rides from 4 different cars:

    1. 50 km with a nice but mot so talkative Uruguayano who used to hitch hike when he was younger.

    2. 50 km with a mother and daughter who rescued us from a torrental downpour of rain and hail. It started pouring the second we got into the car!

    3. 100 km with Pablo, who was delivering a car to Montevideo and let us ride in his truck's drivers cabin. Very friendly, extremely chatty, and big fan of god.
    He took us all the way to the north of the city of Montevideo where he had to drop of the car and organised our next ride for us.

    4. Organised by Pablo: got driven into the centre in the back of a police car 🔫🚔 the 3 policemen then waved down a taxi for us to get to the bus station safely 😅

    Last hour was by public transport to a small beach outside the city 😊    Read more

  • Backpacking South America
    1
    Day 6–11

    Punta del Diablo

    January 3 in Uruguay ⋅ 🌬 23 °C

    Tried hitch hiking further east but the strong sun and fast traffic made us give in at some point and bus the remaining 250 km of the way to Punta del Diablo.

    Spent 5 days on a local campsite not far from the ocean and enjoyed the hippie-vibe ☮️ of the town, some ocean snacks and the best value-for-money Caipirinha happy hour in a country that is otherwise knows for its insane prices. ✌️Read more

  • Backpacking South America
    Day 11–14

    Camping in Santa Teresa National park

    January 8 in Uruguay ⋅ ⛅ 25 °C

    Initially we had planned to head back towards Argentina around the 7th and try to make our way to the Ibera wetlands before continuing to the Iguazú Falls on the Argentinian-Brazilian border.

    As it turns out, getting to Ibera and from there to Iguazú is a big and expensive headache. Also at this time of year it's very hot and humid and full of mosquitos 🦟 So we decided to change plans and spend a bit more time at the beach!

    We hopped on a 15 min bus taking us further east to the Santa Theresa National Park. Unfortunately the bus dropped us off at the exit far away from the entrance and the guards did not let us in despite the scorching sun. However, a nice older couple helped us out and took us to the entrance in their car, while snapping pictures for their family social media.

    Santa Teresa is a huge nature reserve/campsite/its own microcosmos, run by the military. Never have we seen a campsite like this! A staggering amount of tents, even some converted busses, nestled beneath the trees, in a huge area, with a grocery shop, beach bars, barbecue spots and even a small animal park. Unfortunately the facilities were a bit run down, but they did the job and were constantly being cleaned by military personnel who must have drawn the short stick at the job distribution.

    We spent the days lounging in our hammocks, jumping through the waves and relaxing at the beach, occasionally sipping a Fernet-Coca with a view from the beach bar. And we explored the animal park with lots of cute and very chill Capybaras hanging out in the shade of trees and stones. Highly recommended place if you ever come to Uruguay!

    🐾 Capybaras seen: 20+
    🧂 Liters of salt water swallowed: 2 (Laura)
    🍸 Fernet-Cocas enjoyed: 2
    ⛺️ Number of tents at campsite: ♾️
    🧼 Rei in der Tube lost: 1 😭    Read more

  • Backpacking South America
    Day 14

    A hitch hiking day

    January 11 in Uruguay ⋅ 🌬 22 °C

    Next on our destinations-wishlist were the Iguazu Falls. To get there we had quite some travel ahead of us: Back from Punta del Diablo to Montevideo, from Montevideo to the Argentinian border at Salto, cross over to Argentina and go up to the north of the Misiones province where Puerto Iguazu is located.

    We made it our goal to hitchhike the first leg of the journey, thinking that lots of vacationers would be travelling back towards Montevideo. And it turned out to be the case!

    We jumped onto the back of a truck to get out of the park and shortly after got picked up for a quick ride to the entrance of Punta del Diablo. There it only took five minutes before a lovely couple stopped with their tiny car, where we squeezed one backpack in the trunk and ourselves together with another backpack and their son on their back seats. During the ride to Castillos, they told us that the palm trees at the roadside are protected, and their fruits are used to make local liquor that is sold at the booths next to the road. Sadly we did not manage to try some.

