From France to Australia, from New Zealand to Chile, from South America to Costa Rica
San Pedro de Atacama
Sydney
Sur Lipez
Tasmania
Wanaka
Our trip began on the 12th of September 2016 and will end on November 2017 (3 weeks left). Here it is a little summary of the main places that we visited and the time that we spent in each country:
Australia : 2 weeks
Sydney, Melbourne, Great Ocean Road, Tasmania
New Zealand : 9 months (Working Holiday Visa)
North and South Island (lots of places)
Chile : 22 days
Santiago, Chiloé island, Puerto Montt, Puerto Varas, Valparaiso, Coquimbo & La Serena, San Pedro de Atacama
Bolivia : 19 days
Salar de Uyuni, Sur Lipez, Sucre, Cochabamba, La Paz, Copacabana, Lake Titicaca & Isla del Sol
Perù : 29 days
Cuzco, Machu Picchu, El Valle Sagrado de los Incas, Arequipa, Ica, Pisco, Paracas, Huaraz (Cordillera Blanca), Huanchaco, Mancora
Ecuador : 10 days
Cuenca, Latacunga, Zumbahua, Laguna de Quilotoa , Baños de Agua Santa, Puyopongo (Amazon), Quito
Colombia : 20.5 days
Ipiales (Las Lajas Sanctuary), Popayán, Salento, Medellin, Guatape, Guadalupe, San Gil, Barichara & Guane, Santa Marta, Parque Tayrona, Taganga, Cartagena
Hello, welcome to our new travel blog called Into the Kiwi … that for the moment is completely empty ! We are D. (from Italy) and E. (from France). We have been traveling for almost 1 year so far in different places of the world (including Australia, New Zealand and South America) and we are still traveling now. We have decided to create our own travel blog to share some useful information and pictures related to our experience. We know that travel blogs can be very useful for the new travelers in order to properly make their travel plans and to learn important things about the countries to go: we have consulted many as well and we keep doing it! Here you will find updated information (years 2016/2017) about the places that we visited, travel costs (we have been trying to keep our travel as cheap as possible), personal opinions, recommendations …. but first we must create some posts!!! This will be a work in progress! Greetings from Perù !
I’m not actually an expert of Rome even though I’m Italian. I visited the city when I was 17 years old with a school trip but it was a long time ago. After this I used to come to Rome only for taking trains/airplanes and no more. So many people in the world dream about coming to Rome and I probably know Paris, Cuzco or New York better! Such a shame for an Italian! But tonight I’m accidentally in Rome, just for one night and I feel I can share a few hints based on this experience and based on what I already knew (read other blogs for more detailed information).
Where to sleep? Where to eat?
I noticed that just next to the Termini Station (the main train station) there are quite a lot of hostels, especially on the right side going towards Piazza dei Cinquecento (main entrance/exit). This period of the year is probably a very low-season (the 1st of December 2017) so prices may be lower than in other periods (Springtime for instance). In this area the prices of the hostels can range from 7 to 15 euros per person per night. These prices are not bad considering that you are in Rome. But be aware that once in the hostel there is an extra 3.5 euro (per day) you must pay, which is not included in the price you will read from Booking.com: this is the “city tax“, and yes it is a lot, I agree!!!
I chose to stay in the Alessandro Palace Hostel, where I paid 11.5 euro (+3.5 = 15 euro in total) for a bed in a 6 beds room (there are other options too). It is a decent place, clean, my room is large, the bed comfortable enough and there are lockers inside the room. There is also a kitchen available. Now I am writing you from the bar of the hostel (yes there is a bar, see also the picture above), where you can have a 66cl beer bottle for 4 euro. I have the impression to be the only Italian here (so funny). There is a nice vibe!
Where to eat? I ate a couple of slices of pizza at “Pizzeria del Secolo”, just 50mt far from the hostel: it was very good, even though Rome is not supposed to be the best place for Pizza in Italy. I paid 7 euro which is probably normal for Rome (but more expensive than many other places in Italy). But it was good and I would come back there again.
