My mum and some of her insane friends are spending the next twelve months or so driving around south america, they are all members of the silk route club. previously mum has been to china and then to eastern turkiye - she was supposed to be going to siberia but lost her passport! anyway, they want to be able to upload photos so people can follow their trip and so i am attempting to learn how to do it, in the meantime this is the intro piece from les.....
Taking our inspiration from French Club members who have made the journey before, we started our planning in earnest in September 2004.
Our concept was ambitious and we published it in the Bulletin:
INTRODUCTION We propose to embark on an expedition by motorcaravan to southern and western South America in 2005. Our journey will start in Argentina, striking south to Tierra del Fuego and then north through Chile, Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador.
Currently we are three crews but we would be happy to welcome two other crews on board. We are specially interested in hearing from possible co-travellers with a 4x4 vehicle and/or a production coachbuilt and/or a good command of Spanish. Our detailed plans are far from finalised, but our proposal is outlined below.
START DATE FROM EUROPE Mid-July to early August 2005
EUROPE TO SOUTH AMERICA We will cross the Atlantic on one of the Grimaldi Lines ships to Buenos Aires, Argentina, from a European port (Tilbury UK, Le Havre France, Antwerp Belgium...). These boats can take both motorcaravans and passengers. Journey time is about 4 weeks.
ITINERARY IN SOUTH AMERICA [Dates are very approximate]
September Buenos Aires, Iguazu Falls
October East coast of Argentina incl Valdes Peninsular
November Lake District of the southern Andes, Torres del Paine and Los Glaciares national parks
December Tierra del Fuego, Xmas in Ushuaia with Carl and Mary Hunter, travelling overland from Vancouver, Canada.
January-April Coastal Chile and both sides of the Chilean and Argentinian Andes
May Bolivia
June-July Peru and Ecuador
PLEASE NOTE: whilst all crews will follow a broadly common itinerary, we wish to be as flexible as possible to accommodate the interests of each crew and the capacities of each van. We therefore anticipate that there will be a number of occasions when the crews will follow different routes and timetables after which they will rendezvous.
FROM SOUTH AMERICA TO... Our hope is to extend this expedition into North America. We propose to ship our vans from Ecuador to Central America or the USA...
It’s now July 2005 and we’re on track to deliver this dream... with an interesting Uruguay/Brazil addition to the itinerary.
Of the three UK crews at the September meeting, 2 remain and have been joined by 3 others. We now consist of the Brook, Cupid-Brooke, Middleton, Milner and Seddon crews, and we sail this month.
THE UK CREWS MEET AT CASTLE DONINGTON IN EARLY MAY
There are others we hope to meet in South America. From France, Chung (who have been core members of our team until circumstances dictated otherwise) and Chaplart who will come out in November. From Belgium, Bogaert-Thoma who have already travelled in South America for several months, are now back in Europe for a break, and who plan to return to the continent at the end of August. From Canada, Hunter – again the victim of circumstances, who we hope to meet in late 2005. From the USA, Warburton, who’ll join us for a spin in 2006.
HELP AND ADVICE
Our planning has been well supported by members of the Club with South American experience.
Much advice has been harvested from the Club’s bulletins which are on this website. We thank Berlivet, Dumas, Dumoulin, Petit and Bogaert-Thoma for their articles and their answers to specific queries. We also thank Sue and Ed (www.overlandy.com) who came to speak to us at our Castle Donington Club meeting in May.
And we’ve had great support from Consuls Jim and Kevin in Buenos Aires (BA) and Santiago respectively.
The major issues have been...
PREPARING THE VANS
Every crew has spent money and time (sometimes a lot of money and a lot of time!) on van preparation.
The Milners win the prize for the most radical work. They bought a used Merc 815D from Germany in late 2004 and had it converted. Scotland saw its proving drive. South America will be its big test!
Maureen Middleton said goodbye to Womble (see China 2002 on this website) and bought the iconic Merc 814D 4x4 conversion featured in John Speed’s Travel Vans – and on this website at Siberia 2004.
