Five of the best. The best places we stayed in South America

Choosing the best places we stayed is a bit like picking your favorite child.
Favorite places we stayed in our three month journey in South America - in no particular order.

1. Churrup guest house

We were told about this place on the train back from Machu Picchu.
By a lovely Canadian couple that we had also shared a guest house with in Arequipa.
It is also recommended in Lonely Planet.

It was a very comfortable, friendly place.
Breakfast was included - and it was the best breakfast of the trip!
Also breakfast was a very social time and we met some awesome people there that we went on day trip with and swapped travel stories.
The breakfast room is at the top of the building and so you have an amazing view of some  peaks of the Cordillera.

2. Ushuaia Ukurj apartment, Andres

I was so lucky to find this place!
I's been having trouble finding something that met our criteria...and then this popped up on Bookings.com.
We loved it!

photo from Bookings.com

It was within a handy walking distance of the town and harbour.
It was fairly new and nice and clean and neat.

photo from Bookings.com

Andres, our host was so welcoming and helpful.
He even gave us a lift up the hill to the start of the walk to the Martial glacier.
It would have been great to have spent more time with him.

3. El Chalten. Cabanas Paso de Viento

Another Bookings.com find, the cabins were compact, quiet and near the start of one of the walking tracks.

The cabin was cute and comfortable and the host was just delightful. Nothing was too much trouble.

4. Colca Trek Lodge, Canon de Colca

Perhaps the best place we stayed....for the shortest time!

We did an ovenight trip from Arequipa to Colca Canyon with Colca Trek Adventure Travel.
They have their own lodge in the small village of Pinochollo.
It is amazing.

Unfortunately we arrived late, went for a walk to look into the canyon and left early the next day for a bike ride.
It would have been great to chill out here for a couple of days.

The biggest, softest, warmest beds!

5. Tatiana's airbnb in Barranco, Lima

Places like this are the reason I love airbnb.

photo from airbnb website

How we did it. Where we stayed. How we moved.

Here's a bit of info about our recent South America trip.
We were away for 3 months and we organised it all ourselves.

Independent travelling can be challenging - but very rewarding.
It's not for everyone and that's why there are travel agents, tour companies etc.
But if you are independent-minded, like to do your things your own way - when you want to do them, have a bit more time, can be flexible and willing to (maybe) take some risks - then this is the only way to go!

Thanks to Lonely Planet, Rough Guides, Footprint guides and others planning is fairly easy.
Plus with the wonders of the internet with blogs, and unlimited amount of tourist info you can do it all before you go
or as you go.
Just Google!

I always do a bit of research to on the places that our worth our attention.
I use Lonely Planet and Trip Advisor a lot.
For this trip I bought the hard copies of Lonely Planet guides "Chile and Easter Island", "Argentina" and Peru and got the digital versions included or for only a little extra.
I also bought a couple of digital chapters for Peru.

Airbnb in Bariloche, Argentina

Our lovely airbnb host in El Calafate, Argentina

Where we stayed
We're not hotelly/resorty type of people and a bit old for backpacker hostels,
Maybe we are flashpackers!
...but I love Airbnb.
I love that you can look it up online and there is a variety of options to suit you.
On this trip because there were 4 of us it was often cheaper to rent an apartment.
I looked for places that had cooking facilities so we could save money by making our own breakfasts and dinners.
Airbnb also seems to be a host site for guest houses, hostels and other things these days. And it always worth seeing if they are on other booking sites as well as sometimes they are cheaper.
I think this may be because airbnb fees are higher than some other booking sites.
Some towns don't seem to have many airbnbs so I used Bookings.com, Hostelworld.com, Trip Advisor and just googling.
In this way I booked the first 5 weeks of our trip and a hostel in San Pedro de Atacama as accommodation is rather tight there.

Airbnb in El Calafate, Argentina

Niko's Hostel in Puerto Natales, Chile

Eric's airbnb in Iguazu, Argentina

In Argentina and Chile there were more options and as we travelled further north there was less airbnb.
We found guest houses and hostels.
I guess guest houses are like hostels for grown-ups! and I wish there were more grown-up hostel-type places.
You know. comfortable rooms with ensuites, with a common area for cooking, chatting and sitting.
Not too big, nothing fancy.

Centre of Hotel Utama, Copacabana, Bolivia

Some guest houses come with mini people for us to mind

The advantages of apartments for us were - cost, cooking facilities, unshared bathrooms (or only shared with our travel-buddies).
We enjoyed meeting some lovely hosts.
Advantages of hostels and guest houses - you get to interact with other travellers. Find out where to go etc. Plus some social fun.
Most hostels can book tours or buses.
Our budget was $50 per couple, per night and we managed to average that.

