Argentina SAT nav Maps - Bolivia

[Big graham]

Hello Fellow Cyclists
I am looking for a Sat Nav for my bicycle. I am travelling to South America Argentina Chile Bolivia and Peru.
I was thinking of cycling down Route 3 from Buenos Aries down into Patagonia - Peninsula Valdes and Further South, No I am not super fit age 55 and Overweight Ha ah But even if I cycle 35-45 mile per day is enough. Probably take me 60 days to get down the bottom with stops at quite a few wildlife places etc.

Any way I was sort of told by the Argentinean Tourist board that you cannot cycle on main routes. I have the Rough guide Map (it is quite good) and a Zaiger & Urruty , But I was thinking of a SAT NAV for my bike

I have had a sample map from Garmin (South America) and it only seems to do the Main roads.
I have looked at the Garmin 800 But Garmin maps only seem to show the Main roads of Argentina etc.
DO any other companies have a more detailed Coverage of Maps of Secondary roads in Argentina Chile Bolivia and Peru?

Does anyone have any advice on the matter As I would like to stick to the quieter roads on the Atlantic then come back up Route 40 May have to have a Bus here and there Depends on my old Legs.

ANY advice would be appreciated especially on Accommodation Estrancias etc.

Regards
Mr Graham
SOUTHPORT

But in the middle of the North sea on a ship at present

[Richard]

Hi,
One mapping option you've got is to produce your own maps from the data in openstreetmap.com This is a website that has open source mapping data. It's possible to create maps to use on your Garmin. It's a bit complex but feasible. I have created maps for the UK which I use on my Garmin eTrex20.
Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.
Regards
Rich.

[Gearoidmuar]

I once asked an Argentinian friend about cycltouring there. He said that you could cycle 60 miles and not see a single house. Don't know if it's a good idea going there... The distances in some countries are huge.

e.g. I considered going to Newfoundland. I would love to cycle from St.John's across the island and then up the Northern Peninsula.
..but... at 60mpd, it would take 10 days to cycle across the island... NOT a good idea..

[Ayesha]

Let's go.....

to Tiahuanaco...

where the stones stand,,,

so very hiiiiigh....

[iviehoff]

Any way I was sort of told by the Argentinean Tourist board that you cannot cycle on main routes.

What they mean is you can't cycle on a motorway. But if there really is no other road, as for example when trying to access the city of San Juan from the south, then in practice people ride on it anyway, what else are they supposed to do? On the slip road to a motorway in Buenos Aires I saw the amusing sign "prohibido a poder de sangre", literally "forbidden to blood power", which was at least a verbally concise way of banning ox-carts, horses and walkers as well as cyclists.

And in general don't expect sensible advice about cycling from tourists boards in Argentina, they really can't understand what you are doing and will only give you advice from the perspective of a non-cyclist who thinks its all impossible. From time to time I went into them to try and get some information, but they insisted on giving me advice instead.

I would strongly discourage you in your desire to cycle straight down Ruta 3. The first 100km or so out of BsAs it is motorway so you'll have to find another way. Then it becomes the main road to Bahia Blanca, and why ride that when there are plenty of other quieter roads across this agricultural region where all the beef comes from. Though don't expect to see much other than flat fields and poplar tree wind breaks. Maybe it stays busy to Viedma or San Antonio del Oeste, don't know, haven't been there. Somewhere beyond Bahia Blanca it transitions into that appallingly wind-swept semi-arid plain that covers most of Patagonia, and this really is utterly soul-destroying cycling. The winds are unimaginably awful, about twice as bad as Iceland. The absence of a view continues unaltered for 100s and 100s of km. Distances between water supplies expands to 200km, and this is not a 200km you can just knock off in a day like doing a 200km Audax, because of the aforementioned winds, grovelling along may reduce you to 50-60km. A few cyclists have succeeded in cycling R3 all the way to Rio Gallegos, but far more have said sod this for pointless torture and accepted a lift or got on a bus. It is a bicycle ride to challenge crossing the Nullarbor Plain for its pointlessness and mental torture.

