Does anyone have experience with getting a motorcycle from South America to Central America via boat? Looking for info such as cost and time and any other hoops to jump through. Is it important what country the bike is from. I am an American male and I only speak English

Thanks

If you type "Darien Gap" into the search box at top right of this page you'll have enough information, hypothesizing, speculation, opinionating, pontificating, wildly-optimistic predictions, and actual trip reports to last several lifetimes. That includes current costs (north of US$1000 for most--but not all--options) and other such.

There are very few places in the world where the nationality of your bike matters in any way, and this is not one of them. If you try hard enough you might find situations in South America where, for example, it's difficult to get a Peruvian, Chilean, or Agentinian bike across a given border, but there's always a workaround.

You'll definitely find it handy to learn some basic Spanish (and Portuguese in Brazil), but your English will carry you through even if you stubbornly do not.

You're also going to find that most of the questions you want answered early in your planning process have been asked and answered previously, often in great detail. That search function--or Google using the prefix "site:horizonsunlimited" before your search terms--will serve you well.

Hope that's helpful.

Mark

Stahlratte or Wildcard are ships that carries motorbikes over the Darian Gap. Search vi Google or Facebook and you will find...

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In the end everything will be fine. If its not fine its not the end....

There are also some panga and banana boat options.

Just be careful on choosing any Panga's, not an easy crossing, do your due diligence,

I took the "Rat" down, not cheap, but safe and hassle free,
I flew my moto back, from Bogota, $1000, consider that cheap.
Depends on your time and money,
Be safe

I think this is a general problem.
The problem is not to find information.
But to find useful information

What is the use of
=
hypothesizing, speculation, opinionating, pontificating, wildly-optimistic predictions,
=
...
People that guess, think, hope, have heard rumors....how it was ling time ago...

Well, yes. That's my way of suggesting to the OP that all information be taken with a grain of salt. To take an obvious example, the many, many credulous posts about the so-called ferries, one of which never showed up in the Caribbean, another of which grounded and was abandoned after an ill-fated trip or two.

It's not difficult to figure out what information is current and reliable, and the OP will have to make this determination whether relying on answers in this thread or the results of internet searches (or, in a changing world, guidebooks).

Mark

Hi
The alternative approach is to take a local boat.
The starting point is a 3h trip from Necocli to Capurgana. Then 8-9 h trip from Capurgana to Puerto de Carti (including 3 h of paperwork at the Panama border in Puerto Obaldia).
This only available in summer (starting around in May) due to the horrible see waves in the winter.
The contact is Silvio, he is from Switzerland and manages the small Hotel Capurgana in Capurgana.
If You wish You can ask for overnight stay in one of the beautiful islands en route.
Ziggy

Definitely do not do the above posted route for a magnitude of reasons. Ie, non trustworthy captains, drug smuggling route, drug smuggling port towns, illegal goods, non ocean worthy boat, bike will get broken, almost dropped into ocean, no dock in Capurgina, stupid regulations, etc, etc.

My advice is to not pay for crossing the Darien Gap with a motorcycle. If you do cross it, don't be cheap, because if you take the cheap option it will still end up costing you the same as safe/reliable crossing in the end.

I think for most North Americans doing this trip, the overall goal is to ride every single mile from home to Tierra del Fuego possible. If you have budget constraints than I'm going to let you in on a secret. Riding the Southern half of Argentina down to Tierra del Fuego is miserable. The landscape there is like Wyoming, and like Wyoming there are huge winds and sketchy weather. The last 300 miles of the tip where Tierra del Fuego is, is really nice, but trust me that it is a way better value to just take an airplane flight from Buenos Aires to Ushaia to see this incredibly small area of forest. If your bike has a break down in Southern Argentina, which it probably will if it is not a KLR than you will be out lots of dollars and time because the Southern half of Argentina is sparsely populated.

The Darien Gap is another expense laden and unnecessary portion of the trip. A far better solution is to just divide the 2 separate continents into separate trips. For your future trip to South America just plan on buying another Hubb travelers bike in Buenos Aires and exploring South America. There are 3 ways for a foreigner to purchase a used motorcycle in South America: #1. Legal, #2 Semi-legal, and #3 illegal.

I recommend doing it the #2 way which involves photoshop and a foreigner's bike. You have to remember that you are buying a foreign bike to the country that has already been legally imported into that country. Why should you have to pay to legally import the same bike a second time into that country when your plan is to just leave anyway? Also remember that carrying insurance is a legal requirement in most of these countries, but it is extremely easy to still get the insurance on the new to you bike and if you do get into an accident, the latin american insurance company is likely to make the same claim payout either way.

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http://www.journeyrider.net Latin America blog (07-8)

Well....people do take the local boats, mostly on the gulf side but occasionally on the Pacific side. Some crow about it, and some don't. Most of the stories I've heard claim it's a lot cheaper that way.

Gatogato, did you ship a bike around the Darien? It's not so bad, really. The only firsthand story I heard about a bike dropped in the water was by the Stahlratte, though I'm sure it happens elsewhere. It was a BMW, and the brakes would cut out completely at odd intervals after that. The owner didn't seem as perturbed as I was.