About food in Rome, like in other big tourists destinations in Italy (Florence, Venice, Pisa,…) you must be careful because as long as you will stay in the tourist areas you could easily bump into bad restaurants targeted to tourists that could also make you pay too much… if you can, go away from the main streets and choose restaurants managed by Italians where you don’t see the menu translated. Anyway this is a very general rule which is valid everywhere and I have no more suggestions for the moment! Tomorrow I have a flight at 7 am from Roma Ciampino Airport and I will get a bus at 4:30 am that leaves nearby the Termini Station. The bus from Termini to Ciampino takes about 25 minutes “without traffic”.
How much does it cost a long distance bus in Colombia? What kind of services and conditions could you expect? Which are the biggest bus companies? In this post we will summarize our experience (period: September/October 2017).
Type of vehicles used in Colombia and services on-board
Big buses, smaller buses, vans, jeeps…. as depicted in the picture above, there is quite a variety of different vehicles that are used in Colombia to bring people to their destinations! Toilets are present only in the bigger buses. Wi-Fi, AC and power sockets are often available in most the buses and vans. The first time I had to use one of those vans (picture on the top-right) I was worried about the comfort of the seats but finally they were as good as the ones of the regular buses.
Before coming to Colombia we read from other blogs that the air conditioning on the buses is frequently put on excessively high making them freezing cold: this actually happened to us only once, in our trip from San Gil to Santa Marta. In all the other cases the AC was moderate. But better to be prepared about this possibility and always bring a blanket or a jacket with you on-board.
And what about the jeeps? Jeeps are typically used for short trips in some remote and country places (for instance in Salento, Oiba, Guadalupe…): if you care about comfort take a seat in the front! The seats in the back are not so good and the jeeps are often filled up in a way you can’t imagine, with up to three people standing in the back. This is definitely a Colombian experience to do and standing in the back of the jeep can actually be fun!
Bus companies in Colombia
Bolivariano, Expreso Brasilia and Copetran are the bus companies that we saw more often in different Colombian bus terminals, thus we think they should be among the biggest bus companies in the country. Nevertheless this doesn’t mean that they are necessarily the best: also in Colombia there are many bus companies (some of them run only in some specific regions) and they seemed to be all similar in terms of prices and offered services.
Focusing on our experience we had a very good experience with Bolivariano whereas we remember a very “sporty” driver when we traveled with Tax Belalcazar (from Popayan to Armenia).
Roads conditions in Colombia
All the main roads on our itinerary in Colombia were paved. There were some winding roads, especially around San Gill. We had some motion sickness in our travel from Bucaramanga to Oiba. The road from Medellin to Bucaramanga was surprisingly good and we could sleep very well in our overnight bus.
Examples of bus prices in Colombia (our experience)
We traveled in Colombia from Ipiales to Cartagena and in average we paid 0.037 euro (129.6 COP) per Km. All the details in the following table. The prices are per person.
If your read our previous posts about buses in Chile, Bolivia, Perù and Ecuador you can see that buses in Colombia are the most expensive among all these countries: 0.037 EUR/km in Colombia, 0.020 EUR/km in Bolivia, 0.022 EUR/km in Ecuador, 0.024 EUR/km in Perù and 0.027 EUR/km in Chile.
BUYING BUS TICKETS FROM INTERNET IN Colombia
We bought tickets from internet only once, using the website redbus.co and we could pay by credit card.
General considerations about buses in Colombia
Many of the buses and vans that we took in Colombia were well equipped and quite new vehicles. WiFi was often available! Sometimes the drivers run like crazy. The main downside of traveling in this country is the high cost of the bus tickets!
How much does it cost a long distance bus in Ecuador? What kind of services and conditions could you expect? Which are the biggest bus companies? In this post we will summarize our experience (period: September 2017).
Bus companies in Ecuador
Long distances in Ecuador are not so long! During our short stay in Ecuador (10 days) we had the impression that most the bus companies were similar both in terms of price and offered services.
