From Bissau, Guinea-Bissau to Oslo, Norway - February, 2012

After having completed the Budapest-Bamako Rally (destination Bissau), we decided to ship our bikes home from Bissau. 3 scooters and 2 ATV's fit nicely into a 20foot container.

Regarding the price: Initially the quote was NOK 20000 included norwegian port fees, but excluding the fees in Bissau as these where not known. Adding up all the extra costs, we ended up at approx NOK 28000 in total. Read on for more details.

Bissau:
Once the bikes were loaded into the container we were charged € 1500 in various port fees, export taxes and other stuff. We do not know if this was a 'white man's tax' or if it was a legit thing. But it was a lot more than we had expected. The same fees in Norway (one of the most expensive countries in the world) would amount to about NOK 1600 (or about € 200). It took us two days, going from office to office and involving the ministry of transport and the big boss of the port to get those € 1500 reduced to about € 350.

To this day we still do not know what the actual price should have been. What is clear is that the Guinean governement imposed some new export taxes as of 01/01/12. 50€ per motorcycle and 50€ per container. This was in addition to the regular port fees. There was some confusion as to wether we were exporting the bikes or if they were 'in transit' as they all had Norwegian licence plates.

Had we known there would be this much hassle involved, we would have shipped from Dakar in stead. However, it could have been that someone was trying to rip us off or it could have been the confusion around the new taxes.

Las Palmas:
Once the container was unloaded at Las Palmas on the Canary Islands, the port authorities there demanded an inspection. Presumably checking for illegal immigrants, as the port in Bissau isn't particularily secure. This we had to pay an additional € 250 for.

Oslo:
In the norwegian end we ended up having to book a lorry to move the container from the port to a private adress as the port was closed to the public and we were not allowed to empty it there. This cost an additional €400

For five bikes the price wasn't that bad. From Dakar it would probably have been cheaper, but it would have involved a whole lot more riding. Sorting out the port fees in Bissau was a lot of hassle, but I do think it was worth it once we got the cost down by more than a 1000 euros.