Shipments done by Travellers

"This is the price for one motorbike-transport from cologne to windhoek and the transport back to cologne. I built the transport box by myself. The storage for 4 weeks in windhoek was no problem. There was also no problem with the customs clearance. "

This was not easy and I was considering not putting this information on here but I guess it may be useful. The only reasons I recommend using these people are that reliable options for freighting out of Guayaquil seem to be limited and it did all work out well for me in the end.

Getting to Panama from Ecuador was a real hassel for me because almost all the aircraft flying there directly from Guayaquil are too small to take my bike. The largest dimensions most airlines could accept was 2m length, 1m width and 1.2m hieght. My bike wouldn't get to less than 2.4m in length so I was going to send it by sea freight. I wasn't happy about that and the shipping line were constantly changing their sailing date. Luckily Lacsa do fly airplanes large enough to take my bike so that's who I used in the end.

I arranged it through an agent called Luis Ernesto Arteaga Nowak who was listed as a customs clearance specialist in the South America Handbook. It is a small father and son company with about 4 other staff. Both father and son are called Luis Arteaga. Luis junior is really clued up and has a lot of helpful contacts. Luis senior is ok but mostly likes surfing the net and reminising about when he was a champion motorcycle racer back in the 1950's. One of the guys who work for them who's about 30 is good but every one else is no more than a minor assistant who won't lift a finger until told to by one of the Luis's.

Luis junior arranged the airfreight, crating and customs clearance. After 10 days of being messed around by the shipping company Luis found out about the flight at 10.30am and the plane was due to leave at 4.00pm. Lacsa agreed to take the bike provided I got it to the airport by 11.00am and had it crated and through customs by 3.00pm. It was completely crazy involving riding the wrong way up a one way street to get around burning barricades erected by striking factory workers (yes, really) but we made it with 15 minutes to spare! Lacsa issued the Dangerous Goods Certificate themselves as I drained the oil, disconnected the battery etc. and had it crated in their warehouse at Guayaquil airport.

I paid every one in cash which was necessary due to the speed of arranging everything. ATM machines in central Guayaquil can dispense huge amounts of dollars at a time. This was a seriously expensive process for a 1.5 hour flight!

You may be able to bypass Luis Arteaga by going direct to Lacsa. They are located near Challenge Air Cargo's offices at Guayaquil airport. The small office with no sign directly opposite Challenge's offices is the Lacsa office nearest their warehouse but there may be no one there. To get to their main office turn right imediately after you enter the access road leading to Challenge Air Cargos offices. It can be found on the first floor of a large building about 150m from the gate. Its not clearley marked so you will have to ask. Oh, in case you were wondering, Challenge Air Cargo won't touch bikes. (N.B. Grant flew our bike from Challenge Air Cargo from Bogota to Miami in April, 1998, so this is either a new rule or the Ecuador operation has different policies than the Colombian one - worth checking with them anyway).

Clearing customs in Panama was no problem. I had to pay Lacsa US$14.00 administration charges and was luckily steered through the customs formalaties by a customs agent for free. The biggest hassel was that Lacsa's warehouse at the airport is about 4km from customs and the weather is very hot and humid. I got a lift. The whole process took about 2 hours.

Freight from Panama City:

We ended up paying the horrendous price of 800USD for the bike only, flown to Guayaquil with Lacsa Airlines, which is the only company that doubles the basic per kilo price on vehicles.

Our advice is to not try this during Christmas. The flights are few and loaded, and the bosses are on holiday so there's nobody present who are authorized to negotiate the prices.

We visited lots of agents and one of them called Girag and put the phone on speaker. The agent in the other end basically bad mouthed the motorcyclists for causing to much trouble and hassle. He seemed very unwilling to take us.

Grant: See the note from Erwin Thoma who shipped with Girag from Panama to Bogota in August 2000.

Finally we ended up with Panalpina, among other because they had an office in Guayaquil as well. They didn't give us all the prices though, even though I had asked for it again and again. The handling fee in Guayaquil was another 40 USD. Also, some companies charge up to 80 USD to pack the bike (Intertrade is one example and they wouldn't let us do the job our selves). Panalpina would probably have charged us except they believed they didn't have to pack the bike and had already given us a price.

The Panalpina ofice in Guayaquil sent a guy with us to the custom office a little over one hour before they closed for the holiday (this was on Dec. 28th) and he led us straight through the lines of people, the small hole in the wall desks and into the back office where the big boss resided. He took the passport, the registration and my driver licence, where gone for a short while, then made me sign a few papers, led me to another window where after a long shoveling of papers, I got to pay 28USD in customs fees, then led me into the warehouse, gave the papers to the warehouse boss, who went through them again, and then finally, after only 1,5 hours in customs, at 1210 - ten minutes after they had closed for New Year, we left with the bike. We couldn't believe our luck, and even less so later. The boss had told us we only got five days transit permit for the bike, which was a dissapointment. Later we discovered that the permit didn't have an last exit date, and when asking the custom office in Quito about this, they said we shouldn't worry, it was the fault of the customs, and we could stay a few more weeks without getting into trouble.

We also checked into ship freight, but this ended up so complicated with so much time delay and paper work that we dropped the thought. There is one option though tfor people who have plenty of time. Panalpina has a consolidated container that they pack and lock up, send to Guayaquil and unlock and unpack it in the Panalpina office there. Hence no other person than the Panalpina employees will see the bike between Panama and Guayaquil. This container goes once per week we were told, but plan on at least two to three days of preparations (paperwork and packing) and at least two difficult custom days in Guayaquil (ref Chris Bright a few months ago).

...From Melbourne to Auckland I used Draper Parot Int PTY Ltd... Moorabbin, 0061 3 9555 5533. For the R1100GS in a crate (I got mine from BMW Aus)= 500 AUD.

I had to do my own clearance in NZ though. In NZ you have to personally visit local agent APC which is right next to Customs (in Auckland it's near the airport 63 Richard Pearse Drive, Mangere, go straight there when you fly in praps) with Bill of lading and carnet. Then go to the MAF (Anzac Ave., city) to arrange inspection. Then trail out to the warehouse with the MAF guy, get all the clearances, hand over 50 NZD to the warehouse, more if you want to uncrate and ride away. If you use Draper Parot, the warehouse is in Onehunga, you can get a bus 'halfway' there!

Coming back from NZ to Oz I used Hemisphere in Kingdon St Newmarket, tel. 095224903. That cost 360 NZD (cheap, eh?) for a 2.5 cubic metre crate. (rate 110nzd per m3)

(Crate from bikeshop - free). The problem was, once in Aus, there was one heluva pallava to get the darned thing free again. The warehouse is right out in Friendship Rd. Port Botany (buses go there, slowly), the customs office is on the same bus line but way back into the city (sorry no address). I spent 3 whole days of toing and froing to get the bike (it was Oz registered anyway!). Finally with all the payments to customs, MinOfAg, warehouse plus busfares etc the whole thing cost around 500AUD.

For shipping agents in Oz, check out the YellowPages.com.au, go to Shipping Cos and agents and punch in the town you want to leave from, et voila! This is what I did, and it worked out OK.

Hope this helps for anyone interested. I also shipped from Darwin to UK.

Regards,
Andy

From Chris Lockwood: Mika Kuhn shipped to Malaysia via Nippon Express (Nippon Tsu-un in Japanese) in October 2000. Costs for a Yamaha T