Iguazu Falls to Bolivian Salt Flats route?
 

Hey,

i am heading to Iguazu Falls from BA and then i want to head to bolivia starting with the salt flats. Could anyone give advice on what the best route would be to do so?

Ive heard the roads in paraguay can be painful so i was considering driving around to the north west region of argentina and then up to Uyuni that way.

Any advice would be appreciated!

A_T

I'm pretty much making that exact journey right now!

I left Iguazu on Monday morning and am now around 400 miles to the north in Bonito, Brazil. The ride this way has been pretty amazing - the roads aren't too exciting but the size and scale of the landscape is epic - lots of rolling hills, forests with grazed and arable farmland. Very cool to pass through. Worth skipping the main highways and taking some back roads.

I'm headed back to NW Argentina, crossing from Bolivia towards Salta, so not exactly the same route as you but the same rough direction. I wanted to avoid the Grand Chaco in North Argentina and Paraguay seemed a bit of gamble in terms of things to see.

The route I'm planning is north from here to Campe Grande and then cross into eastern Bolivia at either Corumba to the direct west, or to go a little further north in Brazil before crossing at San Matias. Either way, then head to Santa Cruz and then south.

I'm here in Bonito until Friday, and possibly longer but I'm flexible on timeframes - send me a direct message if you fancy meeting up, as I'm riding solo so some company would be welcome!

Ed

I'm also planning to head from BA to Iguazu then onto Bolivia via Salta (not crossing into Paraguay)

I've got no idea of anything interesting to see or places to stay, fuel availability or anything along the way, so it could be pretty boring, or it might surprise me.

It almost seems like no one has ever done it (obviously they have) because there's not much information out there.

Ed, I did that route with my son in 2007 and had a great time! Corumba-Puerto Suarez crossing was a bit chaotic. The road to Santa Cruz was being worked on so we put our bikes on the 'train of death' to SC.

From SC he could loop back south via Tarija to the Salt flats or via Sucre too. We were on a schedule which we were WAY behind on and just rode SC to Cochabamba to La Paz and back to Peru.

Would like to try that again and go another route!

Cheers! Toby

That route is no problem and you get to cross along the southern side of the Pantanal either on bitumen roads or by a parallel dirt and gravel road a bit further to the north which is more inside the actual Pantanal where you can see more wildlife. A detour into Bonito for adventure stuff might be to your liking and if it hasn't been raining there is a route out of Bonito due west and then almost due north that would suit those looking for dirt riding. We couldn't get all the way through because the road turned into a bog so we had to go back and use the main road north.

In Eastern Bolivia, the route is not particularly exciting and the main road is in very good condition and just about dead straight.
We found fuel for the F350 a bit harder to get in some areas because they couldn't be bothered with the paperwork, but filling a can with gasoline wouldn't have been a problem

Our spotwalla map for that trip is at

https://spotwalla.com/tripViewer.php...6549cd40b54033
(the percent fill is set at 10%, but that can be changed by clicking on the title bar and using the adjustments control to change to 100%)

and the photo album is at

https://picasaweb.google.com/1146117...ZILBOLIVIAPERU