Buenos Aires to Lima

Hi
Me and my friends have four weeks for our travels to south america and are looking for some help please. We are flying to buenos aires and wanted to get a flight back from lima to BA for the trip back.
OUr thoughts were to bus and train are way their. I would like to know if this is feasbile and what people think about it.
We know that we have to be precise due to short time available, wish we had more... so were think BA, iguaza falls, salt flats in bolivia, la paz, lake titicaca and cuzco.
1) Is is possbile to do this?
2) Are we silly in trying to get to the falls? i hear that they are so amazing and want to go there but that travel from there to bolivia is difficult. does that mean we should do it?
3) how many days from iguaza to bolivia?
4) where is the best place to see the salt flats? and how many days shoudl this take?
5) thoughts on la paz?
6) how many days do we need in cuzco other than for the inca trail?
7) how much money would people recommend? we are south african, low budget

any help would be very much appreciated. thanks in advance

Rob

I'd cut out the falls, and substitute for something a bit more on the way. The quickest route in your case to the falls would be via Santa Fe, which is a massive detour nonetheless. There's hardly any frequent west-east bus travel in northern Argentina, which is why you have to go south that far first.

thanks so much.
so if we were silly enough to still want to do it would that be a day to santa fe and another day up to bolivia?
and please could you tell me, if you were doing it what would you rather do in the way? salta?
thanks again for the help

Sorry, didn't properly read your post.

From BsAs, you can get to the falls in about 16 hours. Excellent road, quiet journey, decent companies on that route. From the falls, you'd have to backtrack to Santa Fe, then on to Salta, then on to the border (La Quiaca / Villazon). It is theoretically possible to backtrack only until Posadas, and then move from there to Corrientes/Resistencia, and from there to Salta via Ruta 16; Flechabus appears to offer daily service on that route (saying it takes only 12 hours), but I don't know if it really saves any time, because it involves a lot of additional connections. Plus, road conditions in the Chaco province are less than ideal to say the least.

Seen that you have four weeks, it's not that it absolutely can't be done; it's just that I'd spend my time differently. What good is it to see all the Major Sights, but not have time for anything in between because of that?

Re Salta: yeah, that's definitely worth it. Near Salta, there's Cafayate and the Quebrada Desert which are also very nice, as is Tafí del Valle just west of Tucuman, as is Tucuman itself, as is Purmamarca north of Jujuy... plenty to see in that area.

[ Edit: Edited on 12-Aug-2009, at 01:36 by bentivogli ]