shipping route S Africa to S America?
 

Does anyone know if there is still a shipping route to transport motorbikes from S Africa to S America?
cheers
Rob

Hi Rob, I flew my bike from Buenos Aires to Capetown for $1100usd on Malaysian Airlines last year. Info is on the shipping pages. A friend of mine shipped his bike on a boat from Buenos Aires to Capetown last year, so it is possible to "boat" your bike. It took 6 weeks and he had a heckuva time getting his bike from the port (he's South African). H.

thanks for the quick reply - time is not an issue - do you have any details of the shipping company your friend took?
cheers
Rob

Hi Rob, time wasn't an issue for my buddy either, that's why he took the boat route. I think he paid $600usd. I'll email him right to now to get the details. I'm eastbound in Siberia at the moment so I might not be able to post the info until Khabarovsk or Vladivostok. I'll do my best! Hook.

Sorry, I know nothing about shipping on that route,
just been following the forum, because I´ll probably need to ship back from SE Asia to Europe after my trip... and $1100usd for airfreight, between continents, actually sounds very cheap!

If its only ~500usd between the boat and the plane, Id be very happy to pay that to get it freighted in a few days instead of several weeks. Maybe handling customs at the airport is smoother, too.

So far Ive been offered around 1000-1200 euro from Thailand to Belgium or Germany on a ship... its a 10 hour flight, so distances should be roughly in the same ballpark as yours. Seems like its well worth to go asking around for airfreight, too.

Hey Pecha, you make some excellent points. Going by air was a no brainer. The bike was simply strapped down on a pallet rather than going through the whole "crate boogy." I had my bike out of South African customs in 15 or 20 minutes. When the bike and I took the boat from Israel to Cyprus, it took over 6 hours to get out of the port in Cyprus- and the port fees cost more than the boat ride! (of course I wasn't told this in Israel!). Rob, I'll forward the info when I get it. H.

Kuehne and Nagel shipping company
 

we shipped from Cape Town to Buenos Aires with no problems at all - all paid in advance so no sneaky 'additions' when we got to the other side! We used a company called Kuehne and Nagel. they have offices in Cape Town.

this was around 2 and half years ago and they were approx 13,000 SAR for our two BMW's. separate crates.

hope this helps.
Lisa

Hi Lisa,

Did you shipp by air or by sea?

shipping by sea
 

this was by sea. it took 15 days including the customs check for the container ship.
we had a carnet still valid when we arrived in Buenos Aires - we know that we didnt need one - but ours was still 'in date' - we found this to be a great advantage.

make sure that if you need help with the docs etc when arriving in BA - contact Javier and Sandra at Dakarmotos. Sandra will (for a very small fee) help you with everything there.....she is great to have around.

You can also stay with them at Dakarmotos. contact them via thier website on DAKAR MOTOS-HOME OF ´OVER-LAND BIKE´ TRAVEL IN SOUTH AMERICA

hope this all helps
Lisa

Great info Lisa.
Thanks a lot.

Try Thutainers
 

I'm currently looking at thrutainers.com for South Africa to Madagascar, but looks like they do South America to.

The price from South Africa to Mada is about $300 in 7 days and most of that cost is the customs paperwork. So it may be possible to do it 25% cheaper. I reckon the 15 days to South America will be about $600