South America consists of 12 countries. Cultures vary from the hunter gatherers of the strongest forest fortress of the world – the Amazon – to the wild, all night street parties of Brazil’s Carnaval. Frown up at circling condors in the vast emptiness of Patagonia, watch gauchos tame the free spirits of wild horses and follow the trail of Inca ruins.
Dance
Come nightfall in South America, things hotten up as indigenous Andean instruments and African rhythms start up. It’s the accompanying movement that draws all the attention though. Get too close for comfort in sweaty Colombian salsa joints, eat late suppers before Tango-ing in the suburbs of Buenos Aires or learn the steps to a Bolivian folk caporales. Some dance to remember, some dance to forget.
The Amazon
Over 60% of the world’s tropical rainforest dwells in the Amazon Basin; it covets transparent glass frogs that permanently display their innards, Jesus lizards skittering atop waterways, Planet Earth’s crocodile-hunting jaguars and capybara – the largest rodent you can find. Then there’s what we don’t know – nameless human tribes and undocumented wildlife still being discovered to this day.
Remoteness
The length of the Andes Mountains means they inevitably find themselves in the middle of nowhere. The largest mountain range outside of Asia hosts the world’s highest active volcanoes, foothills and slopes to accommodate new world wines and eventually the bleak beauty of the sparsely populated Patagonia. Then there’s the Galápagos, the volcanic chain of islands whose renowned endemic species inspired Darwin’s theory of evolution.
Getting there
Will it be party town Rio de Janiero or the Kichwa villages of Ecuador? See where’s popular in South America on this page or if you know where you’re headed, search flights by month to see when the cheapest time to travel is.
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