    At Castillos, it took again only five minutes until our next ride picked us up. The car was in an interesting state, to say the least. The TÜV would have lost their mind. Doors hanging in their hinges, the speedometer not working and the car clearly only being able to start by shorting some of the gazillion cables hanging out the open panels in the front row. But we had a super friendly driver who took us all the way to Biarritz, in the vicinity of Montevideo!
    He told us that road construction jobs in Uruguay were very well paid but in general there is a shortage of technical workers. Apparently also for car repairs, since we had to stop once to close the self-opening bonnet and had to say goodbye to the right-side mirror glass which fell off while driving. This did not faze our driver one bit though. Why would it - he still had the left-side one!

    When he dropped us off, it again took us less than five minutes to be picked up by a small construction truck. We made a last short hop to Costa Azul, a sleepy beach town, sitting "open air" on the truck's loading area. In Costa Azul, we enjoyed some Chivito - the national dish of Uruguay - in a nice little beach-side restaurant, spent an hour or two at the beach and then hopped on the local bus to Montevideo, to later catch an overnight bus to Salto at the Argentinian border.

    🛣 Distance covered: 300 km
    🚗 Hitches hiked: 4
    ⏳️ Time spent waiting: < 20 min total
    🛻 Breezes caught on the back of trucks: 2
    🪞 Car mirrors lost: 1
    🌴 Palm trees seen: infinite
    🥂 Palm schnaps had: 0 😔    Read more

  • Backpacking South America
    Day 15

    Concordia stop over and travel to Iguazú

    January 12 in Argentina ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C

    Busses are the essential means of long distance travel in South America and on this day (and two nights) we made good use of them. Starting off with a six hour ride from Montevideo to Salto at 23:30, where we hoped for reclining seats. We were looking forward to a good night's sleep, but for some reason the buses ACs are always set to freezing temperature and the seats being only semi cama did not reclined enough for a good night’s sleep.

    After arriving in Salto in the early morning, we grabbed some breakfast and took a local bus across the border to Concordia, where we played the fun game of "how high will the stack of Argentinian pesos be that you get at Western Union". We were delighted to see that the prices in this more remote part of Argentina were still incredibly cheap and treated us to a lavish lunch with grilled delights and red wine for only 7 EUR per person.

    Since we were incredibly tired from the lack of sleep of the night before, we headed out to the local park San Carlos to take a nap in our hammocks, which worked well for a couple of hours until we got kicked out for violating some unknown no-hammock policy 🤷

    We headed back to the terminal and waited for our next overnight bus, for which we had splurged and bought "cama ejecutivo" seats that can be reclined up to 170 degrees, hoping for a better sleep experience for this 12 hour journey than the night before. But once again we were treated to what felt like sub-zero temperatures and the seats were not as comfortable as we hoped...or maybe it was just our old backs not being able to cope with 2 nights of half seated sleeping in a row 🤷‍♀️
    This bus would take us all the way to Puerto Iguazu in the province Misiones, where we spent the next days exploring the famous falls.

    🚌 Distance travelled: 1400 km
    ⏳️ Time spent on busses: 18 h
    💤 Hours slept in two nights: 5 (L), 10 (T)
    🥶 Night time temperature on busses: maybe 10 degrees? 🤔🧊
    🍖 Parilla quality in Concordia: 10/10
    💵 Height of Western Union stack: 7 cm    Read more

  • Backpacking South America
    Day 16–20

    Puerto Iguazu

    January 13 in Argentina ⋅ ☀️ 34 °C

    When we left the bus in Puerto Iguazu, we got hit by a wall of hot and humid air. Not surprisingly, the city is quite touristy, with prices close to European level. We spent the first day acclimatizing and recovering from two nights on the road with little sleep.

    On the next day, it was time to visit the falls! The "Cataratas" are accessible from both the Argentinian and the Brazilian side. We first visited the Argentinian side, which has a much larger amount of trails and view points.

    Arriving at the Cataratas National Park, it felt like we were entering a theme park, with queues for ticket booths, park maps and a train going to the farther parts of the park. We decided to walk instead.

    Unfortunately, the most impressive "Devil's Throat" walkway that leads right across the top of the falls was not accessible, due to damage by water masses after strong rain falls a couple of months ago. However, the "lower" and "upper" walkways were still great, offering us some impressive views of the falls and even a close meet-up with the local very cute and furry Coati population. Overall, we spent around five hours in the park, after which we were drenched in sweat and happy to go home and rest.