Services on-board : toilets, Wi-Fi and power sockets
Buses in Ecuador were often very basic… we missed the quality of buses that we previously found in Chile and Perù. Forget about Wi-Fi and power sockets. Toilets: they were available sometimes but only for women (men have no right to pee on the buses in Ecuador). The only exception to this rule was our last bus with the company San Cristobal. Also the seats of the Ecuadorian buses were typically smaller and less comfortable than the seats of buses we used in Chile, Bolivia and Perù before.
Roads conditions in Ecuador
All the roads on our itinerary in Ecuador were paved.
Examples of bus prices in Ecuador (our experience)
We traveled in Ecuador from Cuenca to Tulcan and in average we paid 0.022 euro (0.026 USD) per Km. All the details in the following table. The prices are per person.
Buses in Ecuador were cheap, almost as cheap as the buses in Bolivia.
General considerations about buses in Ecuador
Not so much to say about buses in Ecuador: they are typically basic but cheap. Since the country is small you don’t take night buses often. We could have taken a night bus to go from Cuenca to Latacunga (our longest trip, 341 km) but we didn’t because we wanted to see the landscapes during the day: we were a bit disappointed because there was nothing so special to motivate our choice, so it would be better if you take a night bus for this trip.
One thing to take into account in Ecuador is that the bus terminals of some towns are far from the city center (like in Quito). Moreover if you take a bus from A (depart town) to B (final town) and you stop in C (intermediate stop) , it is very likely that the bus will not leave you inside C but somewhere on the highway outside and far from the center. This is what happened to us going from Cuenca to Latacunga, since the last destination of our bus was Quito. The bus left us about 5km far from the town and the only way to go to town was by taxi which charged us $4 (twice the price we paid in Cuenca for the same distance). Another interesting experience was our trip from Zumbahua to Baños. We took a first bus from Zumbahua to Latacunga… the bus left us on the highway near Latacunga (5km away). Here there were other buses stopping to take people, so we took another bus to Ambato (directly on the highway!). This second bus left us somewhere on the highway outside Ambato and as soon as we left the bus, other buses were available to go to Baños. Jump from a bus to another in the middle of the highway! What a story!
We spent two days in Cuenca at the beginning of September 2017. It was the first place we visited in Ecuador after a month in Perù. It is a nice city and we were happy to have decided to come here.
Hostels
Hostel Bella Vista: dormitory for $5 per person ($6 on the weekend), wifi, hot shower, kitchen. About 10/15 minutes walking distance from Parque Calderon.
Food
With only one exception, we had some good culinary experiences in Cuenca.
We had a good almuerzo (recommended) in the Mercado 10 De Agosto (first floor). The menus here include a soup and a second dish. Depending on what you ask as second dish the price of the menù can range between $1.5 and $2.5.
In the famous street Calle Larga we had a very good slice of pizza in a place called Pizza XL (address Calle Larga 9-36): a huge slice here costs only $1 and is one of the best pizza we found in south america so far.
We had a memorable jugo natural (fruits juice) at the market Feria Libre (also known as El Arenal). We chose the mix “coco y mora” (coco and blackberry) and we would have wanted to drink several liters of it ! We paid $0.5 per glass: as it happens in Bolivia and Perù, you get a small refill for free after you finish your glass.
The only bad experience was in a place in Calle Larga where we ate a falafel taco, which was the worst falafel of all my life (and costed me $3). Unfortunately I can’t remember the name of this place.
Hospedaje Wiracocha : 40PEN for a double room with baño privado, small kitchen (not the best). Wifi, NO HOT WATER in the shower.
Hostal La Posada: 40PEN (after negotiation) for a double room with baño privado , kitchen (not well furnished). Good Wifi, Swimming pool.
Food
There is a Mercado with reasonable prices and cheap restaurants. Many restaurants on the main street of the touristic area offer menus for about 15PEN, going towards the Mercado the prices drops to 10PEN or less. For this price we tried the restaurant El Muelle but it was nothing special. We could find another small place where we could eat a full menu for 6PEN per person. It was good typical Peruvian food and I would recommend it. This place had no name and it is located in Calle Los Incas. I put the following images below to help you finding it.
