It's a long way from Cartagena to Cohaique - Somewhere close to 11,500kms and 150,000ms of climbing.  The overall target is to ride 100kms a day for 22 days of the month - giving us 1 day off every 3 or 4 days.

The main priorities on determining the route have been

• Keep away from big cities - there seems no point in spending 1/2 a day to ride in and out of a city through busy streets - We have been to all the capital cities (Bogota, Quito, Lima, La Paz and Santiago) - and returning on a bike didn't seem that appealing
• Try and keep to smaller roads - but mainly stick to tarmaced ones - we are both road cyclists
• A few new places that we wanted to go and see - Mompox and San Agustin in Colombia, The amazon in Equador, the salt plains of Bolivia and the Atacama desert and Carretra Austral in Chile amongst others.
• There are plenty of luxurious hotels through South America - try to aim for at least 1 per week.
• We are not tied to cycling every single kilometre, if there are no alternatives to the busy roads or long straight days then we will look at alternative forms of transport

Colombia

The starting point always had to be Cartagena - so that we could go back to the Santa Clara and enjoy a few days of luxury as we make our last minute preparations.  We have already ridden from Bogota to Cartagena via Medillin and Las Letras - so we thought we would take a different route. Spending the first few days in the delta of the Magdalena river visiting the Colonial town of Mompos.  Then a few days in the heat of the Magdalena Valley before getting to Honda and Maiquetia.  Carrying on up the Magdalena Valley past Giradot and visiting Purificacccion, where I worked in the early 90s on the construction of an oil field for Lasmo.

South of Prado we will have our first 1000m climb before dropping down into the Tatacoa desert, shortly after Neiva we will start the climb to San Agustin.  San Agustin is home to a Archaeological Park in which their are numerous Pre-Columbian sites.  This was very much off limits when we lived in Colombia in the 90s so will be a highlight to finally visit.

After a couple of days rest, we will then have our first extreme day - crossing the Andes to Popyan.  The first days above 3,000ms through the remote mountains, and 135kms between hotels.  South of Popyan we will head to the Equadorian border, 4 or 5 days of hard cycling climbing and descending through Pasto to Ipiales.

 

 

Equador

After our first land boarder we will climb to El Angel and cross the paramo to Otavalo, an Equadorian market town that we visited with our daughter Abi when she was less than a year old.  We then plan to head to the East of Quito before climbing up over the Andes at Papallacta - this will be our first of many 4,000m passes - before dropping down to the edge of the Amazon rain forest.

We will then travel along the edge of the Amazon rain forest and cross the Rio Pastaza - A river that flows into the Marañón, before joining the Amazon.  After a week of riding in the warmth we climb back up into the Andes.  The Andes are a little lower in this part of Equador and it will take us a couple of days to get back to 2400m.  Cuenca will be our next major Town, before droppping down into Southern Equador and crossing the border at El Alamor.

Peru

The first Major town we will reach in Peru is Sullana.  At this point there are 500 fairly flat kilometers on the Pan American highway - depending on progress we may think of some alternative form of transport.  we will start the route again near the Town of Trujillo, and here starts one of the toughest bits of the route.  The road to Cusco.

This starts with an almost 300km climb from sea level to 4,800m through the Huascaran National Park, we will take a number of days to acclimatise and get ready for the final day on gravel roads at 4800ms.

From the top of the climb there are 2000kms to Cusco through the 2000-4000m zone.  There are 9 passes over 4000m, with many of them dropping back down to 2000m in between.  At least we will have the visit of our children to look forward to who are planning to visit us in Cusco.

After a couple of days relaxing in Cusco we will head to Lake Titicaca - although still high (above 3500m) the going should be slightly easier.  We will travel around the Western side of Lake Tititaca through Puno, Juliaca and Copacabana.

Bolivia

The whole of the 1,200kms in Bolivia is above 3,500m.  We start on the shores of Lake Titicaca, before heading off to La Paz - our only capital city on the route.  The ride into and out of La Paz will be pretty dirty and smelley.   For a couple of days south of La Paz, there is no choice but to follow the N1.  Hopefully the traffic will thin out as we travel across the Altiplano on the way to the Salt Plains.  The tarmac road ends at Callapata 320kms south of La Paz.  From here we are going to skirt around the northern side of the Sala de Uyuni (The salt plains) before making the 120km crossing of the Salt plains to Uyuni and a few days R&R.

South of Uyuni to the Chilean border is one of the hardest sections of the trip,  400kms of dirt roads - many of them very sandy, few houses and a few passes of 4,800m to get over.  The exact route and support that we will take depends on the experience of the first 7,000kms.

Chile

If all goes to plan we will arrive in Chile at the Soutern Edge of the Reserva Nacional de Fauna Andina Eduardo Avaroa and finally reach our first tarmac road for over 800 miles.  We will be rewarded by a 40km descent to San pedro de Atacama and a few days of luxury.  San Pedro de Atacama is at the northern end of the Atacama desert and its a long way across, we will ride fro a few days across and head to the coast at Antofagasta.  From there we may well look for alternative forms of transport, to help cover the 1,500kms to Valparaiso.

Continuing South from Valparaiso we will head towards Concepcion and Temuco and then, hopefully with our friends Claire and Pete, we will retrace the steps of our Chile and Argentina adventure of 2018 with a couple of traverses of the Andes before arriving in Puerto Montt.  From Puerto Montt we will continue South on the Careterra Austral to end the trip in Coyhaquie.