South America

Terry Ward has some tropical suggestions.

South America
For a beach experience so stylish and sexy it puts South Beach to shame, set your sights on Uruguay. Punta del Este (less than an hour by plane from Buenos Aires in nearby Argentina) has been called many things: the St. Tropez, the Hamptons and the Monte Carlo of South America. There are Brazilian and Argentinean supermodels galore during the peak summer months (December to February).

And from this place, the money does ooze—not only in the flashy casino at the uber-luxe Conrad Hotel, but in the beautiful harbor, too, where you can tap your toes to the rhythm of bobbing yachts while enjoying fresh seafood washed down with medio y medio, Uruguay’s national drink.

“Punta is very seasonal. In the summer you have three times the people than in the off season, it’s like everything explodes,” said Montevideo resident Franco Vidiella. “Everything you see here is over-produced—from the women, with their beautiful clothes and tans, to the cars and the clubs.”

For more beauty on the beach, head a few hundred miles north of Punta del Este to the beaches of Florianopolis on the island of Santa Catarina in Southern Brazil.

Floripa, as Brazilians call this California-esque coastal enclave, is as renowned throughout Latin America for its golden beaches as it is for the golden-haired bombshells that abound—Germans, Polish and Italians colonized the South of Brazil, explaining the Giselle Bündchen look-a-like phenomenon that’s unmissable on the beaches here.

“Floripa is recognized as a top-end beach place in Brazil,” says Sao Paolo tourism executive Francisco Costa Neto. “They have some great seafood there, too, so it’s really the best of both worlds.”

The eastern beaches, particularly Praia Mole, draw international surfers and gorgeous groupies for good waves in a strut-your-stuff atmosphere, while the southern beaches, popular with Santa Catarina locals, are emptier due to the colder water, rocky shoreline and more remote access (many require hiking in).

Ponta dos Ganchos, an hour north of Santa Catarina, features 20 oceanfront bungalows on an isolated peninsula. With private saunas and plunge pools, it's Floripa’s most indulgent place to stay.

For a Brazilian island experience even farther removed from the mainland masses, set your sights on otherworldly Fernando de Noronha, an archipelago of 21 volcanic islands located roughly 215 miles off the northeast coast of Brazil and accessed by flights from Recife.

“It’s very Turks and Caicos. It’s unbelievable,” said Costa Neto about the area, “It’s probably one of the most amazing places in Brazil.”

Some 70 percent of the archipelago is designated national marine park, and the diving in Fernando de Noronha is considered the best in Brazil. Eight luxury bungalows at Pousada Maravilha were built to blend with the natural surroundings, but submerged mountain ridges jutting from the cerulean sea make this place seem from another planet.

Back on the South American mainland in Chile, the famed Lakes District has serpentine rivers, hauntingly beautiful waterfalls and twelve major lakes, all bound by snowy peaks and dormant volcanoes. Fairy-tale villages conjure Switzerland in South America, and the dry season—November to April—is an idyllic time to visit. Surrounded by acres of gardens, the sublime Hotel Atumalal near the town of Pucón overlooks LagoVillarica and claims to be a ‘Bauhaus Palace in the wilderness’ designed by famed Chilean architect Jorge Elton.

If anything can match the thrill of watching millions of gallons of water cascade from a precipice that looms 300 feet high on the border of two far-flung African countries, it would be partaking in the myriad activities around Victoria Falls. Bungee jumping and body boarding along the Zambezi River are a few of the intrepid offerings, as well as wildlife safaris.
And the last stop in South America is Los Llanos, the rugged prairie lands of Venezuela’s wild west. Dubbed one of the world’s richest tropical grasslands by the Nature Conservancy, the Llanos’ ecosystem revolves around the mighty Orinoco River, which nurtures abundant bird, fish, reptile and mammal life, including crocodiles, pythons, pumas and capybaras (semi-aquatic mammals that look like overgrown guinea pigs). This region is veritable cowboy country, and whether you’re making a river crossing or bumping down the road in a 4x4, your path is likely to be interrupted by herding cattle.

“The sunsets and sunrises in the Llanos are absolutely gorgeous because there are no mountains,” said Zulay Stempel, owner of Tiempo Libre Tours in Caracas, “The skies are all bright oranges and pinks. You feel like you’re in the middle of nowhere.”

“Especially when you come from a big city with so many problems and congestion ... you think ‘how did anyone ever get here?’” said Stempel. (These days, the answer to this logistics question is frequent flights and buses from Caracas to the main Llanos villages of Apure and Barinas.)

In keeping with the region’s rugged allure, most lodging in the Llanos is rustic, with several family-run pousadas along the Orinoco. Hato el Cedral has air-conditioned cabins on a working cattle ranch, and runs excursions into the grasslands.