The Intended Route

View Proposed Route - South America by Bike in a larger map

We have been confidently describing the list of countries we intend to cycle through to highly skeptical friends, workmates and family members for a few months now, with only a very vague and rose-tinted idea of what might be involved in cycling this route, and even where these countries actually are. We are taking confidence from the fact that numerous cyclists seem to have ridden a similar route and had a good time.
We have separated the trip into two sections:

The "positive first experience" section.

This section is supposed to be a flat, warm, tail wind abundant (?) cruise between nice safe beaches that will allow our fitness to develop before we head to the southern tip of the continent. This is also meant to reinforce the fact that doing this trip was a good idea and that we are enjoying ourselves, as we are not sure if cycling in Patagonia will be that enjoyable.

We are flying into South America through Santiago before catching an internal flight to Buenos Aires. We have a few days in Buenos Aries to acclimatise, spend too much money, assemble the mighty steeds (our bikes), get maps and orientate ourselves before heading north to the beaches of Uruguay and southern Brazil.

The main route:

The second phase and main route will begin when we get some form of transport (bus, boat or plane) to the other most southernmost city in the world (after Invercagill), Ushuaia.
From there we will work our way north across Tierra Del Fuego, Patagonia, southern Chile along the Carretera Austral up to Santiago, over the Andes (gulp) to the Mendoza wine region, up to Salta, climbing to the highlands of Bolivia across the Salar De Uyuni (salt flats), La Paz and the most dangerous road in the world (Ben only for that).

From there we hope to go around or across Lake Titicaca into Peru where the bikes will be left somewhere so we can trek the Inca trail to Machu Picchu. After that we're not really sure at all, but may involve travelling through Peru into Ecuador and Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico and finally California flying back to NZ from LA. It could also swing the other way where we get back to Santiago and fly home. We have a flight booked home from there in 6 months time if we need it, or we can change it to LA if we're feeling bold and relatively wealthy.