Also as time went on and we got to Bolivia and Peru where the cost of living is cheaper we found ourselves less keen to cook for ourselves. Funny that!
But we found the places we stayed often included breakfast - so that was OK.

Central courtyard of Yanantin guest house, Cusco

View from breakfast terrace at Wayra guest house, Arequipa, Peru

View from Roberto's Airbnb in Puno, Peru

How we got there
We have a friend who is a travel agent so she is rather super at booking our flights.
We were lucky that when we were thinking about going LAN air announced a special deal - Sydney to Santiago, Lima, Buenos Aires for $1250 return.
Flying around South America can be rather expensive but due to the great distances sometimes it's the only way to go.
The alternative is rather long bus trips - sometimes over 24 hours!
Anyway you might find that you can add on internal flights to your international flights and it might work out cheaper.
Talk to your local friendly travel agent!

Train from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes on the way to Machu Picchu

How not to travel

Motorcycle taxi

How we got around.

We also did a fair amount of travel by bus and finding out about buses is hard from overseas.
There is a website called Rome to Rio which could be handy for finding out about buses. There is also an app but but I found it wasn't very reliable.
For example: we needed to travel by bus from our furthest south, Ushuaia to Puerto Natales. Rome to Rio listed the bus companies but it isn't possible to book them online from here.
Something about Chilean credit card blah blah.
Also it had incorrect info about what days which buses went on and we changed our booking to stay a day longer in Ushuaia to the day we thought a bus departed.
However when we got there we found there were buses every day but on the day we wanted to travel it possibly wasn't the best bus.
Somehow we survived!
After that it was easier to book buses in Peru by going to the bus station or by booking online.

For the first few places it was cheaper and easier for the four of us to hire a car.
This gave us greater flexibility and independence.
At San Pedro de Atacama cars were hard to find and also expensive due to the mines in the area.
Tours in this area were good because we went to places that would have been hard to find by ourselves driving off across the high desert.

I is so great now that you can do most of your research and planning for a trip from the comfort of you own home!
But maybe it eliminates the mystery and intrepidness of independent travels.
What do you think?

How we did it. The W trek.

The W trek is one of the world's great treks.....if the number of people doing it is any indication!
It is so well-known that is simply called "the W". So people will ask you "did you do the W?"
Weird, eh?
Actually I didn't know about it before my daughter went to patagonia a couple of years ago.
But seriously it is a great multi-day trek.
It is in spectacular country. In chilean patagonia. This is the tail end of the Andes - almost.
It is in the Torres del Paine National park.
And it full of spiky sticky-uppy bits.
Not only that - there are the bluest aquaest glacial lakes, a glacier (or two), clearly marked walking tracks, campsites, refugios (mountain huts deluxe), and a boat trip.
And it is close to sea level - so no altitude sickness.
Are you sold?

an encouraging sign along the way

The classic W is a four day trip.
We did it in 6 days.

Hardcore walkers carry all their gear and camp and cook all their own meals.
Softcore walkers carry day packs, stay in the refugios and get all their meals provided for them. Sounds cushy....but it is also expensive.
Plus I kindof like camping. No! Actually I LOVE camping!!

So I nutted out a middle road.
We camped in the campsites that had tents already set up.
We carried our own sleeping bags and mats (as I am a fussy bugger!)
We ordered dinners in the refugios.
And we made our own breakfasts and lunches.

 snug camping platform at Los Cuernos campsite

It worked out great I think.
It also meant that I only carried my day pack as I don't have a bushwalking backpack. And I am slow enough anyway, so more weight would have slowed me down to snails pace.
(N0 comments G, P and D!!)

I also randomly selected to walk from east to west.
Which was OK, but we were told that most people go from west to east as that is the direction of the prevailing winds.

The nearest town is Puerto Natales and we stayed there 2 nights before and 2 nights after the walk.
Puerto Natales is well set-up to provide everything you need for the trek. From fully guided walks to tent and other gear hire.
Every day at 3pm the guys at Erratic Rock hostel give an information talk about the W.
Although we thought some of the information was iffy - eating snickers for breakfast so you can get off to a fast start, or not wearing raincoats as you get wet anyway???
But it is worth going to ask any questions you might have.

One thing I was unsure of before we went was if there were cooking facilities at the campsites.
I knew there were kitchens for campers, but when we discovered there were no stoves our travelling buddies bought a propane gas cooker and we hired a set of pans.
We also bought some cheap plastic plates and mugs. We had taken plastic sporks, a thin plastic chopping board and a sheathed sharp knife.

There are at least a couple of supermarkets in Puerto Natales, and it's quite funny when you shop there, there are all these other hikers buying the same sorts of things!

