VIVIAN AND HANLIE GERICKE

AMAZON

In their previous lives, Hanlie was a biology teacher and Vivian was a consulting engineer. Over the years they travelled with their three children through southern Africa. When they retired in 2016, they looked for new adventures and decided on South America. In October 2016 they shipped their Land Rover Defender to Montevideo in Uruguay and went overlanding through Patagonia (see go! #150).

Since then, they’ve been back four times. They travelled through the central Andes to Cusco in Peru, and from Cusco back to Uruguay across the lowlands of Bolivia, Paraguay and Brazil. In 2019, they explored the Pantanal in Brazil, the Amazon rainforest and lesservisited countries like French Guiana and Suriname.

Each trip lasts about three to four months. They’ve driven more than 55 000 km in total and they’ve crossed international borders 38 times. See go! #167 for Part 1, #168 for Part 2 and #169 for Part 3.

Approximate daily budget?

Brazil was more expensive than most other South American countries we visited. Our average travelling expenses were R1 500 per day, which included food, accommodation for two, diesel and car services. We camped wild where possible to save costs; we only stayed in formal accommodation when we had no other option.

Getting around? We travelled through Brazil for three months and covered 22 000 km. Unless you have plenty of time, travelling in Brazil by car is not necessarily the best option. It is probably better to fly between locations, and once there, use public transport or hire a car to explore an area, then fly to the next.

That said, we enjoyed our road trip. The (illegal) crossing from Belém to Macapá on the commercial barge with the Brazilian truckers was one of the highlights. If you fly from one tourist attraction to the next, you miss out on that type of experience.

Camping? Camping is not nearly as popular in Brazil as in South Africa. In some large cities such as Belém, we couldn’t find a single place to camp. In French Guiana, finding a place to overnight was especially difficult. The word “camping” there generally means you rock up with your hammock and mosquito net and hook up under a thatched roof. In Suriname we asked a local whether we could park in his driveway for a night.

Driving through the Amazon, we often had to sleep out of sight behind trees or in disused quarry sites – not really overlanderfriendly, unless you are in a self-contained camper truck. However, Brazil is huge and there are distinct differences between the areas. Further south there are more formal campsites. Safety? Brazil is probably as dangerous as South Africa and there are many areas where you cannot camp wild. But there are other places where wild camping is relatively safe, especially in and around smaller towns. We used our “South African sixth sense”, read comments on the iOverlander app, asked the local residents and then made a call. There were a few nights when we were desperate, though, and had to spend the night in the driveway of a hotel.

Handy resources? visit brasil.com; ipanema.com; ioverlander.com; “PanAmerican Travelers Association” on Facebook; MaCamp (an app used in Brazil by locals that have motorhomes), Lonely Planet Brazil guidebook; lonelyplanet.com

Visas? South Africans do not need a visa to visit Brazil. You will be issued with a 90-day permit at the border, which can be extended for another 90 days. If you travel in a foreign registered vehicle, the vehicle will be issued with a Temporary Import Permit for the same duration.

You do need a visa for French Guiana. South Africans must obtain a visa in South Africa before departure.

For Suriname, we obtained visas in Cayenne in a few hours (normally it takes a few days) after learning the hard way that this could not be obtained at the border post.

Entrance permits for Guyana are obtained at the point of entry, and the same for Peru.

Other documents? You need a yellow fever certificate and your international driving licence. Make sure you have the correct driving licence for each country – there are two types (1941 and 1949 conventions) and requirements differ depending on where you are in South America.

Read about the Gerickes’ adventures at between2safaris.com – they share detailed routes, information about shipping your vehicle and how to modify it for overlanding. Follow them on Instagram @between2safaris.