From Toronto, Canada to Havana, Cuba - December, 2006

I wish to thank several people for the excellent job they did.
In Canada - Roberto Martinez from ITN in Mississauga, ON
In Cuba - Brito, operations manager for Caribe Cargo at the Havana airport and his assistant Lionel who worked tirelessly to help me with custom clearance.
Antonio J. Aguilera Sanchez
-director of operations for Caribe Cargo in Havana who monitored the whole operation.

Importing a bike to Cuba is strictly limited by Cuban Customs to 30 day period, with a possible one extension of another 30 days. An extension must be applied for, a week before the end of the first 30 days period. My own trip was for 25 days only so I didn't opt for an extension.

The bike, KTM 950 was shipped on a open wooden skid (originally used for Moto Guzzi). I strapped the bike down with 6 straps.

Prior to shipping the bike, it had to be approved by a Dangerous Goods Consultant (DGC). The only requirement was that the gas in tank would be less than quarter full.Easy. That only took a few minutes and cost $85.-

The bike was shipped with Freight forwarder ITN, via Cubana Airlines from Toronto and handled in Havana by Caribe Cargo. BTW, Cubana is the only airline that can handle such shipments to Cuba out of Canada.

The clearance process in Havana was divided into two parts. 1) Custom clearance 2) transit police.
It took two days to clear customs, and another day to register the bike at the transit police.
Abundant patience is required from anyone attempting to bring a motorcycle into Cuba. All the officials are polite and friendly. The process however is lengthy and convoluted. Lionel from Caribe Cargo was instrumental in securing the clearance of the bike from customs. The registration of the bike at the transit police in Havana I had to do by myself without any assistance. That took another full day. The nice thing though is that I could get my bike out of customs and ride it to the police (with my ontario plate).
Again, patience is the name of the game.