Costa Rica is one of the most important touristic destinations in Latin America. The country is the most stable in its region and has always shown an important economic development. The section dedicated to this country by the Indigo Guide online guide tries to summarize the most important issues when visiting this nation: history, basic information about the population and its quality of life, weather conditions, air flights, plus sections about specific topics. There are special sections for the gay scene, the possibility to learn spanish, and plastic surgery -this last item being on high demand among US tourists, since medical costs in Costa Rica are much lower.

Destinations are divided in Central Pacific, North Pacific, South Pacific and the Caribbean. The information on every destination is quite basic and is limited mostly to specific info on geography, history and landscapes. Unfortunately, there are no pictures for us to appreciate the beauty of each location. It would also be important to get more useful information for the traveler, such as the availability of hotels in every place, including its prices; tours that can be done around the area; and places to eat and go out to. While the section dedicated to Costa Rica includes a section dedicated to tours and adventure tourism, these references are too general, so we have to do a further research in other sites. If traveling is basically an experience, a travel site should help us build and plan this experience. And in this sense, Costa Rica Indigo Guide falls a little short.

This entry is sponsored by Review Me.

Cities and their planners always look for a determined angle to show themselves to the rest of the world. And Rio de Janeiro has chosen to be seen from top, from the heights of Corcovado or Sugarloaf. And the sight, of course, is usually spectacular, even when fog conspires against the view and turns everything a little greyish. The “view from the top” allows us to see one of the city’s most spectacular features: its huge number of green spaces, distributed everywhere we see. And that physical space, spattered with morros (hills), impresses anyone who dares to see it under the shadow of the huge Christ and his famous open arms.

Of course, choosing a view point to represent oneself implies to eliminate others, at least as generalized representations. Because, when seen up close, Rio loses spectacularity but gains a much richer view in a human sense. This look is not, necessarily, touristically relevant. Rather, it’s the empoverished side that can be seen, for example, when we arrive to Rio by bus. The city’s bus terminal -Rodoviaria, as they call it in Brazil- it’s almost chaotic, particularly on weekends. As soon as we arrived, we found hundreds of people staring at us from the second floor, behind bars, while we struggled to find our luggage. And the surroundings are definitely not quite attractive. Abandoned sheds, dark streets covered by highways and a local bus terminal in poor conditions. I don’t think anyone who sees that area will have an splendorous image of Rio. But it’s a side one has to see.

To choose between two views, from under and from top, is nothing but an attempt to classify a city. In between, there’s many other views, places, details that might help us form an image of a city. An image that, of course, will be as arbitrary as other ones. An image that will be not only the result of our own direct experiences, but will also be clearly influenced by other sources, such as tv shows, travel guides, third parties stories, among many options.

To put some order here, the next entries about Rio will begin from the top; that is, how to get to the different viewpoints of the city, such as Corcovado and Sugarloaf, and will then lower to the surface, towards bairros (towns) such as Ipanema, copacabana or Santa Teresa -where, by the way, we stayed at. Finally, there’ll be references to the topic of public transportation, because it’s always good to learn how to move around the city without depending on taxis.

During the last weeks, I’ve received many chain-style emails, unsigned, which stated that several evictions had been taking place in Tilcara in the last weeks. The email said that people who had been living for a long time in Tilcara and who were part of the original communities of the area, were being displaced from their land, for the purpose of building touristic enterprises in the site. The topic grabbed my attention, of course, and the first thing I did was write to some media of the argentinean province of Jujuy to verify the information. The answer I got was that they knew about the email, but there was no source that certified the truthfulness of the version, so there was no news.

But since the subject seemed interesting for this blog -you know, here we’re quite far from spreading out the vision of “everything in tourism is positive”- I kept sending some emails around, to find out more about this. The issue gained even more potential when I came across an article in the Salta Libre site (spanish). There, some of the eviction situations were told citing names and last names. And it states the following:

“Men and women, who have taken care of the land and its animals for centuries, have been dispossesed of everything they own by unsensitive death merchants. They are being kicked out without compassion for lacking the papers that today the law remembers to demand from them; of course it’s late now, their land, the one they’ve cultivated sowing corn, watching for their goats, their lambs, their chicken, already have new owners in papers, land owners avid of increasing their fortune, occasion pirates that glanced at the business oportunity, corrupt officers that sign buy and sale papers within a week; the land is being literally “cleaned” to build new houses, hotels, and everything that helps to the modernization of the worldly patrimony of humanity in tilcaran land, its legitimate owners are abandoned to their fate in disgraceful huts, and soon will become slaves of their own land.”

