Route Information - Highway 45 - Bogota to Santa Marta
 

My wife and I are planning to arrive in Colombia early to mid November. We will be shipping our F800GS by air from Canada to Bogota to begin a 6 month ride in South America.

We plan to start with several weeks, at least, in Colombia and are in the process of planning a route. The route is taking shape as follows:

Bogota to Santa Marta via highway 45. Santa Marta to Cartagena along the Carribean coast. Cartegena to Medellin, Cali, Popayan, Pasto and final Tulcan via highway 25.

My question is:

I cannot find much information on the stretch of highway 45 from Bucaramanga to Santa Marta. It appears to be roughly 600 km. We would not normally plan to travel more than 200-300 km per day. We often spend 2 or 3 days per stop to ensure we have plenty of time to see the places we pass through and more importantly meet the people.

Is this stretch of highway paved or at least in reasonably good all weather condition?

Can anyone suggest the towns along the way we may want to stop at with rooms or reasonable hotels along the way.

And of course, is this stretch of highway considered to be safe for travel by tourists on their own?

Any advice and information on this part of the route and any other part of our proposed route would be greatly appreciated.

Still looking for some info on the stretch of highway 45 from Bucaramanga to Santa Marta.

Rutas Colombia
 

FYI

Through correspondence with the Colombia Government Travel Department I was directed to www.rutascolombia.com || Toda Colombia a un click de distancia for information on Highway 45, Bogota to Santa Marta.

This website provides detailed information on all main routes in Colombia including distances, elevations, services (fuel, hotels, resturants), tolls and points of interest.

The site should be helpfull to anyone planning to travel around Colombia.

Colombia
 

Hi Bill
The only help I can give is , that you can get a very good GPS map from Ventas Pamacol Av 15#119 Ofc 334 Phone (57)12133912 or 14803162 Bogota :: Pamacol Technologies :: it is about $120.00 us

info
 

I was wondering if you could tell me where you shipped out of, who with and how much it cost. Have a good ride you lucky buggers!!

Gugie1;

Thanks for the link. It looks like a very good GPS map for Colombia. May be a bit pricey for me since I will likey be in Colombia less than a month but I will be considering buying it.

Have you used it?

Farmer Dan;

We will be shipping from YYC in Calgary to Bogota in November. The quote I have right now it about $2,400 CDN one way.

Sounds expensive at first glance but we have already ridden to Panama and back and don't really want to repeat it again.

I see some guys quoting about $900.00 US to fly their bike from Panama to Bogota so perhaps it is reasonable.

Bill,

I have also been planning to ship my bike down from Calgary by air this winter. I was hoping to fly it to Argentina, but Colombia would also work for me. I've not found much information on shipping out of Calgary, or even Western Canada for that matter! What shipping company / Airline are you using? I'd prefer if I could fly directly from Calgary as I live here.

Thanks, Mike.

Gps
 

Hi Bill
No i havnt used the map , the wife and I are travelling the Alaska to Ushuaia to Rio next year so I have been gathering GPS maps for the trip . Yes they are expensive but what a lot of peace of mind . The only map I have not found yet is for Ecuador

I have been talking to:

Rob Marincich
Airfreight Supervisor
Hellmann Worldwide Logistics Inc.
2116 - 27th Avenue N.E. # 317
Calgary, AB Canada T2E 7A6 Phone: +1 403 219 8554 Fax +1 403 735 5919

Great! Thanks so much for the information! I will have to stop in and have a chat with them soon, winter is approaching waaaay too fast!

Mike.

I assume everyone has checked the Shipping database - left hand menu - Getting There - Shipping the bike

And of course if anyone gets any new information, please enter it in the database once you have done the shipment!

Nothing similar in the DB now. There will be once we get the shipment done.

Bucaramanga to Santa Marta
 

The road from Bucaramanga to Santa Marta is a day's journey, and pretty good road. Only bad for me because I'm afraid of heights and it is a STEEP canyon outside of Bucaramanga. When you're in Santa Marta take a little side trip to Taganga (about 45 minutes). A nice little fishing and tourist village on the beach. I also went diving there.

I don't remember the exact site, but I found a very decent routable GPS map of Colombia for Garmin on the web for free. Seek and ye shall find.

Thank you Steve. Exactly the the information I was looking for.