Hello,

I want to ship my bike mid of October 2009 to either Valparaiso or Buenos Aires. Anybody out there who still has room in a container and can fit my XT 600 in?

Regards
Dominik

I shipped my XTE last week from Antwerpen to Buenos Aires with a german vw van owner.

I got in touch with her through this german website :

Panamericana-Forum

For October : Panamericana-Forum - BIETE: Container teilen BsAs

The 20 feet container was around 900 Euros (700 Euros for the vw van, 200 Euros for the motorcycle). Handling fees were 380 Euros (320 Euros for the vw, 60 Euros for the motorcycle for an half an hour work). Boat company was Grimaldi, shipping company Mafratours : Mafratours Ltd. online. The shipping price was roughly shared based on the room taken in the container (the xte fits largewise so it doesnt take more than 3 feet long with luggage) and the handling fees roughly on weight (180 kg against 2000 for the vw van).

Mafra, who advertised for Grimaldi in this board (and seems to have a very active marketing on travellers boards), had the best offer in terms of price, but we had a few problems in Antwerpen since the communication between Mafra, Grimaldi Germany and Grimaldi Belgium was unclear about our arrival date and handling tariffs were slightly different. The officer name given by Mafra as a contact in Antwerpen was not in charge of clientele, but just a docking operating employee. Grimaldi Belgium staff employees got very cooperative and friendly and tried to help as much as they could, so we managed to spend only one day in Antwerpen. I ll keep you informed about how things are going in Buenos Aires. My last experience was a bit painfull in 2006, since the argentine customs were asking for a bill of landing for each vehicule while we only had one. I questioned Mafra about this problem, but we only got one bill of landing for both vehicules since "2006 was 2006 and 2009 is 2009". My experience and other travellers reports claims the contrary : http://www.globusbiker.de/daten/Argentinien-Zoll.pdf, so I guess the outway will be painfull again.

The 20 feet container was just enough for the XTE and the vw van, given the space needed to tie the vehicules.

I shipped another one in 2006 from Portugal and the overall price was fairly the same : 1200 Euros for the whole container with handling fees.

Good luck to you and see you in South America. May be we ll ship them back together to Europe.