Getting ready to buy a Tenere in Tanzania

[wbagwell]

Jambo! (hello)
I am in Dar Es Salaam right now and will begin tomorrow negotiating with a local man who owns a good-condition Tenere in hopes that I will have a bike to ride in TZ for a month.

There are LOTS of honda XR/XL/XRL 125s and 250s here, but they're all in pretty bad shape and I wouldn't want to take one out into the countryside where I'm certain Murphy's Law would come into effect.

So I'm looking for some advice on how to make this transaction as safely and as legally as possible. The man owns a successful local electronics store and seemed very honest with me, so I do trust him.. enough to enter negotiations. His bike was parked out front and I went into the store looking for the owner of the bike.

Aside from registration and insurance, what will I need?

If any of you have some sound advice, please advise a novice negotiator and world traveller:

I plan on paying with Traveller's checks, but I don't have enough to cover what I'm willing to pay the man, so I plan on getting a cash advance on my MasterCard.

My plan is this:
1) Test ride the bike, check to see that it'll last a month.
2) Negotiate a price, hopefully a lot less than what he's asking.
3) ride with him to the Amex office and get my checks out of the safe
4) Cash checks at big, safe hotel across the street
5) go to MC office and get cash, with him again
6) go to Dept of Motor vehicles and do paperwork to get it signed into my name. Hmm, or should I do this first after negotiating a price?

With this plan, I never walk the streets with a big wad of cash. I've already had all my valuables stolen here last week, so I learned the value of that the hard way.

Thanks,
Wright

------------------
Wright Bagwell
http://www.geocities.com/wwbagwell/