This post isn't about any specific city. It's our opportunity to vent about our worst travel experience to date. Maybe this makes it a better read cause it's something completely different. Or maybe you don't want to read it. But if you're travelling to Brazil or South America, we do recommend reading it.

At the end of our incredible trip into the Amazon, we returned to Manaus to plan our next move. Our ideal plan was to head south to Peru and make our way to Cuzco to see Machu Pichu. This would've have been awesome but there was a major obstacle in our way - a plane ticket that would've set us back USD 1'000! Can you believe, USD 1'000 to fly a couple hundred of kilometers away. This was way too much and went far beyond our principle of going to see what we want, when we want, even if it costs a little more. This was problem 1. Problemo numero 2 was that the only way in and out of Manaus is to fly or take a boat. Flights cost a fortune if they're not booked a long time in advance and boats take 3 to 5 days just to get to the next major town. There is a bus that goes north but it'll take you into Venezuala (very unsafe and volatile at the moment) which is in the wrong direction and only makes things more expensive. The result of these problems was two days of looking at every possible route out of Manaus and what we could do with them to still get something out of our time in South America. Through all this research we stumbled upon some very illogical flight findings: it was possible to buy return flights for less than the same one way flight; and it was possible to buy a flight with a transit in one city that continued onward for cheaper than a flight just to the transit city. Backward stuff this.

This all means that if you do want to go to the Amazon Jungle using Manaus as your entry point, definitely, at the very least, buy a return ticket out of Manaus back to a major city otherwise you will land up in our position and literally get stuck there. But most recommended is to get either a Brazilian Airpass or South American Airpass before you leave for South America.

But our story only begins here. After an extra two days of unwanted stay in this nothing-to-do-there city, we eventually bit the bullet and realized that we have to fly back to, at least Sao Paulo. We found a flight on Tam Airlines leaving that night that, sickens us to say, cost USD 600 and, believe it or not, was cheap. It was also better than the alternative of boating down to Peru over five days which probably wouldn't have cost much less than this - see the P.S below for more details on how this would be done. After we finally brought ourselves to click the "Pay" button we were met with an error message. Definitely not what you want to see when making a USD 1'200 payment. So onto the phone we got to speak to the airline only to find out that we can't make the payment online within 24 hours of the departure time - this was nowhere on their website - and that we have to get to the airport to make the payment asap because they'll only hold the reservation for a few hours. We rushed to the airport but the sales desk was closed. So we waited four hours for them to reopen and when they finally did they told us the reservation was cancelled a couple of hours earlier and the same tickets would now cost, in their words, "It's now USD 1'500 each which is very expensive". After lots of arguing and eventually pleading, we finally gave up and realized we had to return to the city for another night in now-we-really-don't-want-to-be-here Manaus. Finally at about 4am we managed to find a flight on Gol Airlines from Manaus to Buenos Aires which kind of worked for us as we were meeting friends in there a week later. This flight would cost about USD 700 each and left the next night. We now just wanted to get out of Manaus and booked the flight. Again, we couldn't pay as it was within 24 hours, but Gol was prepared to hold the reservation until the flight left.

That night we were back at the airport, ticket in hand and finally boarding a plane out of we're-never-coming-back-here-again Manaus. But, believe it or not, our story doesn't end here…

Our ridiculously expensive flight included a one hour transit in Sao Paulo. We realized straight away that this was going to kick us in the a*** when our flight left 45 minutes late. Of course, we arrived late in Sao Paulo and missed our connecting flight thanks to a massive international passport control queue. At least the airline was very decent about it and arranged a new connecting flight (which would now have to go via Rio de Janeiro to get to Buenos Aires), a really nice hotel room, dinner and transfers to and from the hotel for us. Although this was nice of them, our new flight was only six hours later and meant that we weren't going to get any sleep that night.

The final nail in our coffin was arriving in Buenos Aires and needing to take a two hour bus ride into town, on which we were advised to NOT fall asleep for safety reasons, only to arrive in pouring rain and to find out that the hostel we had booked into for the previous night (when we were meant to arrive) was now fully booked.

Our story now ends here. After three extra nights in Manaus, three flights and we don't even want to calculate how many hours or cost, we made it Buenos Aires. This process, in no uncertain way, sucked. We definitely learnt the hard way that you have to plan your trip in South America if you want to make efficient use of time. We couldn't believe this as we managed to travel unplanned for over seven months and through three continents. But, clearly, this doesn't work in South America.

Learn from our mistakes.

Trek on…Brett and Darren

P.S. These are some of the things we can now warn other travelers about that are going to South America.

How to travel South America

There are three ways that we now see for travelling South America:

1) Come in for a couple of weeks and only go to a few cities

2) Come in for a few weeks but have the travel pass to fly between cities if you want to see more than a handful of cities

3) Come in for at least four months and travel by bus or boat between places…after all backpackers have more time than money. This is the only way we can see for traveling South America unplanned.

Flying in South America

Flights in South America are ridiculously expensive but if you are planning to fly, do the following:

· First try get one of the air passes through Tam or Gol that works for you. You need an international flight in and out of South America for these and you need to book them before you get to South America.

· Book very, very early. Prices don't really go up too much but there or lots of different seat options with various levels of flexibility and the cheaper ones sell out quickly.

· Try book return flights as these are definitely more economical.

Bussing in South America

There is no train system in South America but the bus system is really good. Just be prepared to spend lots of time travelling if you go by bus as most routes take at least 15 hours and some stretch up to over 30 hours. The busses are accommodating though and seating options go from: normal bus seat, to a comfy seat that reclines about 140 degrees, to a fully reclining bed seat. Busses also serve meals and drinks, show movies and have toilets. Different bus companies call these types of seats different things but they are pretty similar in their offerings. Check out: www.backpackingbrazil.com for good info on buses and their websites. Similarly to the air pass, it is possible to get a bus pass.

Manaus to Lima

Non-flight travel route from Manaus, Brazil to Lima, Peru (you can see now why we didn't do this):

Two days on a rapido fast boat to Tabatinga which is on the Brazil/Peru/Ecuador border. Another day on a rapido fast boat from Tabatinga to Iquitos in Peru. And lastly a 20 or so hour bus from Iquitos to Lima. The real have-no-time-constraints backpacker version of this trip is to actually take the slow boat over five to seven days from Manaus to Tabatinga. You will also land up spending a night or two in the port cities depending on what time you get in or out. We've heard positive experiences of this route, but it does take a helluva long time.