As reported in many other travel blogs, long distance buses in South America can be relatively cheap. The prices can vary a lot depending on the country where you travel and the bus companies that you choose. European travelers coming to south America for the first time may be quite surprised by discovering that there are really a lot of bus companies available!!! On the other hand the information you can find on internet before coming here are often incomplete.
So how much should you expect to pay? What kind of services and conditions are you going to get? Here it is our experience in Chile, Bolivia and Perù (click the name of the country to open the corresponding page with all the details).
How much does it cost a long distance bus in Perù? What kind of services and conditions could you expect? Which are the biggest bus companies? In this post we will summarize our experience (period: August 2017).
Cusco bus terminal
BUS COMPANIES IN PERU (not only Peru Hop and Cruz del Sur)
In Perù there’s really a wide range of bus companies. Among the bigger ones Cruz del Sur, Oltursa, Civa, Tepsa, Movil Tours. Besides these you have many other options of companies that offer journeys only for some specific parts of Perù.
When we looked for information about bus companies in Perù (before coming here) we had the impression that many travel blogs strongly recommended to use either Cruz del Sur or another company called Perù Hop (example 1, example 2, example 3). Why? These blogs claim that traveling by bus in Perù could be dangerous (stories of stolen belongings on the bus, hijacked buses, accidents because of tired drivers….) and that using these companies you would have less to worry about, besides other reasons. As you can see from our summary table below, we have never used either Cruz del Sur or Peru Hop and we can say that most of journey were pretty good even though not always the most comfortable… for sure we paid much less than if we had used these two companies (keep reading, there will be more comments about Peru Hop and Cruz del Sur below).
Focusing on our experience (with Cromotex, Econo-CIVA, Soyuz, Julio Cesar, El Sol, Azuay), the conditions of the buses were typically better than what we experienced in Bolivia. All the buses had working toilets on board except Soyuz. Julio Cesar had the best buses (with a snack included in the price) while the buses of Cromotex and El Sol were a bit older (but acceptable). Our worse experience was probably the one with Econo-CIVA, because the seats were small (standard seats, no SEMI CAMA) and we traveled for more than 12 hours overnight… it was too uncomfortable for such a long time, we would have preferred a SEMI CAMA. None of the buses we took had a working Wi-Fi connection nor power sockets.
ROADS CONDITIONS IN PERU
Perù has more paved highways than Bolivia, but still some unpaved and bumpy roads exist. All the roads in our itinerary (see below) were good with the exception of the road from Huaraz to Trujillo: it was so bumpy that we couldn’t sleep. Before coming to Perù we read that there are three main routes to go from Cusco to Lima and we planned our itinerary choosing the route with the best roads (the one passing through Arequipa). If you want to know more about this topic click here.
Examples of bus prices in Perù (our experience)
We traveled in Perù from Cusco to Mancora and in average we paid 0.024 euro (0.093 PEN) per Km. All the details in the following table. The prices are per person.
Similarly as we did in Bolivia, we tried to buy tickets in the middle/low price range. In some cases we could find even cheaper prices, but we decided not to try them (using good common sense, if the related companies didn’t “look” reliable enough). In average we paid half the price that we would have paid traveling with Cruz del Sur (the most expensive company in Perù). For instance a SEMI-CAMA seat with Cruz del Sur, to go from Cusco to Arequipa would cost around 100 PEN (we paid 40 PEN with Cromotex), from Arequipa to Ica is around 90 PEN (we paid 50 PEN with Econo-CIVA) and Lima-Huaraz around 80 PEN (we paid 40 PEN with Julio Cesar). The most expensive bus we took was the one to cross the Ecuador border: besides the fact that crossing borders can make the price of the bus higher, we paid this ticket a bit more than normal (it should cost $50 instead of $65) because we bought it from a travel agency and not from the bus company main office. We never tried to negotiate the price of the tickets but other travelers succeeded in doing it (though only with the smaller bus companies).
