I'm curious as to how cycling in South America is. I'd really like to do Chile, Argentina, and Brazil but am wary because of the South America horror stories you hear (abductions, gestapos, and other goofy stuff I shouldn't be afraid of). In a dream world I'd like to ride through Mexico and all the way down even. Anyways, any good books or blogs you can recommend? I speak no Spanish/Portugese and I doubt my French would go any length there: are they still friendly if you're linguisticly oblivious?
South America is a vast place with many different countries and levels of safety. Of ALL of the countries in the world I've visited, Chile felt like the single safest one. Now, if you want to ride your bike around Brazil's favelas or Cali, Colombia, that's a different matter. It's easy enough to do a little research to determine what's likely to be a good place for touring, as well as bad.
I've posted the following site previously, but it's still a useful site and they've enhanced it recently. It's a good place to find a list of the 25 countries that 2 people think are the best in the world for touring.
http://www.ridetheroad.com/web/world.aspx