Top 10 towns

Introduction

We visited approx. 50 towns/cities during our trip in South America, the following list picks 10 out of them. The list follows the order in which we visited the towns, it may have happened that some town was added to the list only because visiting it created a pleasant contrast to the town(s) visited immediately before.

List

1. Rio de Janeiro: nice views from hills to other hills, beaches, bays; favelas; St. Theresa [BUG: check] neighborhood.
2. Ouro Preto: impressive number of colonial churches packed into a small territory.
3. Iquitos: motoricksaws; Belén market and water city; a bit of a frontier feeling as Iquitos can be reached only by boat or plane.
4. Quito: public transportation that makes sense; Gothic basilica; Petöfi monument; night views from the hills to the city (in the valley); volcanoes in the background.
5. Arequipa: white houses; volcanoes in the background; prettiest central square in South America (but like every visited Peruvian town, Arequipa gets ugly 3 blocks away from the center).
6. La Paz: views to the city from El Alto; smells of the Mercado de las Brujas.
7. San Pedro de Atacama: desert down; cute white houses and unpaved streets.
8. Valparaiso: hippie town; stinks of fish and piss; many dogs; many hills with steep streets and cable cars; iron-coated houses; graffiti; massive cemetery on top of one of the hills (unfortunately was closed when we wanted to visit).
9. Puerto Natales: windy and cold; iron-coated houses; surrounded by Patagonian landscapes.
10. Buenos Aires: tree-lined streets; neighborhoods with different atmospheres; the only town in South America where I could imagine living; pleasant climate — we were there one day after Ushuaia (freezing cold) and one day before Puerto Iguazu (hot and humid)