shipping to caracas

[julchen]

Hi there!
we want to ship 2 motorbikes to caracas from germany and I can´t find much info. Has anyone done that before and can tell me what they experienced?
thanx! Julia

[MillsRoadsurfer]

HI

Shipped from Rotterdam to Caracas in 2002. Cost me two weeks and a lot off hassle and $ to get my bike out of the port. Oke once you know what papers to get you maybe do it in a week. But this takes a week to find out. Gettting my bike out of the harber cost me more than shipping. Buenos Aires and Santiago are the best ports in South America, (one day) I Also shipped to Lima once, (4 days) For Lima and Caracs it was nessecary to speak good spanish

goodluck

[Homer Susan]

Two or three years ago I shipped my bike from Panama to Carcas airfrieght and it was an expensive hassle. I wrote about it on this site... look under shipping... Alfredo Curiel was my liason in Caracas... he speaks good english and did help a number of Aussie friends who shipped their bikes by sea from panama... I think they has a bunch of trouble as well...
... Anyway, on the whole, things are a lot easier to get done in Argentina and you don't have to bribe there either...just make sure you get Argentinian insurance before you go pick up the bike... they didn't let me take my bike out of the airport without it.... the bike wasn't even running at the time! a/ny way the famous Javier and Sandra at Dakar Motos can help you sort it all out. They are simply fabulous.

If you can't find Alfredo's info under the shipping section... write me an email and I will try and dig it up.

Cheers and happy planning
Sue

[Big Red]

Hi Susan,
Yep, I'm one of the Aussies who Susan was talking about, and seafreight into Caracas is a nightmare. Just getting it out of the harbour is expensive. At one point we were thrown out of the Customs building because there's a dress code and we were wearing shorts.
Airfeight into anywhere but Venezuela!

[Vorteks]

Taking the bike out of Buenos Aires harbor can take some time and can be expensive too...800 dollars for the container (divide by the number of bikes) and for us one week of running from the import office to the customs and the harbor. If you didn t manage to fill in all the papers within one week it will cost you even more (storing fees).

It seems that it s way easier when you air freighted it, since it s the freight company that takes care of all the paper work.

Santiago might be less of a hassle, since it has the most efficient administration in South America.

[julchen]

Hi there! thanks so much for the info! so it seems caracas is out of the question. I do speak spanish quite well but I don´t know if it´s worth the hassle. We have 4 months and don´t want to waste any time with some customs official.....
thing is - we really wanted to try part of the transamazonica. Have you heard of any decent shipping options in Brazil?
thanks again!
julchen

[PeerG]

Hi, are you still planning to ship bikes from Germany to SA? When do you want to do this? And from where to where? I might want to get one bike (or maybe two) to SA, probably April/May 2008. I haven't really looked into this in details, but I read it can be cheaper to share a container.

[julchen]

hi PeerG-

no, sorry- I´m jumping the gun a bit researching for the trip but we´re not leaving ´til 2009. In case you know of anyone wanting to share a container then - pass them on!
julchen

[Ekki]

Hi Julia,

are you still planning to ship to caracas?
Me and my family will start in two weeks, the bikes are on their way. We are trying to contact Alfredo Curiel. Do you want info, when we had done customs?

We got 12 months to spend in SA, maybe we'll meet there.

Greetings,
Ekkehard

Originally Posted by julchen

Hi there!
we want to ship 2 motorbikes to caracas from germany and I can´t find much info. Has anyone done that before and can tell me what they experienced?
thanx! Julia

[julchen]

hallo ekkehard!

we´ve actually had to postpone our trip a bit (hope to start next year and then for 12 months, too)
but yesssssss! once you´ve survived customs that would be really great if you could tell me about your experiences!!

good luck and a great trip to you and your family!
do you have a website or something where we can follow your tour?

julia

[Ekki]

Hello Julchen,

the bikes have already arrived in Caracas and our flight is going tomorrow morning. I'll keep you informed about our progress with the customs.

Our website is Südamerika Reisebericht der Familie Lange

Regards,
Ekki

[Ekki]

Hello Julchen,

Alfredo Curiel did not only a good job, he helped us a lot in the first days so we had a good start. We dont have to do anything with the formalities and got the bikes out of the harbour within two days. I strongly recomment him.

Tipp: When you go to Venezuela, bring cash for your whole stay. There is a black market, where you get twice the money than the official rate. If I had known that, it would have saved me a lot of money.

Good luck with your Trip,
Ekki