I've been awarded a $7,000 university travel scholarship to study mountaineering in South America. I am fluent in Spanish but am not too familiar with the climbing areas on the continent.

What country and what area would be best for someone with intermediate rock and ice climbing experience?

With that much money you can and should move around a lot. You won't find one 'best' area.

Peru has been the main focus of alpinism over the years, mainly the Blanca but also the harder Huayhuash. There you'll find the most routes on the most peaks and one of the main climbing towns in Huaraz, with a cultural history of gringo mountaineering.

Bolivia is similar, but much less glaciated, more desertified, but culturally similar. It would be interesting to go into why climbing has thrived so much over the years in Peru and not so much in Bolivia. eg. Peru has more spectacular peaks, but access is probably easier in Bolivia. Bolivia has some minor political/military strife every now and then but for several years in the 1990s Peru was a no-go area for climbers due to the Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) guerillas.

Patagonia, particularly the Chalten/Fitztroy/Cerro Torre area also has a rich history and the the village of Chalten has grown a lot recently due to a greater influx of climbers and trekkers. The Torres del Paine further south get maybe more trekkers but not so many climbers, at the moment. Both have different regulations and management - officially you need to pay a fee in the Paine - so you have some contrasts. Of course most of the climbing on the main peaks is relatively very technical so you get a very different crowd than the people on the normal routes of Aconcagua.

Aconcagua is a case all by itself, being so popular/crowded etc. There are other great mountains nearby, like Mercedario, but these have much less history/activity, so it depends what you're after.

Ecuador is slightly different again, with even less good big peaks than Bolivia, but it's still quite popular. They have again a different management regime for tourism (a strong eco influence re: Galapagos Is etc) and different mainstream economies to eg. Bolivia (read: not as poor).

D

Wow, man. Sweet gig. You need a technical consultant? Or how about a camp cook? Camp clown? I can make some mean ramen...

Te escribo en Español asi practicas el idioma.
Te recomiendo ir a El Chalten (Fitz Roy- Torre - Poincenot etc etc). Es un paraiso y con ese dinero podés estar mucho tiempo por la zona. El único problema es el clima, es para ir entre Noviembre-Abril. Si te interesa tengo waypoints y tracks para Garmin GPS. Saludos Héctor

- The peaks in Patagonia, most of the time requires some very good skills, and the weather can be really nasty. However a great advantage is that there is no acclimatization required as the highest (Fitz Roy) is 3400m high

- The good things about Bolivia is that you can acclimatize easily as La Paz is already at 3600m. You can take the opportunity of visiting Lago Titicaca (3800-4000m) and Salar de Uyuni/South Lipez (3600-4800m) to improve your acclimatization before starting climbing.
Other advantage of Bolivia is that you can start by climbing snow-capped volcanoes such as Parinacota (6330m) or Sajama (6500m) as a traininng and then carry on with more technical peaks such as Illampu and Illimani (both above 6400m).
I know a good agency in La Paz if you need : "Alberth" on calle Illampu.

- I haven't been to Cordillera Blanca and Huayhuash, so I cannot say anything... but it is supposed to be spectacular. A guide is now compulsory for the Blanca one I think.

- Another spectacular area for easy climbing (with no snow though) and great to acclimatize before going on more technical peaks is the Puna de Atacama. And then you can go for Aconcagua with such a training !

The Blanca in Peru is hard to beat for access and range of climbing (ie, F to TD or higher routes). My partner has spent 10 months climbing in SA and after a few weeks here he still can´t believe how easy it is to get to quality climbs. Huaraz really is the Chamonix of SA. No guides needed this season.