Ask and answer questions about travelling to and in Brazil in this thread.
hi amy,
i will be spending time in sao paulo. do you think it make more sense to fly from there to iguaca fall or should i take the bus? i know its an overnight bus and i am not too sure if i should stay over for a night before i head back.
Reply to this Judy,
re:
i will be spending time in sao paulo. do you think it make more sense to fly from there to iguaca fall or should i take the bus
I am going to SA in 3 weeks time and to get between places I'm going to take the buses ie from Buenos Aires or Montevideo (between these cities may take boat) to the falls and eventually ending up in Rio. I think I will see and experience more and I know Brimster (Andrea) - see earlier in this thread, is using buses now and recommends them.
re:
i know its an overnight bus and i am not too sure if i should stay over for a night before i head back.
I think there is alot to see around the area (other than the Falls of course). I intend to stay between 2-4 nights (will decide when I get there). Intend to visit Ciudad del Este ie Paraguay side, as well as see the Falls from the Argentina and Brazilian sides.
Perhaps others may comment who have actually been there. As I have indicated, I havn't been there as yet, but have done a bit of reading up!
Reply to this Judy
Personally I used the bus from Sao Paulo to Foz du Iguazu and it was fine with no problems. Honestly the buses in Brazil are a good standard and easy. Personally if I am doing an overnight trip I try to get a cama seat rather than semi cama so long as the cost isn´t too much different.
The difference between cama and semi cama is how much leg room you get, how wide the seat is and how far back it reclines. Semi cama is better than a standard coach but cama is bettr again. You can also go tutto leto however I personally don´t think the cost justifies it.
As for how long to stay at the falls. Personally I find after an overnight bus the day you arrive is a chill out day. We spent 5 days in the area - 2 nights in Foz and 2 nights in Puerto. The Argentinian side of the falls takes a full day we were there from 9am till 4pm!!
Hope this helps
Reply to this Judy... I agree with Andrea above... the buses in Brazil leave on time, USUALLy run on time, and are in pretty good condition. If you are not too big or too tall a person either, they are relatively comfortable. I am able to sleep as much as I want. How many days do you have in total though? If you are on a short vaca, perhaps flying is a good idea. But if you aren't time constrained the bus usually provides good scenery and is easy to take. However, Brazilian buses are not cheap and I have flown a few segments just because tickets on Gol or TAM were cheaper.... so its always worth checking. In fact in the last 2 weeks I will have taken 3 flights, all about the same price as the buses... SP - Porto Alegre, Porto Alegre - Rio, and Sunday Rio - Ilheus... saving myself 3 20+ hour bus rides...
Reply to this Hello my name is Bob Donovan and I am a 34 year old accountant from London. This summer, I and my wife are planning a vacation to Rio so naturally I am looking for a place to stay. I don’t have much experience with the Internet so I don’t know where I should look for a hotel. However, I have found a website that offers accommodation services, it is called
and they seem to have dozens of apartments for rent at affordable prices, or at least I consider them affordable. I would like to receive your feedback regarding this site, if it is trustworthy and if it isn’t, recommend me other websites from where I could rent an apartment for my holiday. Thanks a lot. Bob. Reply to this Hello Donovan 😊
Would you send the link to those who ask for it via the private messaging system. We snip a lot of links from the posts of new members, to discourage spammers from posting their links. Sorry to inconvenience you like this. 😊
Mel
Reply to this Does anyone know if it will be easy to buy Uruguay money when I cross the border from Brazil to Uruguay? I completely forgot about things like that until I read
your blog, Andrea Hopefully, there is a money changing place at the border, so I can get money for the bus to Puanta del Diablo.
And does anyone know if there are plenty of places to change money in Puanta del Diablo, or should I change enough before I get there?
Which passport do you hold, Andrea? Does everybody get so many stamps? Not a problem for me though, because I dont get to do so much travelling these days. My passport should last until its expiry date.
Reply to this Hi Mell
Ok it depends on how you are going to cross the border. Effectively if you are going from Brazil and use one of the mainline buses and are going direct to Puanta del Diablo you will not have an issue with needing money as your bus ticket will take you to the bus station and in most bus stations you will find an ATM machine i.e last week we crossed from Argentina to Chile however our bus took us over the border and into Osorno where we were able to get Chilean pesos at an ATM before booking our bus to Santiago, The only thing I would advise is to know what the exchange rate is before taking cash out otherwise it gets confusing.