These days, I’ve sent several consults to diverse sources to check the veracity of the information, and to see what’s the relation between this situation and the important growth tourism is having in this area. If anyone has more information, leave your contribution in the comments area. If you prefer to contact me, privately, to hand me more information, you can do so at jorgegobbi@gmail.com. As long as I recollect new information, I will publish it here.

After so much going back and forth, I’ll finally join the massive fled from Buenos Aires that takes places every january. This time, the destination will finally be the south of Brazil. Not too original. Year after year, thousands of argentineans vacation in that area of the world, even when the dollar exchange rate is not in our favor. We have 15 days to walk around during the last week of january and the the first of february, and for now we know we’ll be in:

Porto Alegre (there are social reason here, I know it’s not a very touristic destination)
Rio de Janeiro
Florianopolis (we haven’t decided yet what place of the island we’ll be staying at)
Curitiba, Paranagua and Ilha do Mel

As you can see, it’s quite an ambitious tour for two weeks, considering part of the route will be done by ground.

We’ve been looking at other locations such as Praia do Rosa, Bombinhas and Camboriu, but I still don’t know if we’ll have enough time to see all of these places.

I’ve been doing some research about these destinations, I’ve even been drawing maps, as I usually do. Any kind of advice about the destinations cited above will be welcomed and appretiated, particularly about where to go, places to stay and prices, in case of people who has recently visited this area of the world.

Some of this trip’s objectives are:

To make the trip from Curitiba to Paranagua by train. I have different information about this issue. On one side, I have a brochure from last year of this train and it says that it works everyday during high season. But the train’s website says it only works during weekends. Has anyone taken this train on january or february?

To see Rio de Janeiro. Yes, it was about time. And the tour would include a visit to Petropolis. Has anyone been there? Is it worth visiting?

To see Ilha do Mel. In this case, the doubt is about lodging, since it seems quite complicated during high season. Does anyone have any info about this island?

To walk around Florianopolis island. I’m not fond of laying on the beach for too long; if I don’t move around a little, I get bored easily.

Surely during the following weeks I’ll tell more things about the 2006 tour, as I find out more info. Feel free to use the comments area to share any useful information or advice about these destinations -including Praia do Rosa and Bombinhas, as possibilities.

One of the most common destinations of travellers that arrive to Argentina is Tigre, a location close to the capital Buenos Aires. In fact, you can get there in a reasonable time, thanks to the trains system service. And the most visited area at Tigre is the riverside port, which has ship departures to other sites of the local Delta (a large number of interesting islands) and Uruguay; and also the Puerto de Frutos, a big number of small businesses that sell all kinds of goods, specially crafts made of cane and wicker.

There are two ways to arrive to Tigre, both by train. On one side, you can use the traditional service, provided by Mitre trains, branch Tigre, departing from Retiro station, a few blocks away from the center of Buenos Aires. With a low cost of 0.90 pesos (US$ 0.30), the best maintained public service trains in Argentina will take you there in less than an hour. These ride through the north zone of the city and Gran Buenos Aires, the area with the country’s highest incomes. On the other side, you can combine the Mitre train, Bartolome Mitre branch, and take the Train de la Costa, a touristic service that costs, on weekends, 4 pesos for locals and 6 (US$ 2) for outsiders. The tickets allows you to get off and on the train any time you want along the way. Some interesting stops are Anchorena station, where we can access the Rio de la Plata, and Barrancas de San Isidro, with an antiques fair where you’ll find many interesting items, similar to those you find in Defensa street at San Telmo.

The TBA train schedule among Retiro and Tigre stations can be found here. The Train de la Costa has its own website.

The touristic interest on Tigre becomes clear if you consider that the local government has invested for years in the positioning of the location, through infrastructure and landscapes improvements. In the begginings of the XX century, Tigre was the destination of the wealthiest class in Argentina, who moved from their expensive homes in San Isidro. You can still find excellent examples of the architecture of those times in the Rowing Club (in front of the river terminal) and the so called Tigre Club, a huge old house with a big explanade that goes through the street and heads right into the river, a location I was lucky to visit during the times I worked as a journalist in the northern zone. More about historical houses in the Municipalidad de Tigre website.

Of course, not everything at Tigre has been “touristified”. We refer only to the area of the location’s center, around the river port, and the river’s margins. Anyways, there’s a growing private investment in the area, now that the touristic interest is increasing on the side of foreign tourists, who didn’t use to get there so frequently.

