Advice from anyone who's bought a bike in Chile and toured S. Am. please!
 

I am wondering if I messed up leaving Chile! (but hopefully just being paranoid)

I was quite preoccupied at the Aduana in SPdA, Chile when I was leaving as I was thinking about how difficult the off-road was going to be for me on the way to Uyuni (it was fine).

I've looked at my paperwork today and have only one sheet of paper left that I was given that day, which is the one I need to return the bike to Chile from Bolivia. It is quite specific about Bolivia.

I am going to Peru next though, and want to return to Chile from there. I don't think I explained that to the Aduana.

Should I have more/different paperwork?
Will they care when I get back to Chile (from Peru)?
Should I just pop back to Chile from La Paz or am I being overcautious?

I don't want to mess anything up with Chile as I want to return in the future.

Any advice/experiences gratefully recieved!
(I have tried the search function)

Cheers!
Eddie.

What country issued your "one sheet of paper:" Bolivia, or Chile?

What does it actually say?

(I think you're misinterpreting, but I'm prepared to be wrong.)

Mark

paperwork
 

Hola Eddie,

pls give us more information about your case, where is your bike registered? what paper do you have (from Chile or Bolivia)? did you go to the Bolivian aduana/customs (which is about 50kms from the border you entered)?

just to be clear. when you import a bike to any SA country you are given a TIP temporary import permit (one sheet of paper) and this you will have to return when you leave the country. if your bike is registered in any SA country it could be that by law you will have to return the bike to that country within a certain time/or you are not even allowed to leave.

enjoy your journey
saludos de Medellin Colombia
mika

When we left Chile for Argentine on a Chilean registered bike, we were given a piece of paper to hand in when we returned to Chile. It did not matter that it was to be Peru or Bolivia. I think that is the paper you have.

And anyway, the Chilean aduana are very realistic.

Thanks for the replies!

Sorry I didn't give all the relevant info:

I bought the bike in Chile, and it's registered in my name with my own RUT no.

The paper I was given is called something like: "Acuerdo Chileno - Boliviano. Temporal permision salida y entrada vehiculos"
I was given it in triplicate at the San Pedro de Atacama Aduana, upon leaving Chile.

I did go to the Aduana in Bolivia, which is 88km away from the Hito Cajones border where I crossed (why is it so far, and stuck out in the middle of nowhere?). The guy there appears to have kept two of the copies.
The Bolivian Aduana did not give me any paperwork there. No lasser passer, no TIP. They only took two of the pieces given to me by Chilean Aduana.

It has four boxes across the bottom to be stamped by relevant authorities. Two are stamped already, by Aduana leaving Chile and Aduana entering Bolivia. The two left are for leaving Bolivia again and entering Chile.

If the Chilean aduana are realistic then I'm sure I will be fine. I was mainly scared because it's so specific about being Bolivian.

So i did pretty much exactly what you described in March 2012, with my Pulsar 180. I bought it in Santiago de Chile and I was chilean owner with the temporary rut they gave me....

You should have at least one copy left, which is for whenever you bring the bike back into Chile. I actually still have mine even though im back in europe, but then again my bike is inbetween Belize and Guatemala (nomansland) at the moment so it probably wont be a problem even if it ever sees chile again.

The customs between SpdA and Uyuni ... well.. its a complete disaster.

They have no clue what theyre doing or what theyre supposed to do and theres nobody that ever tells them otherwise. I am from germany and they checked their lists for the visa. the customs guy asked me whether I was from east germany or west germany....

In the end I got my "Visa" bike papers for driving in bolivia... they were the argentinian ones even with the argentinian flag on it and everywhere where it said argentina or the name of the bordercrossing he crossed them out and wrote "bolivia" etc. next to it.

I told him that since this is an official document and kinda important to me Id really rather have one that has the countries right name on it. He told me I can have this or nothing since he didnt have any other ones.

I had shitloads of trouble getting out of bolivia (thru copacabana) months later, and the only thing that saved me was the bolivian stamp and the signature (probably less the signature) at the bottom of the page.

At first I was being charged with being in the country illegally, which is 20 Bolivianos per day. Thats not too much, but for your bike it is 200 Bolivianos per day. So alltogether he asked me for 6600 Bolivianos which is like 800 USD.