Buying bus tickets from internet in Perù
We bought tickets from internet only once, using the website redbus.pe and we could pay by credit card. We noticed that this website doesn’t propose you all the available options that you can find at the terminals. The website of the biggest bus companies typically have an online booking system that should allow you to pay by credit card, but we never tried them. It is worth to mention that Cruz del Sur offers a limited number of seats at a discounted fare: they are called Tarifa INSUPERABLE and Tarifa de ocasión. If you plan your journey in advance you may be able to get these tickets, buying them from internet. According to our experience these discounts were never available at the terminals for journeys bought on the same day or the day before.
Is “Peru Hop” economically worth compared to traveling with normal buses?
After the previous discussions about Cruz del Sur now let’s focus on “Peru Hop”. I begin answering the question, “is Peru Hop economically worth”? My answer is NO, let’s see why. This company offers a service of Semi-Cama buses from Cusco to Lima with intermediate stops in Puno, Arequipa, Nazca, Ica, Huacachina, Paracas, Chincha: you pay a single ticket and you can take their bus between these destinations whenever you want (“Hop on and hop off”). The validity of the ticket is 1 year. Moreover this bus service includes a tourist guide on-board and few more fancy things (you can give a look to their website for all the details).
Before coming to Perù we read several blogs recommending this service, mainly for safety reasons but also for the extra tourist-oriented services they offer. At the time we didn’t know many details about the real costs of buses in Perù and we wondered if this option could be cost-effective. The cost of their tickets ranges between 199 and 159 USD. The option which is closer to the itinerary we did is their intermediate one, which costs 179 USD (150 Euro) .
We used normal buses to go from Cusco to Lima, passing by Arequipa, Ica and Pisco and we paid a total of 29.35 euro. Going from Ica to Huacachina by taxi costs no more than 10 soles (round trip) and going from Pisco to Paracas by collettivos costs 10 soles (round trip) … so 29.35 euro + 20 soles (5.2 euro) = 34.55 euro. As you can see Peru Hop is more than 4 times more expensive than what we paid for our trip (34.55 euro versus 150 euro).
There are other blogs, like this, stating that Peru Hop is cost effective compared to traveling on the same itinerary with Cruz del Sur (the most expensive company): according to our experience (see above), taking SEMI-CAMA seats with Cruz del Sur would cost twice the price that we paid taking cheaper companies, so in this case the same itinerary as Peru Hop would cost around 70/80 euro… CAMA seats with Cruz del Sur cost around 30 PEN more than the SEMI-CAMA ones, so even if we consider the CAMA seats the whole itinerary would cost no more than 100/110 euro. Thus even Cruz del Sur is definitely cheaper than Peru Hop (you can pay 50 euro less and you can make all your journeys on the top class CAMA seats of the best company in Perù).
Consider one last thing: many of the blogs that strongly recommend to use Peru Hop are actually sponsored by Peru Hop (they received some compensation from them). Anyway, we didn’t use Perù Hop and we can’t say anything about the quality of their service: our analysis was merely economical. You may be convinced to travel with them because of their special services, but be aware that you are going to spend more.
How much does it cost a long distance bus in Bolivia? What kind of services and conditions could you expect? Which are the biggest bus companies? In this post we will summarize our experience (period: July/August 2017).
La Paz bus terminal
Bus companies in Bolivia
Before coming to Bolivia we had no clear idea about the main bus companies running through the country. After having been in Bolivia we still don’t know! Our feeling was that in Bolivia you have many medium/small-size bus companies that run only on certain routes and none that cover the entire country. Most of the bus companies seemed to have quite old buses. When you go to a bus terminal in Bolivia you can try to choose a bus company for your trip finding the best trade-off between price and the conditions of the bus. Moreover in some terminals there are information desks where you can ask to suggest you “the best” bus companies to reach your destination.
During our 19 days spent in Bolivia we tried Trans Emperador, Eldorado, Trans Copacabana, Titicaca Tourist Transport and …. one more that we can’t remember to go from La Paz (Terminal Cemeterio General) to Copacabana. See our summary table below for all the details. In terms of general conditions of the bus, Eldorado was the best one. The buses of the other companies were older and in worse conditions: in particular we remember the bus from La Paz to Copacabana to be the worst and the one from Copacabana to Cusco (Titicaca Tourist Transport) that had very noisy shock absorbers.