The Seddons have stuck with their trusty Land Rover Defender 110 td5 but have improved it. Will we see their wind turbine in action after its non too active performance at a windless Castle Donington?
The Cupid-Brookes’ Euramobil/Fiat 2.8jtd is ‘only’ a production motorcaravan, but did them proud during Siberia 2004. A number of upgrades have been added including an improved LPG system and solar panels.
The Brooks remain with their Merc 709D conversion, despite its poor performance on China 2002. But at least China taught them to get the right tyres – and they have! Major changes to the caravan electrics include ditching their 12v alternator (probably responsible for many problems in China) and installing solar, and they’ve fitted themselves with 2 super-shiny roof boxes amongst innumerable improvements.
SHIPPING TO SOUTH AMERICA
In February we booked our passages with Grimaldi Lines (www.grimaldi.co.uk). Grimaldi is the ONLY company that operates a service for both passengers and vehicles to South America. Their prices are competitive (around €4000 for a single trip for 2 passengers and a big van).
But in May and June, major problems developed. Our boat’s destination was changed to a dry dock in Rio de Janeiro. We only learnt of this from the Grimaldi website: even Mer et Voyages (www.mer-et-voyages.com).
our agents were not told. The outcome was re-booking on two earlier ships – we were stressed and lost 3-4 weeks essential preparation time, and one crew had to cancel their passenger booking.
In late June, more trauma. Only weeks before sailing we were presented with further changes, including a demand to report to Le Havre, our port of embarkation, 4 days early!
PAPERWORK AND FORMALITIES
The good news is that UK citizens, and many others, do not need visas for the countries we’re visiting! (Compare China 2002 and Siberia 2004 on this website).
More good news: a carnet de passage en douanes is not required anywhere we’re going. But that does not mean it’s not valuable as an aid to crossing borders, and see below for two specific places where it may be invaluable for some vans.
International driver’s permits are essential, and international certificates for motor vehicles are worth taking. Ditto camping carnets (CCI Camping Card International) which seem to deliver seriously reduced prices at campsites. The RAC (www.rac.co.uk) is a splendid one-stop shop for these and the carnet de passage.
We’ve found it easy to buy personal insurance at reasonable cost though the number of companies offering long stay insurance (as opposed to ‘annual’ insurance which is generally multi-trip) appears to be reducing. Try Columbus Direct (www.columbus-direct.com), Atlas Direct (www.atlasdirect.net), and Preferential (www.preferential.co.uk).
We’ve also found it easy to buy vehicle insurance – but it’s not cheap. Some of us have used Alessie (www.alessie.com) who have proved sympathetic and efficient to date, but others have chosen to buy vehicle insurance in South America.
Two major problems have been vehicle-related. Firstly, we discovered early that 2 probably 3 countries would not allow in right-hand drive vehicles... but this turned out not to be the case! It will however be necessary to take care when entering Chile and Bolivia. A carnet will be helpful for both (effectively, it shows we do not intend to permanently import) and we are having to provide vehicle details to the police before we arrive at the Bolivian border.
Secondly, our long-term absence from the UK forces us to declare our vehicles ‘permanently exported’. We have had lengthy correspondence with the DVLA (the UK government’s vehicle agency) but have not been able to persuade them of the insanity of their regulations.
HEALTH
A yellow fever certificate is as essential as a passport in South America and is easy to obtain from your doctor in the UK.
But like other medicines, it’s not cheap and that’s especially true of anti-malarials like mefloquine and doxycycline. Nonetheless getting a full kit is not difficult and we recommend travellers get the inexpensive, personalised MASTA Health Brief from MASTA’s essential health website www.masta.org. This is a great starting point for decisions on what jabs to have and what medicines to take with you.
Thanks to Club member Linda Carter for invaluable health advice and kit.
Les Brook
Sounds like the way to go Maureen. I take it you are not into travel.
Regards
Dawn