Trans-Amazonian Challenge, 8 Countries in 52 Days! Are you one of the lucky few who have the time to achieve the unthinkable?

Estimated Reading Time: 9 minutes Are you a Seasoned Adventure Motorcycle Touring Rider? Have you heard of the Trans Amazonian Challenge? Are you one of the lucky few who have the time to achieve the unthinkable?  Your challenge will encompass 52 days and 8000 miles in 8 fascinating countries. What can you expect? You will ride 42 out of the 52 days on the MotoDreamer tour. The Trans-Amazonian Highway Amazonas Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, French Guiana, Suriname, Guyana, and Venezuela In summary, you will visit all these countries on this, the most exhilarating, challenging, and mind-opening tour MotoDreamer has ever devised. – All 8,000 miles (12,875km) of it.

Join us on a Trans-Amazonian Challenge, a once in a lifetime adventure

If you had 52 days to blaze your way through a bucket list of motorcycle adventure tours across a single continent. In the true spirit of overland travel, which would you choose? 

In our minds, there’s no question. South America has it all. 

There is simply nowhere with the sheer volume of natural and historical world wonders—the mind-blowing diversity of landscapes. With amazing cities, fascinating cultures, and crazily changeable riding conditions, any other place can throw at you.

All in the space of six weeks

(we ride 42 out of the 52 days on this tour.)

On this tour, you’ll climb 5,000m high mountain passes before plummeting down to surf-splattered coasts and flat desert plains. 

Then, of course, you’ll come face to face with the Amazon herself – the sacred rainforest whose breath sustains all life on earth. 

While this ride is named the Trans-Amazonian Challenge, it explores the Northern Andes and the Amazon Basin. A 6,300,000 km area with eight countries flowing over its borders: 

Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, French Guiana, Suriname, Guyana, and Venezuela. 

Yes, you will visit all these countries on this, the most exhilarating, challenging, and mind-opening tour MotoDreamer has ever devised. – All 8,000 miles (12,875km) of it.

Why Now is THE time to Get on a Motorbike and Experience Trans-Amazonian Challenge?

With our matchless years of experience leading tour groups across some of the most gnarly terrains on god’s earth, MotoDreamer has successfully run the Trans-Amazonian Challenge in the past. 

The reason we’ve been able to run this vast undertaking is the unparalleled level of planning, safety, and expert guidance we bring to what is logistically, physically, and mentally an extremely demanding trip. 

But like every other tour company worldwide, the events of early 2020 & 2021 have meant we’ve literally shut up shop for months. We have canceled a string of tours and sadly had many customers pull the plug on their commitments. 

Our last Trans-Amazonian trip was scheduled for August 2020, but we had to postpone it with things the way they were.

While most of our riders booked in 2020 have shifted to the 2022 departure, we still have spots up for grabs. 

So for those of you who’ve had your world motorcycle touring dreams crushed by the border closures and general terribleness of 2020 and 21. Why not celebrate your freedom (when it finally arrives!)  in true, come-at-me, “I live for adventure” style?

Put 9,000 miles between those months of bikeless boredom the pandemic has thrust upon you. After 52 insane, arduous, and ridiculously fun days in the wilds of South America. You won’t just have made up for “wasted time.” You’ll have had the time of your whole life.  

Do you need Another Reason to Ride the Trans-Amazonian Challenge Now? 

Her Name is Amazonas

Not so subtly sprinkled amongst the Coronavirus news we’ve heard this year have been facts, rumors, and opinions about the current Brazilian government’s plans to ramp up development in the Amazon region. Basically not doing much (and probably the exact opposite) in the fight against illegal mining and logging operations. 

While this trip is called the “Trans-Amazonian,” the actual Trans-Amazonian Highway (or at least the most exciting stretch of it) is only one section of the entire route. There will be many other amazing sections on the route. Like the almost entirely unvisited and most intact rainforests in the world, the Guiana Shield.

What Exactly is the Trans-Amazonian Highway?

The part of the original early 1970s Trans-Amazonian Highway we ride in this tour was the road that effectively “opened up” the Amazon Rainforest to the rest of Brazil and the world at large.

The Rodovia Transamazonica would be one of Brazil’s grandest infrastructure projects, one of the world’s longest sealed highways. It would connect important port towns on the Atlantic to Brazil’s isolated inland villages. Then on to the untouched land, resources, and riches that sure awaited in the Amazon itself.

The highway would bring mass migration, agriculture, development, and opportunity, along with the unavoidable blight of large-scale environmental destruction.  

By 1972, the budget had been decimated. The Trans-Amazonian opened prematurely before the final 1,000km stretch to the Peruvian border had even started. Less than half of the highway had been paved as promised.  

Decades later, barring a few populated regions, the highway sees amazingly little use. The government’s plots of land to attract thousands of resettlers appear to be of incredibly poor quality.

That, and the torrential monsoonal weather combined with predominantly sandy, red, rainforest soil, have made massive parts of the highway still impassable for a good chunk of the year. 

