Shipping to Brazil

[pierresas]

Planning a RTW trip, I'm looking for information about shipping a bike from Capetown to Rio de Janeiro. I saw several reports about shipping to Buenos Aires from Capetown or other places, but never to Rio. In fact, there isn't a single report on shipping to/from Brazil. Why is that? Is it much more expensive? On the map, Rio seems to be a much better starting point in South-America than Buenos Aires: from there, you can ride all the way down the Atlantic coast and then up the Pacific coast.

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Pierre
http://www.geocities.com/skypie999/bikes/

[pierresas]

Here is a response I received by email. It doesn't seem like a good idea to ship to or from Brazil...
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I have been travelling in south America for 5 months, I asked the question
about shipping from Brasil no one had done it so I have shipped my bike. It
has taken one month of paper work and the bike is still held up in San
Paulo, I have changed the point of delivery to Canada from Miami. I also
have got my embassy involved in the process. The folks at DHL have been
very nice and are trying very hard but the customs in Brasil are paperwork
oriented, I wouldn't advise shipping into Brasil as your bike could be tied
up in customs for a very long time. I met another biker who shipped his
bike in and after 6 months he found the compound where it was been held and
literaly stole from there. Go through Argentina and then ride into Brasil
land border crossing was easy, but insist on them doing the paperwork to get
your bike in, as they may just wave you through once your passport has been
stamped.

[Susan Johnson]

Hi Pierre

Ted Simon sent us a note in response to this month's newsletter comment on this topic:

"Hi Grant,
Someone in your ezine is complaining that you can't fly a bike into Brasil. Of course it can be awful, but anyone who cares to go to my journal for September 3rd will find complete - to the point of stifling - instructions on how to get a bike into Rio in 2 or 3 days. They should just scroll down to Part Two, unless they're flying from
South Africa, in which case they need to suffer through the whole thing.

The URL is www.jupitalia.com/sep_txt_3.html
You do run a lovely show.
Ted"

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Susan Johnson

'One world, two wheels'
www.HorizonsUnlimited.com