our_man in South America! Suggestions, advice?

[our_man]

Hi guys, once again my life takes me to the far reaches of the globe (14 hour flight from London to Rio, ouch!). I'm spending two months in South America, primarily doing research in Brazil, but planning to travel to Argentina and Uruguay too. In Brazil I'm going to be based primarily in Porto Alegre, and plan to venture as far north as Rio.

I was wondering if anyone had travel suggestions about these areas? What to see, what to avoid, what to do to have a good time. Any advice greatly appreciated.

P.S. Just how Catholic (and stunning) are the girls in Brazil, Argentina, etc. meant to be?

[Barnabas]

The women in Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina are very good looking. those three countries, along with venezuela and colombia are the ones with the best looking women in south america.

Brazilian women have more variety in looks than Argentina and Uruguayan women, argentine and uruguayan women look basically like spaniards and italians + some mixed with native american, while in brazil you have all kinds of women, german/polish looking, black, japanese, portuguese, native american, all possible mixtures.

Uruguay is around 40% atheist, and the rest of the people are not very religious, both argentina and brazil are catholic countries, but only 15% of the population is religious, most people are catholics who go to church only 3 times in their life, when they are baptized, when they get married, and when they die, so you wont have a problem with religion.

Uruguay is a very safe country (europan level), Argentina is quite safe too, tough not as much as Uruguay, more or less like the USA, if all you are going to see of Argentina is Buenos Aires city and patagonia then it is quite safe, the greatest risk would be some kid taking your bag while you are walking and running away at fullspeed, but that is still rare.

Brazil is not safe at all, all the big cities have very high muder rates, there are problems with drug dealers from the favelas etc, but then, a lot of wealthy people live in Brazil, with no problems, so it is a matter of staying in the good neighbourhoods.

Brazil has good beaches, carnival and sex tourism, and the cities, uruguay has good beaches too.
Argentina does not have good beaches, the main thing to see there is patagonia, they have cool ski centers similar to thoe in switzerland, huge glaciers, you can see the whales eating seals, and buenos aires, but for me all big cities are the same.

[Kuciwalker]

Avoid pirahnas.

[LordShiva]

Piranhas, too; they're even more dangerous.

[Kuciwalker]

`

[Dinner]

So Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador are the only South American countries with ugly women?

[DinoDoc]

I dunno if I'd want to go to Rio. What with the gang war going on and all.

[Barnabas]

Originally posted by Oerdin
So Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador are the only South American countries with ugly women?

You forgot Chile

[Kuken]

+ Suriname & the Guyanas
but they're not as good looking anyway.

[LordShiva]

+ Tobago

[Lawrence of Arabia]

damn im going to ecuador this summer.

[Barnabas]

I have to admit chile and paraguay have decent women, tough not as good as urubrargombiela

What will you do in ecuador? business?

Galapagos is the best they have

[Barnabas]

The next time germany invades france, brazil should invae french guyana.

Anyway, the guyanas blow, never been there, but they are kind of out of place, like Belice.
I think they are caribbean in culture, they have more in common with barbados than south america, they have indians (real ones) there btw

[Dinner]

Originally posted by LordShiva
+ Tobago

It's an island. It doesn't count.

[Barnabas]

Trinidad and Tobago are part of south america