The Bede
Registered user
Re-Patriating a Bike from Buenos Aires
You’ve had your touring fun and it’s time to pack up and go home. If you’ve got a foreign (non-Argentine) motorcycle on a temporary tourist import permit, you’ll need to export it. There are options: -
Sea Freight – There are also options: -
1 - Un-accompanied, which provides the cheapest basic freight cost - BsAs to Europe $400. Shipping time is four weeks plus ‘handling’ time.
But you need to use an agent to handle all the customs and port administration, of which there is a lot in Buenos Aires and plenty of palms need greasing. A commercial agent can easily increase the $400 to $1,200.
I recommend contacting Dakar Motos, who can help find the better deals: -
Javier or Sandra
Dakar Motos, Carlos Tejador 1379, C.P.1604CLA Florida, Vicente Lopez
+54 11 4730 0586 www.dakarmotos.com [email protected]
An English speaking commercial sea freight agent: -
Patricio Moore
Cargo SA. Sarmiento 1190, Piso 8º. (C1041AAX).Capital Federal,
Republica Argentina - Tel. (05411) 5252-9050 (Líneas Rotativas)
www.Cargo-sa.com
Expect to pay in cash only – Pesos, or US Dollars
When your bike arrives in Europe you will have port and customs documentation charges to pay. For minimum pain use the freight agent who exported your machine
2008 UK Charges Handling - £25.00 per cubic metre (typical 2.5cubes), £75.00 terminal fees, £65.00 agents fee – Total £212.50 typical
If you do not have an exporting agent James Cargo can help in the UK: -
James Cargo Services Ltd (01753) 687722 ext 216
9 Galleymead Road, Colnbrook, Slough SL3 0EN
www.jamescargo.com
Roddy Warriner, Giles Ernsting or Stephen
Containerised sea freighting will require your bike to be palletised. You will need to remove the pallet from the port of arrival even if you propose to ride the bike out of the docks.
2 – Hand-baggage, ride on and ride off a Ro-Ro transporter, with your bike as personal baggage. Take in a leisurely four week cruise back home, or to your next destination. You will pay a pretty cheap price for the bike, but more for yourself as the accompanying passenger. Grimaldi lines offer a regular service, with a boat every 10 days or so and well regarded on board service.
www.grimaldi-freightercruises.com
Buenos Aires Agent: -
Ines Charpentier
J.E. Turner y Cia
Reconquista 575 4th Floor, Cap Federal Buenos Aires C1003ABK
+54 11 4312 6891
www.turner.com.ar
2008 Prices BsAs to Tilbury –
1 Passenger from 1,890Euro each
2 Passengers sharing a cabin from 1,350Euro each
Bike 320Euro
Expect to pay in cash only – Pesos or US Dollars, don’t know if Euros are acceptable
You may need to grease a few dock-side palms to get you and your bike to the ship.
As a Ro-Ro customer, you should not pay any fees on landing in Europe, just ride it off the boat, present yourself to customs and if all is in order ride away.
Air Freight
When you factor in the costs of using a freight forwarder to handle your sea freight, the speed and convenience of air-freight starts to make more and more sense. Two ways of going about it: -
Use a freight agent, Patricio Moore at Cargo SA can certainly help: -
Cargo SA. Sarmiento 1190, Piso 8º. (C1041AAX).Capital Federal,
Republica Argentina - Tel. (05411) 5252-9050 (Líneas Rotativas)
www.Cargo-sa.com
Depending which airline the bike is scheduled to leave with you may have to do a lot of off-site pre-preparation. Notarised copies of almost every document known to man will be required, including your own ticket to leave Argentina. I was quoted a ‘deliver and forget’ price $1,475.00. That got me the best air freight price, but it was massively inflated with Agents handling fees for everything.
You may have to pre-crate your bike off-site and ship it with all fuel and oil removed, battery disconnected and reduced tyre pressures. This could take some organising, but Dakar Motos can help as always: -
Javier or Sandra
Dakar Motos, Carlos Tejador 1379, C.P.1604CLA Florida, Vicente Lopez
+54 11 4730 0586 www.dakarmotos.com [email protected]
Specialist bike transport service (Spanish speaking only)
Franco – 15 5150 9639 or 15 6397 2689 (both mobile)
Recommended to me by Cordasco Motohaus BMW. I used him and found him properly equipped and apparently trustworthy. A cross BsAs pick-up and delivery cost me 100Pesos ($30), pricey by local standards but Franco knows what he’s doing
Buy/Fly Direct negotiate your own freight charges and drive directly into Ezeiza and hand your bike over to the airline. I used Lufthansa cargo, but Iberia, Alitalia, United, Martinair, Air France and others all have some form of BsAs freight operations.
Call around to see who’s interested. Visit the downtown offices of which ever airline you’ve spoken to, or even just turn up on spec. I’d called a couple including Lufthansa and had quotes from an agent. Martinair were surprisingly unhelpful although I’d met one of their pilots who claimed to have flown cars, so I assumed bikes would be no problem.
Anyway, your airline office can make a booking for you and tell you their basic procedure and price. Cargo rate will be plus fuel and ‘dangerous cargo’ surcharges.
Consign your bike to your freight agent in UK, or your home destination. If you use the agent who originally exported your bike, they can re-use that paperwork to smooth the return journey. I used James Cargo
James Cargo Services Ltd (01753) 687722 ext 216
9 Galleymead Road, Colnbrook, Slough SL3 0EN
www.jamescargo.com
Roddy Warriner, Giles Ernsting or Stephen
Quoted rates
Admin Processing £55
Clearance 16p per kg
Transport to Depot 5p per kg, (£20 min charge)
You want some kind of ‘get me into the airport’ paperwork, and a number (Pesos, Dollars, Euros). I got a booking slip and $1,400 for 250Kg, but I’d actually bought a minimum half-ton, 500Kg, because that’s what they do with bikes. Obviously I used that as licence to pack as much of my riding gear as possible onto the bike.
