[~100 pics + story] My trip through South-America.
- Thread starter sehvi
- Start date
groundzero
Veteran XX
awesome.
Morganstern
New member
Amazing pics, I'm envious....of how little you paid for cocaine there....and the good shit at that...
untouchable
Contributor
how much did all this cost you
he said 4500 euros including plane flights, but he also said it could've cost less now that he knows how/where to spend money
Man... Colombia is supposed to be so good, they say the women are beautifull, Cartagena is a nice place to go and then west to Santa Marta.. from there you can go into the jungle for ~5 days and go to this semi uncovered big inka (?) city which isn't that commercialised as macchu pichu yet.
I missed out on Ecuadori heard Quito was nice to hang out for a while.
Quito CAN be a pretty good respite from the surrounding, well, several hundred miles in every direction around Quito, heh. It's entirely civilized in places, and as in much of the mountains, there are thriving artisan communities ... yawn ...
But the best things about Ecuador, imho, are:
Manabi province, especially the surfing around San Lorenzo and the whole M.O. of coastal life there ... and the $4k beachfront property ... the remoteness of the province within the country, particularly the fishing communities along the coast north and south of Manta. Completely free of the trappings of DOMESTIC tourism, let alone international. When there's a big swell, local (Ecuadorean) surfers will show up, hug the shoreline, and leave that evening. Otherwise, the world leaves you the fuck alone, and you have it entirely to yourself.
Mountains. There are a huge number of volcanic mountains in Ecuador, and they're largely APART from the Andes, which means the mountains stand on their own visually and the view from the top really makes you feel on top of the world. Imabura, Chimborazo -- the often overlooked Illiniza Norte/Sur -- about 15 more over 17k feet. The Kichua people in the mountains are the real blessing of the Sierra in Ecuador; within primarily Kichua towns, they're disconnected even from their own country in the same way that the coastal communities in Manabi are, and most of your climbs will start out in heavily Kichua communities, or at least end there.
Your Peru pictures -- the Atacama? my friend says that much of Peru is like the Atacama even though the maps define it more narrowly -- are out of this world, and I envy you with a blue-white envy because I love deserts and the Atacama region is reputed to be the prettiest one in the world.
Best places to 'hang out' are highly subjective, but Manabi province is the only part of Ecuador I'd live in. But the way the seasons in Ecuador work, the mountains are clear when the coast clouds, so a gringo can have 2 places and practically never face a 'rainy season'.
As to Colombia -- I will say that you're going to be a lot better off as a gringo (albeit, a 6'4" 220lb gringo) in big cities in Columbia than in the border areas; I spent some time in the Esmereldas in northern ecuador, and crossed the border with some fishermen to get around the whole, you know, BORDER thing, but some of the towns in that region are apparently pretty controlled by traffickers.
The talk of women is highly subjective as well, but as to that -- it's a matter of free time and lifestyle. In the poorer areas, with women pregnant (on average) before they're legally women yet, and where the daily routine for married or unmarried involves hand-washing of clothes and 4 hours of cooking per day, you will find a notable LACK of hotness. (And that being said ... there are hotties to be found in every economic bracket, but look up some hilarious TW threads about dating poor girls for a hint of a taste of the dangers you would face. Bring a gringa down with you!) In cities with a visible middle class with free time and knowledge of contraceptives, hotness rises dramatically. Quito was slightly hotter than Guayaquil, Bogata slightly hotter than Quito ... but we're talking very slightly. I've been told by everyone I talked to that Brazil has them all beat, of course. In fact, a transvestite I was talking to (long story) said [it] goes on vacations to Brazil regularly, for cosmetic surgery.
Bleh! TW, sucking my fingers into typing way too much.
$700 plane tickets, $800 expenses, for my 4 months. I'm only bringing $6k for a whole year.
edit: but you have to be a very particular kind of person to enjoy my type of vacations. They aren't so much a "vacation" as just changing the way, place and reason that I live my life for a few months.
Still, I budgeted $3k and found I'd spent under $1500.