Boats and bikes
Hello thereMy partner and I have been pipe dreaming about cycling to South America, albeit in a rather indirect route. (but that's the best way!) This has been an idea for almost 3 years and we should start to do a bit of planning now as we want to leave in Spring/summer 2013.
Does anyone have any experience/information/advice about boats from Portugal to Brasil? I've heard various things from people, some saying you can't get a boat and others saying you can, but searching on the internet, found it's quite hard to find if you can. Our plan is to cycle from UK to Malta to see my parents and have a break, then (maybe) go to Tunisa and cycle over the top of Africa to Morocco and boat it to Spain. Then boat to Brasil, so we can head to Argentina.
This could change and we might end up doing something completely different, but the ultimate goal is to get back to South America. Few years ago we spent alot of time on buses, and thought, why didn't we bring our bikes??
Any suggestions gladly received,
Thanks. Happy cycling!
1
For your first question you'd be better off asking on the brazil or europe branch of the forum I suspect. And also try the sailing branch.For info about cycling in northern africa, look for blogs and posts by tailwind and/or peter gostelow on the topic. I have a vague recollection of reading about one of them doing it and how difficult it was. I think algeria was a problem. And Libya will be a problem possibly too. YOu need to look into the issues of border crossings and visas between each of those countries and how it is to ride around there, especially if one of you is a woman. Usually its ok for women cycling in muslim countries but I can't recall reading anything specific about these countries.
See what else the africa branch people have to say about these places for foreign tourists, though don't forget you will going places that most tourists don't go.
3
This guy went on a cruise ship from Lisbon to South America. When I met him, he said the ship goes continually around the world, and passengers could hop on and hop off anywhere. You can contact him for the info.4
Re using boats, have a look at this website http://www.flightlesstravel.com/plan/cargo-ships/Lots of links,but it is often an expensive option. They sum it up in their first paragraph:
"Cargo ships often act as passenger ships and offer real travel alternatives under the banner of freighter cruises, however travel by cargo ship is often more expensive than you might expect, regularly costing about the same as a cruise ship! So you might wonder why you would want to travel on a cargo ship as a passenger in this way"
You can also put this "passenger container ship" into google for loads more links. Sadly the days of using cargo ships as cheap travel are over.
5
Last November, I took a cruise ship from Lisbon to Sao Paulo. The cruise was 14 day long, stopping in the Canary Islands and a few cities in Brazil. It was a very nice way to start my bicycle tour. I was wined and dined and pampered, and jumped right from there to sleeping in tent on the side of the road (no camping to be found in southern Brazil). Royal Caribbean has a few ships every year doing this trip. Since I love to cruise as much as I love to bicycle tour, this worked out perfectly for me.
