Before building your crate to ship your bike...
 

Hi all,

I want to share with you an experience I got with the police in the process of shipping my bike by boat:

After completing all the paper works and customs checks, my bike was left in a crate in a warehouse in Buenos Aires's port. The mission of shipping my bike was suppose to be over. But the next day, they called me to come back to the warehouse cause the police wanted to look inside my tank to see if there was drugs? So when I arrived there, the top of the box and a big side panel was already removed without any care in not braking the wood, they removed also all the wood and straps securing the bike, they tried to open my tank with a screw drive, scratch my tank's paint.

People working in the warehouse told me that everything inside the crate was put on the floor. Then dogs searched for drugs. My side paniers were unlock so they had access to the contents but otherwise they would have cut all my locks. They were about to open my riding suit with a knife because of a stupid dogs...???


I was going to use screws instead of nails to build my box. But time decided for me to go with nails. If I would have used screws, they would have destroyed my crate to get inside.

So if you build your box, take into consideration that the police may want to open it for drug search and they will not wait hours for someone to remove the screws one by one to have a look inside!!!


And how stupid was the police by calling me to open my tank: if had cocaine in the tank, I would have taken the next plane right away!!!

Patrick

Hey Pat- thats some bad luck. I did not experience the same shipping out of Montevideo by sea.

But in Bolivia, when I sent Amys bike back to the US by plane, I had to wait around the airport until 30 minutes before the place was to be loaded. That is the time when the police and their drug sniffing dogs inspect the crate. Can't be done any earlier, they say.
Cheers,
Rene

Hi Rene!

Yes I had a look at your posts on the shipping section and so far the deal I got in BA is good: 800$US ship to my home town + about 200-250$CAN to pay when I'll go get the bike. This is the total cost with the crate and everything. I will post all the info once I get my bike again.

My passport was also full of stamps and I could not leave Argentina without a new one. Even getting in was a problem because of my "Wet Style Passport". ALWAYS ASK FOR THE MAXIMUM NUMBERS OF PAGES IN A PASSPORT!!!

How is going the planing for your trip in Africa? We can do this off-line...

See you,
Patrick