Hi all,

Following on from Reeces post about importing your bike via plane.

I am touring around for 4 months and flew my bike from Auckland, NZ to Chile. As Reece said basically allow yourself a day, as depending on the carrier you use, you can get sent everywhere, but if you are patient and have time it is not bad at all, kinda fun in a way. I am glad I dropped my bags off and did not try to get the bike as I arrived.

I speak very little Spanish, just enough to be courteous.

First go to Cargo terminal, this is next to the airport as you leave on a bus or taxi you will pass a Shell station and you can see it after that.

As Reece said take your AWB (Airway bill), Passport and Registration of motorbike. I used Qantas and that mean I recieved the AWB physically in Santiago, I had to go to another district to collect which is about 5-10 mins from the airport. This was after being sent to various places with in the cargo area. I did have a copy of the AWB via email but the Aduanas people want the original.

Once I got the original, I went to the Aduanas reception which is in the small office to the right of the turnstiles that actually let you in to collect the cargo. there is another one in the main building but they sent meto this one as Iwas only importing temporarily. I was served by Claudio, who is a good rooster. He worked in Australia as a young man as a meatpacker. Anyway, I digress, once I recieved the Aduanas I went through the turnstiles to the warehouse, Depot Cargo?, and we started the process of recieving the bike.

Reading this it sounds really easy (in a way) but there was a lot of legwork and it did take me the whole day, including the Aduanas office had a long lunch break, especially once I put my bike back together etc.

Weirdly I did not have to pay a importers tax. Hopefully that does not come back to bite me. I asked Claudio why and he said it was because it was tempory...


On with the rest of my trip!!

Kia Kaha,

Aidan