I ended up gettin thru without paying any of that but ... it coulda gone any other way as well. Then again I never needed any of the paperwork in the country itself. I got stopped countless times though. Especially closer to the brazilian border theres the army stopping every foreigner, but they seem to have no idea what exactly theyre supposed to ask for. (20 year olds with their most senior being about 22) if they wouldnt have guns n blocked the road you would probably be better off to just keep going. They usually only want a bribe of about 10 bs which is a dollar n some. So thats not too bad.

All i can say is if you intend to enter bolivia thru a crossing like that (and you probably know that you are technically not allowed to leave chile with the bike through any other crossing, since its the only one between chile and bolivia). you better make sure that you have good paperwork if you want to leave going thru a border like copacabana, which has a lot of traffic. pretty much all tourists go through here and they will tryn squeeze as much out of you as they can, even if it the ****up came pretty clearly from their side of the desk.

Strange, I have been through the Copa border 3 times now and not hand any problems there.

The 3rd time was to actually return to Bolivia when Peru would not accept the bike. No hassles at all.

And never any queues there either.

Well, I went thru Copacaban once in June, and it was more or less fast even though I had to wait over twou hours for the customs guy to finish his lunchbreak, and then again about 3 weeks later coming back into Bolivia, not too long either, but I never said that it took long, I just said that they try to get money off you if you dont know exactly what you need or actually miss something.

After that I went back thru Desaguadero (a bit north, other side of the lake pretty much) and it was much smoother, but thats just my experience I guess.

Eek!

So was I supposed to get a Temporary Import Paper from the Aduana guy who stamped and took the paperwork which Chile gave me?

I'm in Copacabana now, so will get to the border in a few days once i've been out to Isla del Sol.

I think I'll just not get any money out here and therefore not have anything to give them if they want to charge me...

Thanks for all the replies!

paperwork
 

Hola Eddie,

as I could understand out of your post:

you have an entry stamp for Bolivia from Bolivian aduana, yes it is not a TIP, but you got a stamp and maybe a date next to it, if not, there is a date in your passport.

As m22e wrote

he had also some kind of paper proving that he entered Bolivia and he had an aduana stamp. Yes, he had trouble leaving, because he did not pay ...

so, if you leave in few days, show them what you got, that proves you have been to the aduana when you entered ... and DONT PAY :nono: not even a small amount, just wait and talk.

Because if you pay it will just make it more difficult for everyone coming after you !!!

enjoy, it is part of the adventure :scooter:

saludos desde colombia
mika

I had the "lunch" break thing as well back in 2011 :-). In our case he saw us coming, shut up shop and ran off 10 minutes early :-)

Its not as easy as not taking money out so you dont have to pay. Im just saying but as soon as you give them your "paperwork" your password will go into their drawer, and you wont get it back until theyre satisfied. Either talk to them, get the police next door involved (though dont expect too much help from them) and just dont admit to making any mistakes.

They know that a lot of people from their customs regularly screw things up so they already likely think that you had done everything right, they just try and convince you that you didnt.

Last time I passed through a Vespa scooter was in the customs building including camping equipment and so on. Had colombian license plates and I asked whose it was and why it was there. The guy apparently overstayed his visa and then couldnt pay the fine, and not even enough to bribe his way out.

Ah well, good luck in any case, and if you get into Peru with no problem than getting back into Chile shouldnt be much of a problem. In the worst case you just sign your bike out of Peru, and then sneak into Chile without doing any visawork for your bike, but only for yourself. Neither Peru nor Chile write anything into your passport (unlike pretty much all central american countries and Venezuela etc.).

Mark

Well, it turns out I'm an idiot! The segundo copia of my temporal transito paper was in a different bag, with my photocopies. So I had everything I was supposed to.

The border was the quickest and simplest I've encountered on a moto. All officials nice and very quick. No tips/bribes/anything suggested.

10 mins behind queue at imigracion on Boli side.
1 min at aduana on Boli side (seriously!).
5 mins making photos with Peru logo at border.
5 mins imigracion Peru side.
15 mins aduana Peru side.

I didn't talk to Police either side, the Peru Aduana said it didn't matter.

One brilliant point was being finished before I started due to the time difference - Started 9 a.m. Boli time and finished before 8.40 a.m. Peru time!

Recommend this crossing around Copacabana/Yunguyo thoroughly for a northern Bolivia/southern Peru crossing.