Hi, we are Peter and Lesley Boast and we are planning to travel South America in our Land Rover 110, Gerty. We will be driving the western side of South America, shipping Gerty to San Antonio, Chile in October 2012, and heading south through Chile to Patagonia. Then across into Argentina and up through Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia.

For those who are considering a similar trip these are some of the preparations we have undertaken. We didn't want to bore our friends and relatives with too much technical information but if you have any questions please email us.

Preparations

The Vehicle; Gerty is a 110 Land Rover born in 1997. She has been refurbished with a new chassis, TGV 2.8 ltr engine and importantly a dormible lifting roof to give two bunks inside for sleeping. The inside has been fitted out with lots of cupboards, a refrigerator, hot and cold water and a portable toilet. On the back door is the cooker. See photos.

Shipping Gerty to South America: We contacted about 8 companies regarding shipping but only 2 replied - Imorex and Shipacar. We are going with Imorex as they are slightly cheaper at £1680.00 from Tilbury to San Antonio,Chile. The shippings are weekly and take about 30 days so we will be waving goodbye to Gerty a couple of weeks before we fly out. The £1680 includes a 20 foot container with Gerty snugly secured inside, witnessed by us at Felixstowe. The shipping company does not provide insurance so we are arranging that with separate company. Several have given quotes. Imorex have advised that they will give us details of a local agent to see us through customs.

Paperwork: Listed is the documents we are taking:-

• Passports
• UK Drivers License
• International driving Permit: acquired from the RAC(£8). You can download the application form from their website. It arrived within 14 days.
• UK Registration document
• Bill of sale proving purchase of the vehicle in the UK
• Certificate of Gross Weight, acquired by visit to local public weighbridge (£9)
• International Certificate of Motor Vehicle, acquired from the AA. You have to call them to request an application form. (£8)
• Carnet de Passages en Douane. From the RAC (£190). We are not sure if this will be needed in South America but we decided to be on safe side. The application and other information is detailed on the RAC website and importantly the amount of deposit you are require to provide, either as Bank Guarantee, through an insurance policy or cash.They only take upto £10k as cash.
• Third Party Vehicle insurance. This proved impossible to obtain in the UK, but we found a company in the Netherlands called Assurantiekantoor Alessie who has been very helpful and is giving us insurance for all the countries we are visiting except Colombia.
• An inventory of vehicle contents in English and Spanish.
• Medical Insurance for a year. This was difficult to find but is out there.
• Vaccination card and Yellow Fever Certificate.
• Letter from our GP confirming the prescribed medication we are carrying, ie malaria tablets.
• Copies of purchase receipts of major pieces of electrical equipment we are carrying.

Health matters: As we are not sure of our exact route through South America we decided to go for all the vaccinations we might need. We were already covered for some such as Tetanus and Polio so only ended up having Yellow Fever and Hepatitis A. As Peter loves running and I had concerns about dogs possibly chasing and biting him he had Rabies. He was not to impressed as felt quite ill after second of the three jabs, but I feel happier.

We plan to take enough Malaria tablets for the times we head into Mosquito territory. We prefer to do this rather than take them for the year or not take them at all. It is a personal decision.

We have a big First Aid box which should cover most minor and some more serious medical situations.I wont list what we are taking as most overland sites and books give a good representative list.

Peter is already a qualified first aider but I went on a St Johns Ambulance course to learn the basics. A more wilderness orientated course would have been better.

Things we have learnt on the way.
1/ Boarder Crossings

Every boarder crossing has proven to be different. So far we have passed between Chile and Argentina 9 times (or 18 boarder checks). Documents requested have been passports and V5 everytime. The V5 is interesting as the customs want to see proof of ownership and the V5 states clearly on the front that it is NOT PROOF OF OWNERSHIP. We have got round this by handing it over folded so the second page is on top and point straight away to the Reg No. and name and address. We learnt this the ************ the initial import to Chile, they wouldn't accept it and fortunately I had a very formal looking 'Bill of Sale' with the name of the previous owner, dates, costs etc which got us in. No problem since.

Third Party insurance has been asked for twice, once when leaving Argentina and when entering Peru.

Vehicle searches can vary from nothing to a reasonably through search, particularly for fruit, vegetables and meat when entering Chile. We have had vacum packed smoked fish and eggs confiscated

All boarder crossings in Chile and Argentina have been carried very professionally and friendly with only an hours wait at one entry to Argentina.

Entry to Bolivia was a little bit more chaotic and achieved in an hour with no real problems other than some confusion on our part! Entry to Peru was easy and carried out in a very friendly and professional manner.