From memory when we were in Colonia all shops quoted US dollars and Uruguayan pesos and US Dollars are widely accepted in shops etc although you may not get as good an exchange rate plus your change will be in pesos.
Also I know that if you crossed the Argentinian and Brazilian border at Iguassu by local bus then effectively you paid one fare and when you got off the bus at border control they you a ticket that when you got back on the next bus you handed over and didn't need to pay again... Hope this helps and makes sense Mell.
As for my passport it is a UK one and as far as I am aware everyone gets stamps in ad out of countries. As a UK national I have not needed any visas but know different countries have different requirements.
Reply to this Hey Mell
I crossed the border from Brazil to Uruguay. I just took a bus to Chuy from Pelotas (Rio Grande do Sul) which is the border town. Then you get off at the bus station and sort of need to ask which way to walk "towards Uruguay" - about 3 blocks if i remember right. Then you have to turn right at the main road that separates Brazil and Uruguay and go about 5 blocks or so to get to the local Uruguayan bus station (not a bus station but buses parked in front of an office) and from there you can get a bus to Santa Teresa (also surf, a national park occupied by the military - I went there) and right next to Santa Teresa is Diablo. I didnt get the bus to Diablo bc I went from ST, but I am sure buses go to Diablo too. Its only about 45 min from the Uruguayan border. And, you can change money in Chuy, from BRL or USD or EUR, whatever.
As for the passport stamps, nothing special happened to me. Normal one stamp in, one stamp out for Uruguay. I hold an American passport.
Hope this helps Mell!
-Amy
Reply to this Oh, almost missed your post Andrea, because I presumed that there had only been one new post since I last looked. Glad I didnt miss it. Great info! And useful tip about knowing the exchange rate. It it the sort of thing I would easily forget to check before heading towards Uruguay.
Reply to this Yeah me and my mate hadn't checked it so ended up texting our respective siblings asking them to google it!!!
Just quickly Mell you won't have a problem space wise with stamps. You get one stamp every time you go in and out of each country. It is causing me a minor headache as we have been in and out of Argentina 4 times and Chile 2 and bearing in mind I still have another 12 countries to visit on this trip and I know South Africa require me to have 2 pages free my passport is getting full quickly - although I hope I have solved the problem by putting an elastic band around the front pages of my passport in the hope that the border control won't use them......
Reply to this And Argentina - for some reason - has the sloppiest stamp positioning of any border officials I have encountered - "there's a free page - stamp - right in the middle"...
Reply to this Thanks for the info 😊
I have my passport less than a year and every county I have been to, except Ireland has taken up a page of it with their stamps. I have filled 3 pages of my passport. I sort of think that I am not doing enough travelling these days to fill up my passport before it expires, but if I fill 3 pages of it every year........ But, not a big problem.
Reply to this According to the Lonely Planet book, people entering Brazil from certain countries can get a free Yellow Fever vaccination at the borders and the airports. Will I be able to get one when I arrive in Brazil if I tell them I dont know which countries neighbouring Brazil I will be visiting? Germany isnt a Yellow Fever risk country, so I doubt that they will automatically offer me the vaccination.
It would be useful to get that vaccination over with for future travels, even if I wont be too keen on being stabbed with a needle when I am jet lagged and travel weary.
Reply to this Hey Mell
In the last 6 months I have entered Brazil by air twice, from the US and Colombia, and also by land border once from Uruguay, and I have never been asked for a yellow fever vacc certificate, although I do have one. So I'm not sure how much you need it anyways.
-Amy
Reply to this Hi Mell
My understanding is that you only need to show you have had the yellow fever vaccine when you have visited a country that has the risk i.e I am going to Peru and therefore when I enter Ecuador and most probbly NZ I wil need to prove that I have had my vaccine thus not a risk of carrying the virus.
As far as I am aware out of the countries I am visiting in South America I only needed my Yellow Fever jab due to Peru (maybe Bolivia and Ecuador but I don´t think so off the top of my head!) so you should be fine and not need to have the injection before you leave or when you arrive!
Reply to this 
