Hello thanks for your help.
We are due to travel to South America in September. We fly to Brasil , then Peru before heading overland to Boliva, Chile and Argentina.
I made inquiries at the visa desk at our travel agents. They told me we could not fly into Peru without a flight out. We went back to our travel agent who said it would be fine as long as we had an offical letter from travel agent stating out intensions to go overland. The visa guy said Peru had really tightened up their rules. Has anyone else found this to be true?
Also we plan to book a 4 day trek to Machu Picchu. We are looking at Liz's adventures and Pheonix tours so if you've had good/ bad experiences with either we'd love to have some imput before making a booking.
Reply to this Last summer we booked our flight with Continenal arriving in Lima and departing from Buenos Aires. The only info we got was the airline saying we couldn't stay longer than 90 days. Considering we were traveling between 3 countries, I'm sure this was incorrect.
We traveled via bus from Peru to Bolivia and via train from Bolivia (I've forgotten the originating city) to the Argentinian border. We used buses to get to BA. We booked our train tickets in La Paz with the agent across from the Gravity Bolivia offices. It's a rough train trip, but quite the experience. The border crossing into Argentina seemed worse than getting into Bolivia, very unorganized and chaotic, but those steaks and wine were worth it!
We visited Machu Picchu 10 years ago, so we decided to spend more time exploring the Sacred Valley this time. Even so, we still feel we could have stayed longer! We haven't hiked the trail, hope to go back and do an alternate trail next trip.
Reply to this In April of 06 I made the trip from Lima to La Paz by bus. I tavelled through Peru for about 3 Weeks before I crossed into Bolivia, but the trip can be done much quicker depending on yourtimeline. Flying into Peru I had a plane ticket leaving from Santa Cruz, Bolivia six weeks later and it was not a problem getting the 90 day Visa. I do not think you need to show a plane ticket out, but something showing that you intend to leave Peru by the end of your allowed 90 days. This may be a ticket out of another country within that time period.
Bolivia is more or less the same. You need to show that you will leave the country within the allowed time. This however is not a big prolem. Crossing the border into Bolivia starts with a bus ride from Puno, Peru to Copacabana, Bolivia. Becuase there are many travellers who just intend to travel to Copacabana and not further into Bolivia, most travellers do not have a ticket out of Bolivia. So getting 30 allowed days is not a problem. If it is all you need to do is buy a bus ticket back to Peru and show it to them even though you have no intention of using it. It seem like a waste of a few bucks, but it often does the trick in this situation.
From Copacabana you catch a bus to La Paz and from there you can catch a bus anywhere.
The train mentioned in the last post originates in Oruro, Bolivia a 2-3 hour bus ride from La Paz.
If you need any other info dont hesitate to ask.
tchau
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