Shipments done by Travellers

first of all, dont be in a rush for the whole shipping process, calculate enough spare time. it took me almost 10 days, nevertheless money can speed up everything of course.

You can ask different freight handler for their prices/kg to compare first. they are all located in the freight section at the airport. If you do it with a freight handler they will probably charge you around 50-100usd for theyr paperwork. i dont know if that includes the hustle with the customs (which is the worst part of all) to get your bike out of the country, despite your documents are completly in order. So if your short on money or adventureous, do it directly with a airline company. if i remember well, air france, lufthansa, KLM and Qatar do cargo there.

so for lufthansa, call Mister Niang on 77 450 29 77 or Mister Sane on 77 637 41 32 first to make shure someone is in the office when you get there. he may talk a bit of english, but french will generally be the way to go.

The Lufthansa Cargo Office is in the freight section of the airport, located on the left hand side of the main building. You will see a sign when passing the big roundabout/intersection in front of the airport towards nord. After 50 meters take the small road to the right and follow the sign "freight" to get around the fenced pick-up parking space. Dont pay attention to anyone wanting to help you or offering anything. Follow this road and when you get to the airport building, park you bike just in front, on the right you got some car parking lots. (14°44'44.4"N 17°29'22.8"W)

Take the stairs up to the first floor, turn right and walk straight all the hallway to its end, where you will find the door of lufthansa cargo office.

There they will announce you to Samba (french speaking only), the asthmatic guardian of the lufthansa-warehouse where you can crate your bike. Its further back in the freight section, pass the empty x-ray shelter, second road to the left at the end, there is a lufthansa sign. Lots of touts will approach you on the way. (14°44'49.0"N 17°29'15.7"W)

If you dont want to build your crate yourself, i am not shure if they can organise competent people to do it for you. But for shure you will be ripped of by their pricing. But by then, you should be already used to it while having stayed in senegal :))

Doing it yourself will envolve quite some efforts and nerves.

Read first

http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/get-ready/shipping-the-bike

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You get some used EU-pallets by following the "route de l'airport" the way up north, watch out on your right for the piles of pallets before you pass stadium leopold. if i remember well, they charged me after negotiating, around 4500cfa for one.

Nails, screws, rope and straps you can buy in a western-style hardware and tool shop on the route de l'airport in Ngor around this cordinates, not shure anymore where exactly. Its on your left when coming from the airport, you will see Bosh and Makita signs in the shop window. 14°44'49.0"N 17°29'15.7"W

A nice guy called Gabriel, who owns a pad saw and accu drill and speaks german too, you may reach on 77 978 89 95 or Marc Walter Automobiles, 10 quartier RIPP.BP 18 Dakar Fann, Ouakam, 33 860 04 98 can give you his contact. 14°43'13.1"N 17°29'22.4"W Cant really remember what i gave him for his work. Probably something around 30usd.

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So you have to drain the oil and petrol of your bike, and leave the battery there. As your bike is crated it will be weighted and measured. Be there when they do it to check! I think as long as the weight of your bike does not exceed the volumeric weight, you will be charged upon the volumeric weight. the volumeric weight will be calculated by (length*height*width)/6000

My package was 205 kg on the wage but 203*85*110cm divided by 6000 = 316kg vol. weight.

I got priced like following. If your bike weights more, you may get a lower price/kg fee but not shure about that.

Price per Kg: 1450 cfa/Kg: 316*1450= 458'200cfa

Tax per Kg: 260 cfa/Kg: 316*260= 82'160cfa

Another Tax per Kg: 15cfa/Kg: 316*15= 4'740cfa

Some fixed Fee: 6000cfa

so total: 551'100cfa

another 1% tax for currency conversion rate on that amount, so finaly 556'611cfa Total equivalent to appr. 950usd

After paying they will be able to tell you what day your bike will leave. I think for Dakar to Zuerich (via Frankfurt) they got flights on monday and thursday. Not shure.

You will need another document for the customs (another scam), cant tell what exactly it was, kind of airway-export-form, before your passavant will be stampet for leaving. I think i payed finally around 25usd to a tout, the prices that for vary up to 70usd. You may ask the warehouse guy Samba to sort it out for you, which still doesnt guarantee that you dont have to pay the customs bribes again. Watch out to keep the exit-stamped original passavant or at least a copy of it for you, in case the immigration police will check your passport and see you got in with a bike, when you leave for your flight back.

I bought my flight the day after my bike left, just to get shure it wont stay (for whatever reason) there while i was already gone.

The Bike arrived in Zuerich a few days later. The arrival fee and handling fee for direct pick up I paid to CargoLogic at ZRH-Airport were 47 chf, so roughly 50usd.

