Ferry On Route 22 Vallegrande – Ipitá | Other

August 20th, 2017 by togetheronwheels.com

We drove the 22 direction Ipita -Vallegrande. We really enjoyed it. Great scenery and nice people along the way. One BIG DIFFERENCE with the other discriptions, the ponton does not hold up to 5000 kilo. We drive a big Iveco turbo daily 4x4. It weights fully loaded 4000 kilo. The ferryman did not dare to take us on his wooden ponton. He sad he had taken an (empty) Nissan condor 2 years ago, but that his ponton was stronger at that time. But there is another way to cross the river! The guys working on the bridge nearbye told us that the big trucks working on the bridge, cross the river not far from the ponton. I made a way-point where to leave the road for this rivercrossing. The deepest point was about 75cm when we crossed. More info at the waypoint. The rest of the road was more easy than we expected, almost no mud (even though it rained some on the second day) and a lot of locals doing it in 2wd cars (trucks and passenger cars). I would say in the conditione we drove it it is doable in a 2wd with a low first gear and some power(we didn't use 4x4, only for the river crossing, but light cars can still take the ponton, I would say up to 3000 kilo). Have fun!

July 11th, 2016 by syncrox.de

To bee bit adventorous we also made a detour: we took the ruta 6 from Sucre to Ipita, then drove on to Ipati (Ruta 9), from there we took the Ruta 22 to Vallegrande - and we agree, really worth the detour, fabolous landscapes and little villages as already described. The ferry-man was sitting there as well, his "ponton" was a bit pricy, we negotiated 100 bops. We asked locals and as we understood, it's normally 100 for "ida y vuelta", so maybe you can negotiate more... But for us, this little adventure of a paddling ferry-man in the middle of nowhere was worth the money ;-)

May 24th, 2016 by kasbah.ch

If you want to avoid some of the ubiquitous tall and military checkpoints on road 9 (Santa Cruz – Yacuiba) AND you have a 4WD < 5000 kg AND you have time AND you fell mildly adventurous, then this is for you. Road 22 from Vallegrande to Ipitá is roughly 200 km but it will take you the better part of two days. It's actually a track for most of the way rather than a road. From Vallegrande you first ascend to 2500 m asl, the it's down to 1600 and up again to 2500, there ate loads of turns and hairpins, fantastic views, lush forests, mud and puddles (depending on the season), shear cliffs, tiny settlements, etc. Be sure to investigate about the conditions before you set out! There are two main obstacles to tackle: crossing the Río Grande on a very small wooden ferry (the call it "ponton") at the location of this marker), and to ford a tributary of said river a few km further on. The key piece of information is that the ferry man is not waiting for you to rock up at the river shore but lives in a settlement some 10 km north of the ferry crossing. He can be contacted by phone to make prior arrangements and negotiate the price (sorry, we don't have the phone number: we actually came up from Ipitá and we're just lucky he was at the ferry anyway …). The ferry itself carries at most 5000 kg. The fording of the tributary further south was no problem for us; the ground was reasonably firm and the water was at most 40 cm deep. After the forfeit it's another 60 km to Ipitá with some narrow bits (we were 2 m wide and 2.8 m high). You will head up to 1100 m before dropping down towards Ipitá. Overall going is slow due to track conditions but feasible even during drizzle like we had it some of the way. Apart from the ferry crossing where you as the vehicle owner assume full responsibility over your vehicle we felt both secure and safe all the way. The reward was to experience a thoroughly unspoilt piece of Bolivia and some beautiful and spectacular landscape.