The plans for our trip south proceed apace. Much of the pleasure of a long road trip lies in the planning of it, and I have been busy these last few days finalising routes, sleeping places, checking daily distances (gravel roads mean we will cover fewer kilometres) and working out where there are (and aren’t) fuel stops. Hard work, but fun.

We have been using Garmin’s RoadTrip and BaseCamp software, set mainly to driving mode but in parts trekking mode when we plan to go somewhere even the Jeep won’t take us. This involves setting up Waypoints all along the route for subsequent export to a Garmin handheld which we can use in the Jeep as a SatNav. At least, that’s the idea.

I have enormous respect for the Argentine Garmin community who through http://www.proyectomapear.com.ar have set up Argentina_Mapear_905_4776, an open source tool that brings together the experience and expertise of hundreds of trekkers, off roaders and travellers, that loads directly onto the Garmin Basemap for Argentina – the finished journeys can be dropped (with tracks, routes and waypoints) straight into Google Earth or exported to a Garmin or TomTom handheld or vehicle Satnav.