Latin America: How Do I Get There?

Given the vastness and scope (not to mention the widely varying types of travel) of

If you're after a tropical getaway type vacation, there are plenty of resources and tour operators willing to accommodate you in a way that is better than what we can cover here.

• Iguazu Falls (Argentina/Brazil)
• Angel Falls (Venezuela)
• Patagonia (Chile/Argentina)
• Peru
• Guyana

If there's a link provided in the list above, more details about how to get there can be obtained by clicking on its corresponding link. Those without links will be described below.

Patagonia (Chile/Argentina): Although there are several ways to get to Patagonia, we will describe it based on the Argentina route since that was what we did.

The path we took was basically the following:

• Los Angeles to Miami: about 5 hours
• Miami to Buenos Aires: about 8 hours
• Buenos Aires to El Calafate: about 3 hours

Keep in mind that the above list doesn't include delays and layover times at the airports as well as the Ezeiza International Airport to Aeroparque Domestic Airport shuttle (takes about an hour typically). Needless to say, it's a long and grueling journey to even get to Patagonia.

But once you're there, you have the ability to hire a car and self-drive or save money but lose flexibility with one of many shuttle buses which operate in the summer.

Keep in mind during summer that even buses may require advanced bookings.

For car hire, if you intend to go across the border, you'll need to make sure the rental company provides you with proper paperwork. This will cost additional money and some car hire companies aren't very clear about this prior to your trip (often springing it on you at the last minute when you finally get there). Plus, most of the roads are unsealed (and some of the Torres del Paine roads in Chile are very beat up with potholes and washboards). You'll also need to bring your passport and fill out some customs forms as well at both the Chilean Border post as well as the Argentinean Border post.

Finally, realize that to even get to other destinations in Patagonia, it will take time as they're spaced pretty far apart. The following lists gives you an idea of the amount of driving or shuttling involved:

• El Calafate to El Chaltén: at least 230km or 3 hours each way
• El Calafate to Torres del Paine: at least 4-6 hours by 4wd depending on border crossing delays; much slower by passenger car or by bus; note: nearest town is actually Puerto Natales, Chile, which is about 3 hours south of Torres del Paine

On a separate but relevant note, we had a terrible car hire experience (almost jeopardizing our trip) with one company (Budget) but much better one through another (Hertz), which essentially saved our trip. Despite the fact that some of these companies carry American names, El Calafate is undeveloped enough that all companies here are local companies (those carrying the American brands are franchised). In our case, advance bookings were necessary, but Budget never upheld our reservations and we were lucky Hertz had cars available for us even though only the expensive options were available.

I'm not sure how to advise against a similar situation that we had except that you generally get what you pay for. We've had other poor experiences with Budget in other countries (like worn tires in Iceland or Julie's beater in Aruba), which kind of reinforces the fact that maybe Budget franchisees are cutting corners to meet the lower cost. The family run Hertz operation in El Calafate was very professional, but I can easily envision a different franchise maybe not as honest or as professional.

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Peru: Although there are several ways to get to Peru, we will describe it based on our logistics.

And since we left from Los Angeles, there just so happens to be a direct flight from LAX to Lima via Lan Peru (so we didn't have to connect in Miami as we normally do for South American trips). The flight time is around 8.5 hours and is usually on a red-eye.

From there, we flew straight to Cusco (watch out for the high elevation there), which was less than an hour on a domestic airline. That was when we were collected by the tour operator and were off on our guided tour.

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Guyana: Our Guyana, experience was limited to a real hectic long weekend trip to Kaieteur Falls.

Since we came out of LAX, we had to fly to Miami (around 5 hours) and then catch a flight from Miami to Georgetown, Guyana with a connection in Trinidad & Tobago. Logistically, this travel day started early in the morning (I don't recall the flight time, but it was around 8 or 9am I think) and we didn't land in Georgetown until almost midnight. There's also a pretty long 90-minute drive from the airport to our hotel in Georgetown.

On the way back, we caught a very early flight from Georgetown back to Miami (again with connection in Trinidad & Tobago). Then caught another flight back to LAX after a fairly long layover in Miami.

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