Egypt to Europe Roro Woes

[thedude400]

Howdy folks. Been taking advantage of the info here for a LONG time, but just having to make my first post today. You guys are amazing.

I'm a U.S. volunteer living in Lesotho, hoping to take a one-way trip on some old modified Suzuki Bandit 400s up to Egypt come January. Planning about 3 months up to Egypt with 2 other young volunteers. It's an ambitious undertaking, our biggest obstacle of course, being our volunteer salary.

I was told by the AA of South Africa that selling the bikes in Egypt would be positively imossible, unless we wanted to forfeit the carnet deposit, which unfortunately isn't an option for us. I, like many others, made the admittedly dim-witted mistake of assuming the Alexandria-Venice ferry would be running again come october. As selling the bikes in europe would be much easier, I told myself our plan was made. Suddenly, with Visemar pulling out of Egypt, the ground has fallen out from my feet and I'm trying to assemble other options.

Our budget is tight, so i'm trying to analyze all our options to decide what would be best for a plan B. Unfortunately, we do have Budget and Time constraints, so traveling overland to europe isn't an option.

My questions:
1. If we did decide to RoRo the bikes to Italy and fly ourselves, how much could we expect to spend on 3 400cc bikes and ourselves?
2. How difficult would it be to sell the bikes in Israel?
3. Can you seed some other ideas and give recommendations as to how we could sell the bikes before returning home from our journey?

Thanks to you all in advance. Living in the mountains, internet access is limited, but i'll try to check in as often as possible. Cheers.

[Squire]

Welcome to the HUBB!

I very much liked Lesotho back in 2005, will return on a bike one of these days.

A relatively cheap option would be for you to crate the bikes together and share the cost for shipping to wherever you wish to continue, not expensive from here and plenty of forwarders to select from. I assume this would be the most economical way to go about it.

Otherwise you could possibly get the CDPs stamped out when selling the bikes here (Egypt) if delivery takes place through a custom broker -- let's say in the international zone at the port for example. Trouble is selling three bikes at once, this would not be easy. It would then be for the buyer to proceed with import procedures, painful really. Been there, done that, got lucky I guess.

By the time you'll be in Egypt, maybe you'll decide to keep riding..

[thedude400]

Thanks! Great info there, squire. Could you by chance give a rough estimate as to how much crating 3 bikes to Italy would be?

Heck, while i'm exploring all my options, i might as well go all out. Can anyone give a rough guess or tell me who to contact to find out how much shipping the bikes from Egypt to the U.S. is? My guess is it's a little out of our price range, but it's worth asking about.

Folks at Grimaldi gave the likeable option of shipping from Israel to Italy on a 5-day passenger RoRo. Why are more people not discussing this on the Visemar alternates forums? Israel is a lot closer than Tunis! Cost is 1792euro for 3 men and their bikes, or about 822usd/person. It's doable for us, so it's nice to know that safety net is there.

Cheers!

[Squire]

I guess it would cost the wood + your time for putting a crate together. I trust by living in Lesotho some time you'll know how to get a few pieces of wood together..

Then the paper work in Egypt x3, aouch. I assume between 100 and 200 USD each incl -- if lucky -- back-shish, etc, etc, etc, and there many etc.. port handing for the crate, insurance, about 100 USD max, and shipping, this is the cheap part. You have to factor in handing port fees at destination as well. Some countries have a terrible reputation.

The only trouble here is the choice of destination. On some it is easy for forwarders to group stuff from different customers and load a container all together then split the cost++ more or less, but on some other destinations, this becomes more difficult, hence delays are encountered while the container is filled, not a terrible situation if you are not waiting for your bike at the other end, but still, it takes time, one may count in weeks if not months. In my case I eventually decided to cover for a container on my own to carry stuff abroad because I needed it.

My advise, just ride up to Egypt and find a way when you get here, use your McGiver's skills and get on with it. You'll find a trusty and reliable HUBBER friend on this forum who will help you if you need, but hey man, after crossing the continent and having dealt with some more important practical problems, this will become the easiest part.. Ride on!