2/ Items we found useful

- Ear plugs; whilst we have enjoyed camping, the Argentinians and Chileans can be noisy until the very small hours, even 4am. Municipal campsites and those with swimming pools seem to be the worst. All good natured, it's just they enjoy music and talking. So ear plugs can help. Other things that have kept us awake include, cows, dogs, lamas, old rattling air conditioning units, boy racers outside hotels and flocks of Parrots.

- Plastic 'S' hooks. These have proved invaluable. We have three in our wash bags for campsite showers ( there is rarely anywhere to hang towels and clothes) and a further six or so in the vehicle for hanging items off the ground, rubbish bags, wet clothes and shoes etc. It makes life much easier.

- Plastic Tupperware type containers. A set of water tight containers that store inside each other are useful for when we cook in bulk (rice, bean stew) or for storage of food brought in large tins.

- Insect nets. We have insect nets for the front windows, roof vent and back door. We have had to have the back door open some evenings and even all night so the net for this door has proved very useful. We have had flies, mosquitos and horseflies to contend with at some campsites.

3/ Useful Vehicle modifications

Engine Cooking

We have two cooking compartments on the engine. One sits next to the turbo and one on top of the cylinder head. We have cooked: salmon with lemon, curried veg stew, engine roast potatoes and hard boiled eggs. Items like the salmon we use plastic oven cook bags, the potatoes just silver foil. Salmon takes 2-3 hours, the potatoes all day.They stay hot for at least 2 hours after you stop driving.

Washing Tub

A flare container brought off EBay and painted black, sits on top of the rear door spare tyre, held by a bracket and strap. Filled with dirty laundry, hot water and soap, a days driving sloshes the lot around and it just needs a rinse before drying. To be really clever, if time permits, change the washing water for rinsing water at lunch time.

Clothes Drying Pole

We started with a clothes line, but there never seemed to be anything convenient to tie it to and too much laundry had it dropping to the ground. A wooden broom handle was brought and this sticks out from the roof rack to provide a drying line. Notches were cut for the hangers and a cable tie stops them coming off the end. Two cable tie loops live on the roof rack to support the handle. Only needs 75mm of overlap to leave plenty of pole that can be used either side of the vehicle.

Headlamp and Radiator protector

Protection for the radiator and headlights is pretty much essential. We have used a fine stainless steel mesh that is readily available here in all ironmongers. The radiator protector must have stopped a Kg of insects clogging the rad and a significant number of stones that surely would have caused damage. Rather than stick to the mesh, as they do to the rad, the insects fall to the bottom and need regularly cleaning.

We started with clear plastic covers for the lights but a combination of vehicle speed, high winds in Patagonia and passing lorries soon caused these to break. Additionally, it seems that the lack of cooling air to the lights was burning out headlight bulbs almost weekly. (You have to drive with dipped headlights on all the time here). Also the plastic covers were a pain to keep clean.

4/ Money

Bringing both a Visa and MasterCard is a good idea as one or the other is not always accepted. Credit card use is less in Argentina; even some big national fuel stations will only take cash, as will some big hotels. ATMs are plentiful in the bigger towns and cities, with usually only one in small towns.These may have cash, may be working and may accept your type of card. In Argentina queues up to 20m long can form when the only ATM in town has cash.

5/ Vehicle maintenance, repair & fuel.

Oil changes, both engine and transmission have been easily and quickly carried out at a 'Lubricentre,' a small workshop with a pit that just do oil and filter changes. There are lots in Chile and Argentina. If you have an unusual vehicle it might be worth carrying spare filters. They did manage to find the correct filter for my Land Rover

Tyre shops are also very common and punctures easily repaired. Tyres of standard sizes can even be brought in DIY and food supermarkets in the bigger towns.

As far as other repairs are concerned there are many small independent workshops in even the smallest towns in Chile and Argentina that are willing to help and carry out repairs. Our broken shock absorber was welded by one such workshop. This option should be investigated before resorting to importing parts. Although the bits we needed only took a week to arrive the cost of shipping and import taxes was eye watering! The need to do this will of course depend on the make of your vehicle. Japanese 4x4 pickups are everywhere, 1000's of them and most European makers have a dealer in the larger cities. Not so for Land Rover. In Chile there is only a dealer in Santiago and of the ones listed in four cities in Argentina the one in Cordoba had gone. Parts from them will be very expensive. There are lots of car part shops for the common makes in most towns throughout Chile and Argentina.