I brought my own bike, rode it both directions to/from the US, and never regretted it. Time constraints, money constraints, convenience, comfort and familiarity: everyone finds their own balance.

Another data point for the OP: I, for one, was not miserable on that stretch thru Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego. I don't mind Wyoming, either. The bicyclists I met did seem rather miserable when headed into the winds. That's why they say YMMV.

Mark

fI took the Colon to Puerto Obaldia, Puerto Obaldia to Sapzurro/ Capurgina, Sapzurro to Turbo route. (me and the bike)

I think most of the motorcycle Darien travelers on here do their research about crossing the Gap and decide that paying the big money to cross with an established sailboat captain is the best way to go. That or flying your bike from Panama to Colombia.

The only way I would ever take a local boat again is if I was 25, riding a KLR, and in a group of 3-4 other motorcyclists taking the same boat.

If you take a local boat you are going to get put in a lot of bad situations. You will have to manage the loading and unloading of your bike multiple times throughout the journey. It is a bad idea to be transferring your bike on and off, on and off boats so many times. Something on the bike will get damaged. The dock heights will not match up with the boat. Sapzurro and Colombia are two tiny landlocked Colombian villages. Sapzurro has a dock that can handle a 40 ft boat, but unfortunately there is no harbor, so a big storm will wipe out the wood dock until it gets rebuilt. If there is no dock, than you have to manage 4-5 Panamanian laborers who are earning $1 a day and get them to unload your bike in 4-5 ft swells into a small lancha 15 ft boat. The lancha guys in Sapzurro are complete lazy a-holes and they will refuse to get old tires for the lancha so your bike does not have to bounce up and down on wood planks in 4-5 ft seas as the lancha takes your bike into the town. These lazy lancha guys know that they have a complete monopoly on their service and they will try their best to rip you off multiple times while they are busy damaging your bike.

Once you make it to Sapzurro, you have to wait a few days for the boat that takes you to Turbo. Before you go to Turbo, your bike need's to be inspected by someone who lives in Capurgina. The village of Capurgina is ridiculously close to Sapzurro, but there is no road to get there, so you have to get the lancha guys to take you over there and back and go through the same shitty scenario that I talked about before with the tires and banging your rotors on the edge of the dock.

Each time you have take the lancha they charge you $30 and $5-$10 to lift the bike on and off the lancha. Once you reach Colombia you will realize that you made a horrible choice and paying the extra $500 was incredibly worth it.

I was really lucky because there was a 40 year old German backpacker on my boat who spoke fluent Spanish and was a rider himself. I still remember him and I hanging on to my F650 for dear life when it almost fell into the ocean when it was being lowered between the dock and the boat.

Bad events that happened on the trip:

1. The first mate got us stuck on a sandbar dangerously close to land.

2. The engine broke down while at sea.

3. The bilge pump stopped working and there was 2 ft of water on deck while at sea.

4. There was a bad storm.

5. There was a huge pig tied up next to my bike, and he kicked my motorcycle the whole way.

6. The cook for the trip was sick and did not come. It was the worst food. Chicken hearts, etc, etc.

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http://www.journeyrider.net Latin America blog (07-8)

I don't agree withe the post above.
There are a few basics before you agree for any kind of "trip". You have to ask for costs before Your trip not after that.
I used the local boat option last year and everything was agreed. I rent a local boat and there was no need to load\unload many times. You have to load once your boat when started the trip and unload when arrived to Panama.
Everything was included and I hadn't to take care of anything.

I'm glad it worked out for you, but I think you are giving other riders bad advice. You barely described anything about your trip. What was the route that you took? What nationality are you? I think you are naive to expect to get an honest answer from one of these smuggling captains about the overall cost of the trip or the timeline. Did you feel that Turbo, Colombia was a safe town?

For every success story there are about 5 horror stories. Most of these local captains who run smuggled goods up and down a known drug smuggling route do not have great ethics.

Note: You may have lucked out and got a local boat that was making a direct trip. The schedules of the local boats varies and is not very regular. I think I had to wait 2 weeks for the boat I took. It was a bad decision to not go with my 2 other motorcycle friends who paid the $1200 to do the trip with a reputable sailboat captain. In that 2 weeks of waiting I'm sure I blew through a sizable sum of money.

I just remember another bad thing about the trip:

1. My passport got soaked in Sapzurro. I can't remember exactly why I had to wade through waist deep water. It must have been something about the dock being out.

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http://www.journeyrider.net Latin America blog (07-8)

Hi
The cross Darien boat trip was part of my Tour de Americas trip. I made a trip NYC->Alaska->Patagonia->Guyanas->NYC

I didn't talk to any boat captains directl yetc. when arranging the trip and didn't use any regular\scheduled boat. I worked with Silvio (as mentioned in my initial post) who knows a reliable boat owner. The main reason is that I don't speak Spanish too much and English is not widely spoken there
The boat is small, enough only for one motorbike.
In Puerto Obaldia I met another small boat heading in opposite direction with two light enduro bike from Argentina, they had easier task as spoke Spanish

I'm from Poland