Toilets on the buses (and Wi-Fi and power sockets)
Except our last bus from Copacabana to Cusco (Titicaca Tourist Transport), none of the other buses we took in Bolivia had toilets on board (none at all or out-of-service). Talking with other travelers we discovered that this is a very common condition for the buses in Bolivia. Be prepared about it! Better not to drink too much before your journey! It could take up to 2-3 hours before the bus makes a long stop (20 minutes) to allow you to go to the toilets. We never found any buses with Wi-Fi and power sockets.
Roads conditions in Bolivia
Most of the roads on our itinerary in Bolivia were unpaved and in some cases bumpy. The road between Uyuni and Sucre (passing by Potosi) was probably the best. We have some “bad memories” about the road between Cochabamba and La Paz (very bumpy sometimes) and the road from La Paz to Copacabana (especially bad in El Alto).
Examples of bus prices in Bolivia (our experience)
We traveled in Bolivia from Uyuni to Copacabana and in average we paid 0.02 euro (0.17 BOB) per Km. All the details in the following table. The prices are per person.
The buses that we chose in Bolivia were in the middle/ middle-low price range. There were even cheaper prices… but we decided not to try them. There were more expensive options as well. We never tried to book buses in internet (we don’t even know if this is possible). Other travelers told us that sometimes they managed to negotiate lower prices when buying bus tickets at the terminals (we have never tried).
General considerations about buses in Bolivia: safety and comfort
It’s clear that traveling by bus in Bolivia is not as comfortable as in other south america countries, especially for the conditions of the roads and for the old buses (with no toilets). Although some other blogs may discourage people to take night buses in Bolivia, we did it and we lived to tell the tale 🙂 ! Only in one case we decided not to go to a place (Rurrenabaque) because we were really worried about the road (from La Paz to Rurrenabaque, also known as “the death road”). In terms of safety we never had any belongings stolen on the bus.
How much does it cost a long distance bus in Chile? What kind of services and conditions could you expect? Which are the biggest bus companies? In this post we will summarize our experience (period: July 2017).
Terminal Alameda (Santiago de Chile)
Bus companies in Chile
Tur Bus and Pullman Bus are the two biggest companies. As you can see from our summary table below, we tried both of them and few more (Buses Fierro, Queilen Bus, ETM, Frontera del Norte, Cruz del Norte). We didn’t have any bad experiences. Maybe just the last trip from San Pedro de Atacama to Uyuni (Bolivia) was kind of “adventurous”, not because of the company (Cruz del Norte) but because of the condition of the road, which was unpaved and often bumpy for most of the time… but this is very common in Bolivia !!! All the buses we took, except the one from Castro to Ancud, had toilets on board. None of these buses had Wi-Fi. The only bus were we found power sockets was the one of the company Buses Fierro.
Roads conditions in Chile
Most of the roads in Chile, along our itinerary, were paved and in good conditions, with the exception of the border with Bolivia.
Examples of bus prices in Chile (our experience)
We traveled in Chile from the Chiloé island to the Atacama desert in the north and in average we paid 0.027 euro (20.36 CLP) per Km. All the details in the following table. Prices are per person.
Since we had no prejudices about any of the Chilean bus companies, we always tried to buy the cheapest tickets regardless of the company name.
Tips to get lower bus fares
We noticed that bus fares were often lower in the middle of the week and higher on the weekends. In some cases, booking the tickets on internet and in advance was cheaper than buying the ticket at the terminal on the same day of the departure. Obviously taking SEMI CAMA seats instead of CAMA is a good way to save money (ok CAMA is very comfortable but SEMI CAMA is good enough).
How to buy bus ticket from internet in Chile?
According to some blogs and forums, few years ago you could buy a bus ticket from internet only if you owned a Chilean credit card. Now there are few website that accept PAYPAL: we managed to buy our tickets in this way using the websites recorrido.cl and turbus.cl.
and the bus companies that you choose. European travelers coming to south America for the first time may be quite surprised by discovering that there are really a lot of bus companies available!!! On the other hand the information you can find on internet before coming here are often incomplete.
Into the Kiwi 