    The next day the weather turned into cloudy skies and thunderstorms, so we only left the house in the late afternoon to visit an animal sanctuary, which was quite overpriced with the tour only in Spanish, but still we got to see a Toucan which made it worth the visit. Afterwards we headed into town to visit the Three Flags Monument where Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet, as well as the Rio Paraná and the Iguazu River.

    🌡Temperature difference between bus and outside: 20+ degrees
    💧Liters of sweat lost: too many
    👥 Amount of tourists in park: thousands
    📸 Pictures taken: 100+
    🦎 Number of different animals seen: 20+    Read more

  • Backpacking South America
    1
    Day 19

    A morning in Brazil

    January 16 in Brazil ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C

    New day, new country! Today we went to see the Brazilian side of the falls. How to get there? On another bus of course! It took us first to the Argentinian side of the border where we had to emigrate. Surprisingly, at the Brazilian side the bus simply drove through. Were we now illegal immigrants and stuck in Brazil? Luckily no. As it turned out, for transit passengers that only stay in the country for one day, no immigration is needed. How would border control know if you stay longer? No idea!

    The Brazilian side of the falls was even more touristy - and more expensive! 18 EUR per person felt quite steep. But the views were absolutely stunning. You could see much more of the falls than on the Argentinian side and there was a walkway across the water right into the mist, which left us quite drenched. The amount of water plunging into the depths was simply staggering. In the end, although the park was smaller and the walk was shorter, we would recommend the Brazilian side over the Argentinian one.

    There was still a large part of the day left when we finished our visit. So before we headed back home, we went to pay a visit to another country which was very close by...

    🛃 Brazilian entry stamps in passport: 0
    🌐 Pages with extra offers to skip at the ticket booth machine: 4
    🌈 Rainbows seen across the waterfall: 3
    🛗 Ratio of tourists waiting for the lift instead of taking the stairs: 90%    Read more

  • Backpacking South America
    Day 19

    An afternoon in Paraguay

    January 16 in Paraguay ⋅ ☁️ 33 °C

    If you are right next to Paraguay, why not hop over for a bit to expand your passport stamp collection? After visiting the Brazilian side of the Iguazu Falls, we hopped on a bus into Foz du Iguacu, onto another bus to the Bridge of Friendship and made our way into Paraguay by foot across the bridge. It felt quite strange entering a country like this, in addition to not emigrating from Brazil since we never immigrated. On the Paraguayan side, we got our passports stamped, although we could have also simply bypassed the immigration office and nobody would have stopped us.

    The border town of Ciudad del Elste made a strange first impression on us. It is known for being a tax haven with a huge shopping district where you can buy everything for cheap. Commerce was everywhere, but not in a clean and fancy way but rather dirty and raunchy.

    This was not our target destination however. We wanted to get to the Paraguayan side of the Itaipu dam - the second largest hydroelectric power plant in the world. We managed to hail down a bus to the terminal and then took a taxi to Itaipu, which was a completely different sight. Shiny buildings, acres of mowed lawns and a well maintained road network showed that this was a prestige project which generated lots of income.

    Itaipu is a hydroelectric power plant that started as a joint project with Brazil in 1975. It sits right on the border of the two countries at the Rio Paraná. It generates 90 percent of the electricity for Paraguay and 15 percent of the electricity for Brazil, using 20 huge turbines - built by Siemens. Very impressive to say the least. We luckily arrived just on time for the last - and free - tour of the day, which started with a documentary about the plant and its construction (even with English subtitles) and finished with a bus ride across the dam.

    Afterwards we headed back to Ciudad del Este and booked a bus straight back to Argentina. Unfortunately we were stuck in traffic at the border forever. Brazilians love to go shopping in the city and the border patrol wants to make sure that everything brought back from there is strictly for personal use. When we reached the border, the bus driver did not care to stop, and thus we ended up not getting our exit stamp. Oh well. If we ever get back to Paraguay, we might have some explaining to do...

    🌎 Countries visited in one day: 3
    🌁 Bridges crossed by foot to another country: 1
    💵 Paraguayan bank notes withdrawn: 0
    🛃 "Illegal" emigrations: 1    Read more

  • 2024© FindPenguins
  • Home
  • About us
  • Blog
  • Group Tracking
  • Press
  • Terms
  • Privacy Policy & Cookies
  • Support
  • Legal notice
  • English