Ruta 40 this year

[JulieBuny]

Hi All
Any information on the road conditions or old links on Ruta 40 and Carretera Austral. We will be travelling in Oct/Nov/Dec this year, two motorbikes.
Is it paved at all?
Accom along the way.

Cheers

[DLbiten]

Carretera Austral - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Route_40_(Argentina)?

Paved not so much but there some day they will have have the thing done. Look out for the wind some times its bad im told.


Abekas | Quality Broadcast Equipment dont know why but here you go.


like most places where there not a lot of people you cant alwas find a nice hotel room. But 1000 of people every year go down there and make it gust fine. So will you, your planing lots of time you wont need push 300 or 400 mile days.

[fazer_1000]

hey there buny,
i finished the caratera austral two weeks ago, and did some riding on ruta 40.
ruta 7 is unpaved at most it´s parts. there are some roughly around 200 km`s of pavement, mostly on the way north and south to the major city of coyhique. there are some roads also when going to chaiten (around 30 km) and to puerto aisen, puerto chacabuco (around 100+ km).
most of the off road is good, and they are working all the time to make it better and continue paving so it should be a lot better (or worse, depend what you like) next year.
there are hostels at every small village on the way and you can open a tent in any of the numerous camp sites or non-private properties along the road.
there is no road from villa o`higgins to argentina on the arg side! un passable with a moto.
there is one, really small, in paso roballos, east to cochrane (a small town).
get´s you to bajo caracoles on ruta 40, small village. buy the gas there cause the next station to the south would be in tres lagos, 340 km.
they are working on the new ruta 40 and paving it. now there is only 50 km paved on the way from bajo caracoles to tres lagos, the rest is off road. the winds that blew when i went there were TERRIBLE, the worst i´ve seen ever! very tough, with no place to stop.
anyway, buy gas everywhere you can, a lot of the times there is no gas at the station that you planned for and then you´re screwed.
bring warm cloths and good tires. oh and parts you might need, it´s hard to get (impossible almost.. only in rio gallegos, at that part).

cheers
asaf

[ssa2]

One small point is that you used to be able to get gas at La Serina which is a small place that has a few rooms to rent and food to eat and cold . They have a generator and sell gas out of a barell. It is between Tres Lagos and Baja Caroljes. I would think you would need to cary gas if you wanted to go all the way with that stop. Good place to spend the night as well as that is a long and nasty stretch of road.

[Sime66]

I was on Ruta 40 up towards the Chile Chico crossing a few weeks ago. My theory is that the wind starts getting really bad around lunchtime, so if you try and leave as early as possible in the morning you can usually escape it.

By "really bad" I mean getting blown off the bike and not being able to stand up! (That was only once, 100kms south of Gobernador Gregores). Didn't hurt anyway cos the gravel's nice and deep there.

Also I went round Lago Carrera (sp?) on the Carretera and it's amazing. Quite a lot of corrugations in places so you might want to check your luggage is still there once in a while...

[JulieBuny]

Does anybody have experience riding in Peru. We are predominantly tarmac riders but have ridden offroad. Is the inland route that runs pretty much parallel to the coast road okay to ride, we will have offroad tyres on. We are really wanting a more scenic approach thats all as have read the Coast road can be very boring and busy. :confused1: We will be riding two bikes at this stage but may change to two up.

We also have not found alot of information on getting from either Costa Rica to SA or Panama to SA. Either boat or flight info to Ecuador. Don't really want to do Colombia.
Thanks heaps.
JulieBunny

[MountainMan]

Hey Julie,

There is a very stanadard flight from Panama to Bogota, cost as of last year was $800 for the bike, although it has gone up a few times in the last couple of years prior so they may have increases it even more. Actual cargo plane leaves at least a couple times a week, you can look around and should be able to find out which days the schedule is currently. I thought there was some info on this under the shipping section. If not, feel free to pm and I"ll pass along the directions.

I know that you mentioned that you want to give Colombia a miss, but I would really, really recommend it. Many people have quoted on the beauty and riding those winding mountain roads and the resulting scenery make it all worth it. Honestly, it's one of thoes places that when you go, you will tell yourself about a hundred that you can'tr believe that you almost didn't come. The danger aspect is there, but in my opinion is not any worse than a lot of other places in the world. The negative reputation exceeds the reality of the situation. However this is a personal choice. Perhaps email Albert Crutcher for the opinion of a HU member on the ground in SA. Enjoy.

[maja]

In order to give an opinion on what the Carraterra Austral and the Ruta 40 will be like in 7/8/9 months time I will have to get out my christal ball. Do what I did, find SA on the map (ish), ride them solo, fall off, get back on, repeat as necessary, refuse to do anything as stupid again, then do it. ride safe.

As said it´s difficult to say what Ruta 40 will be like in a few weeks let alone several months. We rode it back in January and it is quite a challenge, the stretch for 50 km north of Tres Largo being the worst section, we met a rider who had fallen twice on that and by the time he got to Pertio Mereno he was looking for someone to rebuild the rear Ohlins. The road is a good width but you end up trying to ride in a foot wide trench with what feels like a 30 to 40 mph side wind.
The Carretera Austral, Chile, is narrower and also needs to be treated with care as there is more traffic.
The route you mention in Peru is Route 3. If you struggle on Ruta 40 and Carretera Austral think twice about the route 3 in Peru. I don´t think I would ride it 2 up and loaded. It is a truly fantastic ride and toughest but for us one of the high lights of this trip. We rode north to south, basicly Chachapoyas to Urubamba (Cuzco) and it took 12 days with one day off. It will test any rider and depending on weather, you could encounter almost every type of surface, and the highest pass was over 4700 metres, if anything happens to you or your bikes it could be serious. We left Chachapoyas, rode 140 miles in 10 hours (with stops) and traveled 47 miles as the crow flies, and there are lots of days like that.
You will need a good map and a GPS will be helpful as there are no road signs, the locals will help, if you can, try and get a set of maps from the Peru Automobile Association, not the best maps but they will help to show towns with hotels.

Columbia is a must do but like anywhere in south and central america be carefull. We took a sail boat around the Darien, check out the boat before you commit as there are some bad stories about some of the crossings and not all the boats are in the best of condition. Checkout the time of year to make this crossing as I think December to March is a time for high winds and heavy seas.

Steve