Sleeper/overnight buses

Buses are a pretty big deal in South America because they're cheaper than plane flights and you can pretty much go anywhere on them. We only traveled by bus in Brazil (took them to Buzios, Paraty, and Sao Paulo). I've now taken them to Iguazu, Cordoba, Mendoza, and Salta. However since the ride can take a pretty long time the seats are nice and comfy and usually you can always find a ticket that includes a meal. The prices of the ticket depend on how far back your seat reclines, basically. Semi-cama, cheapest, reclines at about a 45 degree angles, cama reclines from 45 all the way back to 75 degrees or so and ejecutivo, most expensive, reclines a full 180 degrees and you can lay horizontally. Semi cama is perfectly comfortable and I can sleep just fine, so there's really no need to spring for cama (we did get to see what cama was like on the way back from Salta because the guy behind the counter of Vosa matched the semi-cama price of some other companies we were looking at). When you buy your bus ticket there are a number of platforms the bus can be at (9-12 or 25-37) so you have to check the screens(only at large bus stations) or just look around the platforms to find your bus. Sometimes buses stop to pick up other passengers in other cities along the way and you may have a change of bus midtrip. All buses are double decker and the majority of the seats are on the top floor, the bottom floor cabin is where the drivers, bathroom, and just a few seats are. Depending on the hour, you can get breakfast, a snack, lunch, and dinner served up in little pre packaged containers. I'm not a picky eater so all the food we've had so far has been pretty tasty. All the buses I've been on have also had a few TVs scattered around the bus showing movies or music videos. We even played a game of bingo on our way to Salta.