On:

http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hubb/trip-transport/air-shipping-dakar-...

is a copy of that shipment instruction with some pictures.

Mark was super helpful. Better if you speak a bit of spanish though.
We found them on a directory online and then went to see them. We found another fellow rider to travel with us. We could then share some costs (like documents and service charge from Servi Carga).
We had one BMW 650 and a Triumph and the volume of the two bikes ended up being around 630Kg.
Servi Carga used DHL. Once in Bogota, just go to DHL cargo. You'll have few back and forths to do between them and customs (building in front). But all pretty straight forward and guys at DHL are super helpful.
Highly recommended. Mark even followed up with us afterward to make sure all was ok.
If you're gonna fly out use Viva Colombia who are a budget airlines equivalent like Easyjet. The airport departure though will be Panama Pacific on the other side. Quite a ride in taxi…but still worth it at the end.
cheers

Ivan instructed me to deliver the bike to an address in Sydney, where the BMW 1200GS was "Purged" of fuel, boxed and sent to the airport.I transferred the funds into Bikes Abroad's bank account and got on my flight to Santiago, Chile. On arrival in Santiago, i went to the airline, got my waybill, went to the freight depot, paid 43,560CP, was directed to Customs for my Temporary Vehicle Import Permit. (Just show them your ownership papers, and they print off a Titulo De Importacion, Free service). Go back to the freight depot, pay 53,746CP, They fork your bike out onto the loadout area, unpack the bike, reconnect your battery, pour in a little fuel, and ride away. The process took three hours, was all within 300 meters of the international terminal. Painless. You can save a few dollars by boxing and freighting the bike to the airport yourself, but really, pay the money and its hassle free. I have had some awful freighting experiences, this wasn't cheap, but find yourself in a foreign country with problems and you will quickly see the value of Ivan's service.

At the begging of the shipping there were some problems of misunderstanding with TCB group about the price, because my first contact in the company left the job. But at the end was all ok and TCB group also help me to have some good contacts in Lima to get the bike quikly from the Peruvian custom

This was our first ever time shipping motorcycles, so we had a lot of questions.

Brent always provided answers to our questions, although sometimes it took a few days.

Overall, the shipment went very smoothly and I would be happy to work with Brent again.

Bikes abroad quoted $US1970 per bike (we shipped two bikes), each had to travel in a seperate crate with their own AWB, in the bike owners' name (according to what is written on the registration documents - more on this below.....

Bikes abroad collaborates with bike shops to do the crating and prepare them for shipping. In Sydney this is Procycles in Hornsby.

This arrangement works well, we just rode the bikes to the shop already loaded with all our gear, stripped off our riding clothes, helmets and boots and left them. Procycles took care of draining the fuel, disconnecting the battery and removing the front wheels. I was worried what I would find when opening the crate in Argentina (whether all the bolts and parts would be there), but Procycles had done a nice job and placed all the corresponding parts near their fixing locations with zip lock bags and cable ties.

The bikes Flew with KLM.

At Buenos Aires, we used the services of Sandra and Javier at Dakar motos (http://www.dakarmotos.com/), they charged us $250 per bike for the customs brokerage.

Buenos Aires cargo airport is a confusing and daunting place, especially if it's your first time, I highly recommend using them.

Costs at destination US$295 per bike, (not including Dakar motos fee) 

Steps in Buenos Aires...

1. Meet Sandra at airport petrol station 

2. Go to cargo area security, get security pass made (no cost)

3. Go to airline with AWB, pay airline fees (storage and handling at B.A.)

4. Go to customs office, get temporary import permit and insurance (insurance covers Argentina,     Chile, Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador)

5. Go to warehouse and wait for forklift driver to bring your crate out, there are plenty of people willing to help get crate apart and lift bike etc

6. Customs agent will come and check bike VIN against registration documents

7. Wheel the bike out of customs area showing the paperwork the customs agent gave you.

If you have no fuel, there is a petrol station a 5 minute walk away, they sell “Bidones” (fuel cans).

Note: According to our shipping agent and the customs brokers, it was absolutely necessary to ship the bikes in seperate crates each under a different AWB and the details on the AWB must match the owner of the motorcycle exactly.

We have done other shipments where we shipped with bikes in one crate (saves a lot on space and cost), but this one bike / one AWB seems to be a particular requirement in some countries.

At the airport, we met three Italian fellows with Honda Dominators, all in one crate, who had been trying to extract their bikes from customs for a week. We gather that the problem was three bikes, one AWB, so customs stubbornly refused to recognise that the three bikes were to different owners, therefore couldn’t issue the TIP and insurance. They did get thier bikes out shortly after us, but it cost them additional fees and a week lost of their trip.

Recommend checking this before you ship, our shipping agents have so far always told us whether we need two crates or not.