We are en route to Ushuaia for Christmas and afterwards need to get to NZ. Would prefer to fly/ship bikes from one of the towns near Tierra del Fuego rather than trekking back up to Buenos Aires or Santiago. Any information gratefully received. We dont have carnets, will this be a problem in NZ or Aus?

We'll see you in Ushuaia for Xmas! We're currently in NZ, and fly to BA at the end of September. www.UltimateJourney.com

From what we hear, domestic flights in Argentina are getting sketchy. There's a ferry that goes from Punta Arenas (just north of Ushuaia) to Puerto Montt (about 1,100kms south of Chile) www.pucon.com/navimag/ I just got a quote a few weeks ago for US$50/bike, and US$398 in a cabin for Jan 2002.

There are direct flights between BA and Auckland on Qantas. If it is a Qantas warehouse in BA, you may not even have to crate it -- we flew from Sydney to Auckland uncrated. Price TO Argentina is US$2/kg. Because Aerolineas Argentina stopped their flights back in May, there is too much freight going to BA, so they've stopped taking bikes TO Argentina. You may still be OK to come this way, so check with Qantas. We will now fly via United Airlines, for US$3/kg (we got our airfare free with frequent flyer miles on Qantas). We'll get the bikes into crates with a total volume of about 500kg (hopefully), so the cost will be about US$1,600 total.

Air Cargo from NZ TO Santiago was about US$8/kg = a fortune!!!

Benka flew her uncrated F650 2 yrs ago from Brazil to NZ via Lufthansa for US$900.

There is only one boat that goes direct from AKL to Santiago, but don't know details. All other boats go via Singapore, which adds 3-4 weeks to travel time.

Hope to see you in SA,
Chris & Erin Ratay
bmw@ultimatejourney.com



[This message has been edited by chrisratay (edited 18 August 2001).]

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