We are 4 wheels and 8 tons, possibly not a good start for my question.. We are heading through Venezuela down to Manaus and would like to ship to Peru, possibly Pucallpa or Yurimaguas. Trying not to go as low as Porto Velho as we want to double back to Ecuador. I know Chris wrote a good post in 2002, wondering if anyone has done the route in either direction since and could comment if there is any chance of getting a truck on any of the roro ferries or cargo boats heading west?

Many thank.

You are at a good time of year to up river. As Iquitos has no roads into it, many barges go to Iquitos full, but return to Yurimaguas and Pucallpa mostly empty. But none of this is advertized. You will have to ship to Iquitos from Manaus, then walk the river front to find what you are looking for. Big distributors are a good start.

I live in Peru and can only tell you about the Peru part.

If you can get to Yurimaguas, there is some great stuff up north there in the Chachapoyas and Cajamarca area. Yurimaguas is much smaller than Pucallpa so there will be less river traffic going there. The Yurimaguas road comes out at Tarapoto. Driving Pucallpa to Tarapoto is only 2 days... so aside from a long river trip... Pucallpa doesn't set you off too much.

Any other Peru questions... let me know!

Cheers! Toby

Hi Toby

Thank you very much for the info. Much appreciated, it is hard to find out about this area when it comes to larger vehicles. You came up with the best solution for us.

Of course the issue would be if we shipped to Iquitos and could not find a boat going south (Pucallpa) that we could actually fit on. Do you know if it is likely that any of the freight barges going south have heavy vehicle loading ramps?

We won't be there for 6 weeks as we are still trying to work out how to break into Venezuela via San Cristobal, which is a bit tricky currently.

Thanks again.
John

The barges are huge and they can figure out how to get ANYTHING on or off. I've seen cranes and huge front end loaders on board... so I wouldn't worry about that part!

Thank you Toby. We will head that way then. Look you upon Peru if you have time?
All our best
John

Just for information.

I met one traveller with van, who did it opposite way, from Pucallpa to Manaus. First ferry from Pucallpa to Iquitos, second ferry from Iquitos to border (Santa Rosa de Yavari), third ferry from Santa Rosa de Yavari to Manaus. So it is possible.

(I also want to do that trip one day)
Good luck!

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All trucks can get on and off the ferries/barges. They usually put on artic trailers and take them off with small normal shunting trucks, so an overlanding truck will be fine. A camping car with low ground clearance would be in trouble....

bring food and drink for the entire trip + a few days, the food on our barge was very dodgey so we cooked ourselves as we sailed from Manaus to Belem. Most of the truckdrivers did the same....

Hello,

We want to go from Peru to Manaus and take the car (Land Rover Defender) with us on the ship.
-Is that possible?!

We thought about the route:
Yurimaguas (Peru) to Iquitos (Peru)
Iquitos (Peru) to Tabatinga (Brasil)
Tabatinga (Brasil) to Manaus (Brasil)
- Is this the right connection?!

-Who knowns more about it and give us information?
-Do we have to make reservations?
-Are these routes really connecting?
- How about the price?

Looking forward to hear from you!

There are no 'reservations' to be made as hauling vehicles is not their line of work. You just have to go to each waterfront and ask. You will lose about 3 days at each stopover.

Toby (in Peru)

Thanks Toby,

In the end we took the balsa to Porta Velho and drive round to Ecuador, just arrived last week.

We spent many days in Manaus talking to the shipping companies and boat owners to get us to Peru. Why we did not take the river to Peru was because it seemed you could get held up at a port up river for a long time if a balsa was not going your way with available space. Its a risk, but if you have time on your side... Toby's info was very good, in theory its all possible, we wimped out.

I can say your Landrover opens up more options as our truck could not fit on all boats, only the cargo balsa's - there are smaller passenger boats that also can take smaller cars.

We bumped into difficulty with staying with our vehicle. Some balsa's were very insistent that we could not accompany our truck, would have to take a passenger ferry. May restrict your options if you wish to eat/sleep in your car, which we wanted to do. Always ask first!

Costs, you better be very good at negotiations or it will be expensive I suspect. Prices are all over the place. I imagine your trip will cost about $1.5k.

I believe your suggested route is the route, the only possible. We did hear that there were boats going direct to Iquitos from Manaus, so the same the other way, but then this was not consistently confirmed. As Toby says, really, there are no reservation or fixed anything. Even in Manaus its first come first served and that could change in a moment.

We don't speak Portuguese and it is necessary for this sort of journey. It can be complicated conversations so I hope you speak Spanish, you need to be very clear on everything.

Finally, make sure its raining or has been recently as if it ain't raining then the river don't run, well enough not to get stuck on a sand bank.

Good luck.