Ruta 40 down the west side of Argentinean Patagonia is a better idea than R3, but still a pretty bad idea. The completion rate on R40 is higher, though for a long time this was because there was no bus, and with vehicles passing at one every 2 hours on a section I did, hitch prospects aren't very good either. These days there is a bus, at least in summer - so you can give up and now one does hear of more cyclists giving up. It is of course unpaved for much of the way so you need a suitably robust bike, and I think there is about 650km between food supplies at the remote bit, though you can reduce this to 400km if you don't mind doing an extra 70km. There is from time to time a bit more of a view than on R3. But I was chatting to my cycling enthusiast friend who lives in Bariloche (and once ran a bike shop/repair business there), and who told me he had finally got around to riding R40 down to the south. He said it is something you do just once in your life to say that you have had the endurance to complete it. I have met a handful of others who have ridden it, and they wouldn't do it again either.

This is why the great, great majority of cyclists who wish to cycle N/S in Patagonia use the Chilean Carretera Austral down as far as Villa O'Higgins and use the hikers boat service to get across to El Chalten in Arg. That really is a wonderful ride worthy of repetition.

The best paper maps of Argentina are the ACA maps (though even those are not perfect) - they also do a road atlas without quite the same level of detail as the individual maps. I'm sorry that you've wasted your money, but the Zagier and Urruty maps are poor and to be avoided, they have misleading errors on them, and you need a proper map along side it for a second opinion. (Though if you are just riding down R3 you barely need a map at all). I once wasted my money in the same way. Firestone is another one to avoid.

I do find it very worthwhile when in Argentina to get hold of the relevant road-guides which were published by YPF when I were there. They changed into Turistel Guides, and then when Turistel was taken over by the Copec, a Chilean petrol company, I think they became YPF again. These guides, covering the country in about 7 volumes (though on their website at the moment ypf.com/guia, fewer than that are mentioned, it looks like some of them are out of print), but in general you get them through web-sellers. I see YPF are now offering maps also, I expect, given their origin, they are reasonably reliable, as Turistel/Copec are the most reliable road mappers of Chile.

I've no idea about SatNav workability in Argentina. Maybe it works, maybe it is confined to certain well-populated parts of the country. I'd be very surprised if it works in Bolivia. Bolivian maps, there's another long story. I've written it before.

It's getting a bit out of date now, but you might like to read my guides to cycling in Arg, Bol and Chile, also some photo-travelogues. http://www.transamazon.de/links/ivan/ivan.html

[fc101]

Regarding digital mapping, there are commercial maps available of Argentina, as you note in your post. However, an Argentinian friend advised that (in 2009/10) the official Garmin map wasn't as good as the Mapear map available for free from this website: http://www.proyectomapear.com.ar. It's not foolproof, and it doesn't include any topographic information, but is very handy and it supports routing if you need it. The map covers Argentina & Chile.

I'd also recommend using the Garmin-compatible topographic map of Argentina & Chile available from here: http://www.gps.com.ar. This map is good too, but not foolproof either. It has less 'road' information in the more remote areas, but the topographic detail is very useful.

Of course as Richard states in his post above, there's also literally a world of freely available maps available via the OpenStreetMap wiki, and these can be downloaded and installed for use on Garmin devices. Build your own maps for Garmin devices here: http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl. I think these are great too, but just beware that the quality of mapping (not just OSM mapping) around the world is very variable. I generally load several different maps onto my Garmin and compare them when the a road apparently ends when displayed on the computer or GPS or, more disconcertingly, when the road physically ends unexpectedly on the ground (it happens from time to time!).

I planned routes on paper maps, and used the digital mapping to monitor progress (distances to habitation, road junctions, streams/rivers for water, potential wild campsites, etc.). I occasionally used the digital mapping for routing too (but one should check that the suggested route matches one's own plans). I found it helpful to route sometimes with the Mapear map, and then switch to display the topographic map with the route shown. I've not used either map for 18 months, so I don't know how they perform now with respect to today's commercially available maps.

More generally, there's a wealth of information on cycling in South America available on the web. Don't be discouraged by the distances between places, since wilderness cycling is simply magic. I should add the caveat that one has to be self sufficient with a tent (or some sort of shelter), food and plans for finding water as necessary for the distances to be covered, the route to be taken and the weather.

Good luck!