Get your shit and your cash together.
Ride the bike and your gear to the terminal with just a dripful of fuel left in it. Follow the signs that say ‘export’ until you reach the first set of clearly marked rising arm barriers in front of the Cargo Terminal. Park up out front of the adjacent buildings and present yourself to your airline office with the paperwork you picked up from downtown.
A few, such as Lufthansa are inside the customs bonded area of the despatch warehouse, ‘Depositorio.’ You will need to get access to the Depositorio at some point during the process, so you’ll need a free visitors pass. Call in with your passport/ID to the visitors registration desk, it’s a separate building close to the main Aerolineas Cargo building.
Get to your airline. They confirm your booking and they tell you what to do within the airport, frankly it’s that simple. If you’re of average intelligence you can safely Stop Reading Now!
You should be able to get an initial Air Way Bill and as directed it should be time to get you and your baby in through the wire into the Depositorio. I waved my paperwork at each of the couple of checkpoint Charlie’s and rode gently into the depths of the receiving side of the Cargo Terminal.
Eventually someone who looks like they know what they’re doing takes over. I was guided to a cunningly hidden and inconveniently placed weighbridge. Reverse gear, now you know why it was invented!
295Kilos all luggaged up, into the pre-clearance packing hall. I set to stripping the sticky-out bits off and reducing tyre-pressures. Despite the 500Kg price, the airlines want to minimise volume. But then you don’t want you’re sticky-out bits ‘knorked orf’ now do you?
Martin, packer man, kept up a constant chatter. He produced an improbably slim three-row pallet and announced that he, export-expert extraordinaire, was going to strap my bike onto ‘la platforma,’ that same small bundle of Swan Vestas. Very knowingly he told me he’d done at least 600 bikes.
So anyway he proceeded to band-tape my bike to the matchsticks. But he couldn’t complete the entire shrink-wrapping process immediately, customs need to clear it for their purposes and the airline needs to have a ‘butchers’ for dangerous cargo and security reasons.
Lunchtime. Fortunately there were people available for me to pay the terminal’s charges, for the shrink-wrapping, the band taping to a bundle of kindling and the storage until the bike actually shipped, 300Pesos total, around $100.
I couldn’t get customs assistance during lunch (1300-1400hrs) While I waited, I got a cheap, pleasant, salad and roll at the café-canteen in the cargo office building outside the wire.
Back promptly at five to two, upper level, head of the line and by five past two my paperwork is being peered at in Customs two storey ‘internal’ nissin building. The agent made copies of everything and a lot of stamping and signing takes place. The temporary import permit I’d been given last year in Colon passed muster and was stapled into the bundle. I was taken downstairs and told to give my paperwork into the inspecting Agents office.
I was attended to promptly and, after a minute or two of knowingly peering over every stamp and signature, the agent asked me to show him the bike and I walk him into the packing ‘cage’ to witness the Prawn, hunched down under a weight of banding tape. Panniers off, engine and chassis numbers checked, ‘suerte’ all’s fine and dandy with the Customs man.
You may be required to show your own departure ticket to customs, as well as your title document, import permit and passport. Take it with you if you’ve got one. This can be awkward if you’re not following soon after your bike. I’m told reservations are a permitted alternative.
I wasn’t asked, I didn’t actually have any ticket or reservation and I still got the bike cleared. Lufthansa said that was not always the case, but they didn’t query the paperwork I later returned to them. I suppose I’d have tried pleading some old tosh if questioned and I suspect I would have been successful in my grovellings.
Lufthansa man came over as I was finishing with customs. He poked and prodded the contents of my luggage a bit. That’s the dangerous goods and security inspections then.
I grabbed a couple of prohibited snaps. I was nervous of the narrow pallet I might need to prove that all was well prior to departure. Shrink-wrapping commenced, followed by a good cling-filming too. Baby is cocooned and ready to ship. I tipped Martin, packer man, 30pesos ($10) for doing a pretty thorough job of packing.
I made my way to the airline office to pay. I had receipts from the terminal for their charges and the bundle of customs documents. Total weight 310Kg including the pallet of matchsticks. I got a nice break, I paid the full 500Kg rate for the freight cost, but only paid surcharges on the actual weight of 310Kg.
Result $1,295, call it $1,400 all in including terminal charges, about half what I’d paid to ship the bike into Argentina six months earlier. I paid in cash and got receipts and the final Air Way Bill. I photographed it, highest possible res and I e-mailed it to James Cargo and left them to it.
The Lufthansa system allows you to check the stately progress of your steed via the internerd. I had booked the bike into Ezeiza on a Wednesday, the airlines claim they need extra time for dangerous goods. It shipped out of Ezeiza on the Sunday, arrived in Frankfurt on Monday and was trucked to Heathrow for Tuesday.
Concerns about the slender pallet were allayed, the bike was subsequently strapped to a much larger, more stable, air-craft pallet before loading.
James Cargo electronically ‘received’ the bike into the UK using the paperwork they had on file for the original export the previous year. All bona fide freight agents will offer the same service. At 310Kg I paid £125 for documentation, terminal handling charges and transferring the bike to James’ warehouse in nearby Colnbrook. This is cheaper than sea-freight. Roddy e-mailed me as soon as they received the bike and even sent me a picture so I could confirm all was well with my pride and joy.
It’s that simple really, a fistful of pesos, a credit card, a bit of e-mail and Robert’s your father’s brother!