The Puerto de Frutos is an interesting locations to shop if you’re looking for handcrafts made of cane and wicker. There’s a huge variety, although with the touristification of the area, the prices have rised and the supply is becoming more complete and sofisticated. The weekends the place is completely packed with visitors and it’s a quite interesting visit that can take a few hours. Particularly, every time I went there I’ve come back home with some wood or wicker craft, cheese -I particularly like the spicy ones- and Otto Tipp red beer, now among my favorites (Otto Tipp is from the locality of El Bolson, in the argentinean Patagonia, but the truth is I don’t know any other place in Buenos Aires that carries this beer; if anyone knows, let me know in the comments). Anyways, every time it’s easier to find diverse products, even wicker baskets … made in China. Of course, the artisan spirit of the first years is slowly being lost, in the same way the fruits -particularly oranges, harvested in the Delta islands- are limited to a small part of the place.

There are good references to the destinations you can visit in this area at the Municipalidad de Tigre website. It’s an alternative to spend the day, basically, unless you’re interested in spending the night at some hotel in the Delta islands, which is not a bad option.

Note: this entry is based on my travel experience around South America. In some cases, there are elements that can be applied to other destinations, but I can’t guarantee it

Are there ways to save money in our trips and, hence, to be able to broaden our visit with less expenses? Here, some of the backpackers’ usual practices when travelling around South America.

Spend the night in a bus. The distances between Latin American cities are usually big, in many cases over 8 hours. So, one of the ways to save money is by travelling by bus during the night, every other day. Obviously, you’ll have to take the bus somewhere around 10pm. so that you’ll arrive to your destination early in the morning, around 6 am (not earlier, if possible). The con: you’ll have to walk around the city the whole day without counting on a place where to rest or take a shower. At least in Bolivia, this last issue is not a big problem, since there are public showers (not free, but they’re cheap) in all the bus terminals. Just don’t exceed your savings impulses and do spend a night in a hotel every other day; otherwise you’ll be so tired, you won’t be able to enjoy your trip. By the way, in Bolivia it’s possible to bargain for the price of bus tickets, particularly when there are not enough passengers to fill the bus. In these cases, you can get substantial savings.

The cheapest hotels are located nearby train stations. In Latin America, trains have been an object of a long process of uninvestment and, in fact, have stopped working in many places. But even in areas where abandoned (or not) train stations are located you can usually find most of the cheapest hotels and lodges of the town. Don’t look for single rooms nor with private bathroom, you won’t save as much. The con: it’s not unusual for these locations to be unsafe. By the way: in countries like Peru or Bolivia the development of camping is minimal, and doesn’t make much sense to carry a tent around these places. Besides, in high altitude places it gets so cold at night that you’ll hardly like it to sleep outside.

Eat in the streets. Ok, maybe someone concerned about hygiene and bromatology will strongly disagree with this advice, but you have to admit that you won’t find anything cheaper, at least not in Latin America. Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon to gain some digestive problems and, in the case these are really bad, you’ll end up spending more money in medications than in food. Not to mention the two or three days you’ll waste by staying in the bathroom.

Buy in groups. Particularly in countries like Bolivia, Peru and Equator, it’s not hard to bargain for the prices of crafts. But it’s even better to buy in groups, and talk the price of every piece down, until you get a greater discount for the whole package. Remember, bargaining is a social relation between the buyer and the seller, not a talk between a swindler and his victim. I clear this up because I’m tired of seeing european tourists yelling at the sellers “I’ve said 20!!!!”, as if they were ordering the price. The funniest thing is that these same tourists might have already been overcharged by taxi drivers and restaurants, and they didn’t say anything…

Got any more advice? Leave it on the comments area.

Through El Sur I discovered a column by Andres Oppenheimer about tourism in Latin America, published by The Miami Herald (it requires free registration or Bugmenot, of course). Oppenheimer states that despite its growth, Latin America still concentrates a small fraction of the world’s market and it’s growing slower than in Asia Pacific and the Middle West. One of the reasons he points out is the “overregulationâ€? of airlines, which makes tickets expensive in the region. Add to this the lack of marketing policies to promote tourism in the area and the famous insecurity. I’m afraid Oppenheimer’s analysis it’s quite incomplete. It’s not only about visitors; it’s about the fraction of the total income that our countries receive on internation tourism. This phenomenon is known as leakage, and I wrote about it some time ago in this blog.

Nobody doubts that airlines’ high rates and the lack of policies about tourism have a negative impact on the movement of tourism in Latin America. But the factor that causes the biggest impact on our countries, when speaking about tourism, is the poor development of the local market, which is not a result of “overregulationâ€? issues or anything like it. It’s, simply, a consequence of the lack of better economic incomes of the people who live in this part of the world. Without a strong local market, without a strong local consumption of local touristic offers, we’ll remain in this problem for a very long time. In any case, if we’re basing all of the market’s development on foreign tourism, then we’ll have to count on policies aimed at making the foreigner spend as much as possible, as has been the case, for a long time now, in Cuzco.

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