The advantage of the pre electronic Land Rovers is the ease of repairs and maintenance.

In Chile and Argentina fuel stations are reasonably common and fuel about a £1 / Ltr. Occasionally in Argentina there was a queue at the pumps or even no fuel available. We always filled up when down to 3/4s and had no problems.

Bolivia was different. Fuel costs at the pumps about 45p /ltr but only for nationals. Externals have to pay about 90p. Fair enough, the problem is they have to write two receipts, so some stations can't be bothered and refuse to sell to you. We soon found out there are 3 ways round this:
1/ Walking with a Jerry can and pay 45p
2/ Pick an out of the way station and negotiate a price. We paid form 50 to 80p. The station banks the usual rate and the attendant the extra!
3/ Houses, shops and tyre repairs all seem to sell fuel from their back yards. Slow as hand pumped, but always good fun and we usually paid between 50 and 70p.

In all we had no problems getting fuel in Bolivia and it was always cheaper than home.

In Peru, fuel was readily available, in fact we struggled with the fact that there so many fuel stations. One small town we drove through had 15 stations and even the smallest would have two or three. How they make money we couldn’t work out. Fuel was about £1 /ltr, but strangely sold in gallons.

6/ Average daily expenditure.

In the average daily expenditures listed below we have not included the following

· The preparatory costs such as cost of flights, vaccinations, equipment,
· Shipping costs.
· Monies spent whilst awaiting the arrival of Gerty in Santiago and San Antonio
· Trip to Easter island
· Navimag ferry trip.

We have included

· Food,
· Fuel,
· Accommodation,
· Vehicle maintenance
· Sundries such as medication, toiletries, touristy excursions, museum and national park entrance fees.

The average daily spend in Argentina was £60.

The average daily spend in Chile was £78

The average daily expenditure in Bolivia was £78

This would have been a lot lower but we treated ourselves to some excursions including a two day trip in the Salar de Uyuni, quadbiking around Sucre, cycling the world’s most dangerous road in La Paz, day trip to Tiwanaku Pre Inca site, Mexican wrestling in La Paz and a boat trip to Isla de sol on Lake Titicaca. In addition we stayed in hotels almost every night as they were very cheap.

The average daily spend in Peru was £79.

Again this included trips including train to Machu Picchu and a flight over the Nazca lines, both really expensive. Also, other than a couple of nights wild camp we stayed in cheap hotels, mainly as there are no camp sites and also the fact it gets dark at 5:30 makes camping in the Land Rover difficult.

7/ Cooking Gas

We used gas for our cooking. we took a 3Kg Camping Gaz cylinder which lasted a couple of months. Of course in Chile they use different fittings, so was unable to get this changed or recharged and meant buying a 2 Kg cylinder (same size as our 3Kgs due to different valve design) and a new regulator. This of course didn't last as long but we were able to get it recharged. Argentina seemed to have the same fittings as Chile.

Of course in Bolivia, they only do 10Kg cylinders, far to big for us to store (although the fitting appeared the same as UK 10Kg cylinders) so when we ran out in Bolivia our only option was to buy a small camping stove for the week we had left there.

In Peru they have a different connection again, so we brought a 5Kg cylinder, the smallest we could find and another regulator. These are a horrible design that always leaked meaning it had to be disconnected when not in use.

The best thing would have been to; Have space for at least a 5Kg cylinder. The bigger sizes are much easier to find, less than 5 hard and no one wants to change them.

Don't bring a UK one over, accept that on day 1 you will need to shop for a cylinder and regulator.

It would appear that in South America (due to gas reserves they have?) that there are plenty of gas outlets/vans selling on the street and nearly everyone uses cylinders for cooking & heating etc so it isn't difficult to get them.

8/ Communication

Post

We have had no problem with finding post offices and getting cards home. We did try to get a letter sent DHL but they wanted nearly £100. Not sure if that was a mistake. Western Union offices are in most larger towns but we can’t say more as we didn’t use them.

Telephone

While we had our Satellite phone it worked well even in the city (you just had to go and stand outside in an open space).

We have relied on our mobile phone and have bought new Sim cards in each country. We used Claro in Chile and Argentina. Entel in Bolivia and Movistar in Peru. They have all been ok but Movistar was the best. There are places to top up your phone in even the smallest places.

Most towns have had call centres were you can make long distance calls. They are often combined with an internet shop.

Internet and WIFI

Internet shops are very common in all but the smallest places and a lot of restaurants, hostals and hotels have WIFI.