The Trans-Amazonian Challenge: Where do we Ride? 

We ride the TAC in the dry season, and it is still one pig of a dusty, pot-holed, physically punishing, and mentally exhausting road (this is a “challenge” after all!)

Dirt hogs will relish the eventual conquest, but the surroundings of cleared forest and dilapidated farmland in some areas are eye-opening. 

However, we will get to ride the Trans-Amazonian’s longest stretch of untouched rainforest. 

See how it winds its way through deep, dark, dense, and beautiful jungle within the Amazonia National Park. Marvel at the sanctuary that has thus far had protection fiercely by the indigenous Kayapo community. (Who incidentally are also exceptionally welcoming to eco-tourism.)

With the battle for the Amazon truly reignited, the Trans-Amazonian Highway has once again become pivotal to the story.

Thanks to existing in one of the worst environments in the world for building anything quickly, construction on the road itself continues at a snail’s pace. But once such corridors into the rainforest’s interior do open, they allow for land clearing on a rapid, industrial scale.

What About What’s on the News Right Now? Is the Amazon Being Destroyed? Will that Ruin my Trip? 

While most of the world only hears about the plight of the Amazon through the media. As a (hopefully curious, open-minded) foreigner on the ground. You will see what is happening with your own eyes. 

As riders, we too benefit from the construction of highways into tracts of previously pristine wilderness. For locals, some of these highways have been literally lifelines.

The balance between survival in the here and now and the future of the wider world is a game that is constantly being played out. If we want to call out those breaking the rules, isn’t it better to understand the game first?  

Being present while it all unfolds, what you see, how you feel, which images and whose stories you bring back home can make far more difference than watching from a distance. 

You might want to hurry and be one of those people who gets to see the Brazilian Amazon “while it’s still there.” We don’t know how much time you’ve got. But we think that’s a valid reason to go traveling. Enough eco-oriented travelers spending at once can even keep that time limit indefinitely extended. 

So, if you’re concerned about some of the artificial ugliness that will undoubtedly be exposed. Don’t despair as there is so much beauty on this trip that remains completely unspoiled. Sometimes even partly (or wholly) due to human protection. 

What will 2022 be like for this Trans-Amazonian Challenge?

The MotoDreamer gang has made this trip before, but we believe 2022 will mark a new era of travel. No one knows what it will look like yet.

It’s possible on our day excursion to Machu Picchu; we’ll be some of the lucky few to see this majestic city enchantingly devoid of tourist crowds. Or (while less likely), the opposite could be true. 

As we visit regions during their usual peak tourism period. We expect attractions overall will have minimal crowds. Of course, other places on our itinerary are never anything less than refreshingly quiet – Spring Break in Suriname, anyone?! It’s almost sure that less “typical” tourist destinations will still be in recovery.

Remember, there are countless people, from shopkeepers to hotel owners to tour guides, who live along the route we’ll be traveling. All rely heavily upon, if not wholly, on tourist income for survival. 

Writing this in mid-2020. I know that most of the folks you’ll meet on the 2022 Trans-Amazonia Challenge won’t have seen an unfamiliar face for many months.

We can only imagine outpourings of warmth and gratitude from both sides as we finally get to experience the beauty of international, intercultural interaction once again. 

And suppose adventure travel to you means gliding high above the clouds and sliding down in the dirt. In that case, an all-on-one ridiculous all-terrain, no-terrain, white knuckle, border bunny-hopping ride of a freaking lifetime. Don’t miss this chance to be an adventure moto-pioneer!

Now we both have you gasping for more high quality and fascinating information of what lies ahead with the Trans-Amazonia Challenge then head to the Calendar for 2022 and check out this new articles:

The Spanish Colonization of Las Americas 

The Trans Amazonian Challenge 2022 

Calendar 

Now for those who love challenges check out what is possible in 2023, 2024, and beyond.

Around the World in Eighty Days – MotoDreamer 

Around the World in Eighty Days. This has to be the ultimate Adventure Motorcycle Touring Challenge organized by Mike Thomsen at MotoDreamer. Are you a modern-day Phileas Fogg or Passepartout?

Around the World in Eighty Days is the ultimate Adventure Motorcycle Touring Challenge for our modern times to experience and enjoy. Is every bone in your aging Adventure Motorcycle Touring Rider´s body itching like crazy at the thought of this mad-cap challenge?

Written by: Fiona Davies (extreme pillion rider and adventure travel writer)

Edited for SEO optimization by Mike Bowley at www.mikedbowley.com

And to keep you safe…….

Global Rescue or Travel Insurance 

Global Rescue or Travel Insurance. Is there a difference? Surely they are the same thing? Here’s To Dreamer’s in-depth report on why over a million members trust them. To answer the first question. If there is a difference between Global Rescue and Travel insurance, then the answer is YES.

JOIN US ON THE NEXT TRANS-AMAZONIAN CHALLENGE 2022