For breakfast we took oats and dried fruit, which has put me off porridge for life! Remember to take some sweetener or lots and lots of dried fruit.
For lunch we took crackers, cheese, cucumber, capsicum and carrot. I pre-cut the capsicum and it turned very slimy before the end.
Our buddies took boiled eggs which didn't last the distance either.
We had dried fruit and nuts and "muesli" bars for snacks. And chocolate of course.
The dinners in the refugios varied from edible to pretty good. But to be honest I would have eaten anything - at least I didn't have to cook or do the washing up.
We were able to order vegetarian meals.
Also the refugios sell grog! How very excellent.
There were also showers at all the campsites we stayed at. Sometimes hot. Sometimes not so much.

vegetarian meal at refugio Chileno

When planning our route I knew that there was a tourist boat trip on Lago Grey and thought it would be wonderful if we could get on the boat at Refugio Grey and not have to walk back down to Paine Grande, but couldn't find any info on it. When we were there we found out the the boat goes in fact land near Refugio Grey and we could probably have booked the boat trip instead of walking back to Grande Paine.
But I think it was quite expensive.

So this is what we did -
Day 1: we got the afternoon bus from Puerto Natales to Hotel Las Torres at the eastern end of the walk.
Stopping at the national park entrance to pay the entrance fee, sign some forms and listen to a short safety talk (compulsory)
All this took about 2 hours.
We then walked up the Rio Ascencio valley to Refugio and camping Chileno.
It was about 7pm when we got there and dinner time!
The tents there are set up on wooden platforms and thankfully are well attached as it was incredibly windy that night.
I woke several times convinced the tent was going to actually blow away!

Distance: 5kms.
Time: 2hours

we start out from Los Torres hotel

up the Ascencio valley to camp chileno

happy and relieved to find dinner waiting

Day 2: waking up pleasantly surprised to find we hadn't blown away!
Walked further up the valley to THE Torres. Which are three magnificent towers of rock set above an impossibly aqua lake.
Oh - just look at the photo!
The torres are over 2000m high - that's as high as the highest point in Australia!
It was still quite windy and several times I was nearly blown off my feet.
The strong winds are a feature of the park.
We stayed another night at camping Chileno.

Distance: 4kms one way.
Time: 2.5 hours

camping at Chileno

the beautiful Torres

"that way"

from Chileno camp you can see the Torres

Day 3: Walked down the valley and alongside impossibly beautiful and long Lago Nordenskjold (no , I don't know how to pronounce it)
to Camping and refugio Los Cuernos.
Another tent on a platform.
I should also mention that the tents were quite small.
2 person tents - just, but with no room for backpacks.
We slept with our feet on or around our bags.

Distance: 13kms
Time: 4.5 - 5.5 hours

beautiful Lago Nordenskjold

Camp Los Cuernos nestled beneath the cuernos

Day 4: The longest day.
We knew this was going to be the most challenging day - going up the middle of the "W".
But we knew that we could turn back and not go all the way to the top.
Even so it is a long way from camp Los Cuernos to Grande Paine. There ae two other campsites in this area but they didn't meet our requirements in terms of tents already set up.
However it is definitely worth going up the middle bit - Valle Frances, as you get to see the glacier Frances, some lovely forest and views of the amazing rocky pinnacles.
You can leave your backpack at Campamento Italiano - as the hoards of other walkers do.
At the end the sight of Grande Paine lodge was very very welcome.

Distance: 23kms
Time: All day! Left camp at quarter to 8am, arrived at 6.30pm.

morning walk with rainbow

Los Cuernos

Valle de Brittanico

Frances glacier

Looking down the Valle Frances to Lago Nordenskjold

Our destination Grande Paine lodge and camp comes into view

Grande Paine campsite

Day 5:
Up the valley alongside Lago Grey to the refugio. You get views of glacier Grey.
There is a bit of a serious bump on the way which made us think that the return trip would be strenuous.
We were told this takes 3 and a half hours - it took us longer. It was very windy and pretty cold.

Distance: 11 kms.
Time: 4.5 hours

Grey Glacier

Camp Grey campsite

Refugio vegetarian dinner

Day 6:
Return trip down to Grande Paine.
We made an early start, as early as we could considering it didn't get light enough to see until 20 past 7.
The troublesome hump didn't seem so bad and we made good time.
From Grande Paine we caught the 12.30 catamaran across Lago Pehoe and then bus back to Puerto Natales which we reached at 5pm.

Distance 11 kms
Time: 4 hours

Refugio Grey looks very cosy as we leave at dawn

Lago Grey looking very grey

We did it!

For more information -
http://www.torresdelpaine.com/ingles/secciones/01/portada.asp
http://www.fantasticosur.com/en/mountain-lodges/
http://www.verticepatagonia.com/