Sandra, the lady at Dakar Motos (who helps poor saps like me through the paper trail of getting bikes in and out of the continent) arranged for us to meet at the Petrobras station at the airport for 8.30am.
First stop the Qatar office to get the bill of lading & pay them (another) handling charge.
Then a walk over to the other side of the airport to get into the secure cargo centre. We are first in the queue and a few people start to arrive - office hours are not strictly adhered to over here, so 9.00 can very easily become 10.00.
Reasonably quickly Sandra had the big brown box delivered to the customs area by fork lift. We are not allowed to touch it until we have been allocated our customs officer. There are 3 - basically the good, the bad and the very bad.
Sandra comes back looking pretty glum. We have been allocated the 3rd on the list! Not only that, he sees the bike is for an Englishman and kicks off about Las Malvinas. At this stage it looks like I will get turned over and likely not be able to keep my spare tyres (Number 3 had a stand up argument with someone a few weeks ago - to the point he had to leave his spares behind).
They pull the crate apart to reveal the bike well packed (by the guys at James Cargo Heathrow) and everything in good shape, I do my best to spread out the bags & kit for the forensic examination - the equivalent of bending over and waiting for the snap of the surgical glove.
A guy in customs uniform arrives with Sandra and with an admiring glance at the Bike; "was she heavy to ride?" and "what are the chassis and engine numbers?" (obviously all in Spanish) he makes some notes and is gone! Now I am really confused.
After he had walked away Sandra said "you are the luckiest guy ever" - our man was kicking off on someone elses case so Number 1 picked up our file and took over (despite number 3 complaining about that too). All done and dusted! I was able to get my riding clobber our of the paniers, get dressed and get the bike ready to leave. Ah not so fast Chico (a spanish equivalent of "Sonny")..............this all happened by about 10:30. Unfortunately their computer was having a bad day and would not spit out my critical paperwork (the stuff that will get me across the border). It looked like we were going to run into their lunchtime, which have meant another 2 hour wait - meaning 2.00 or 3.00 BUT Number 1 (or as i now like to call him - Javier) came out, apologised for the delay and presented a hand written form for me! What a nice hombre. Do you think a kiss on both cheeks was a bit too much for a first date?
The jacket draped over the bike was to try to hide the tyres in case No3 came out!
That just left me to pay the extortionate storage charge calculated per kilo per day. Thats how i know my Bike & crate weighed 370kgs!
One guy in the queue for the customs arse kicking process, turned out to be an American (a nice one). His story was that he and his mate drove down from the US in a 1969 Camero about 20 years ago and never left! Still has the car too. He is a lecturer in mechanical engineering and was trying to get some CNC machine parts in to the country (which is tighter than a drum on any imports currently - hence their preoccupation with bike and tyre paperwork). he got sent away without his parts (no not those parts).
And lo it came to pass, I got dressed, said thank you to Sandra and wobbled out of the customs area, onto the highway back in to BsAs and then got lost.Well at least i got to see another quarter of the city that i wouldnt otherwise have seen. Mind you it was bloody hot & so was the bike - being a "block" style city you can hit a red light every 200 yds!
I eventually got back to the right district with the help of some "white van men". The bike gets lots of attention as most bikes here are no more thna 125cc's so luckily i didn't make too much of an arse of myself.
My mind turned to Car Parks. I had not heard whether i could get in to my block's or not so went on a hot and fruitless search. Basically it is "flat land" - high density housing with lots of cars, the car parks have long term contracts with the locals. Me turing up on the bike was a non-starter.
It was a competition between me and the bike as to who would expire first - i was sweating buckets and the bike was at the top end of the thermometer. With never more than 200yds in which to get some airflow it was not looking good. I pulled in to yet another car park but this time I blocked the entrance, turned the bike off and took my helmet off.
The poor Indian chap (not the Sitting Bull or Restaurant shop type) was giving it his best shot to tell me that i couldnt stay. You didn't need a degree in Spanish to know that. I used my new found knowledge (of 24 hours earlier) to tell him i was prepared to book in for 12 days and pay the going rate for a car - (I think i may have been pointing at the prices on his board at this point rather than speaking Spanish.). he shuffled back to his counter and pulled out a board with pins in it- there was a gap at number 59. Reluctantly he let me have it. I didn't need a second inviation so jumped back on the bike and shot up to the 2nd floor. I had a chat with my new best friend as i left the car park, Jorge - he was a life saver!
It took me an age to unload, then relaised i couldnt carry it all back to the apartment so re-loaded the spares and tyres.With wonderful forsight i had packed the wheel lock (goes on the brake disk). Pity i didn't bring the keys though.
It seems the River / Boca match is not all it seemed. Eddie explained that, yes normally it is a big deal and it has to be experienced, but not this time. The match is to be held in a small and distant province (Chaco) some 700 miles north in a small stadium. In addition they will be playing for almost nothing, just a reduced summer tournament that gives no credit to the winner whoever that is. Bit of a shame as I took Wilks advice and had ordered some prawns..
It was nice to get back on the bike and it feels a little bit closer to the adventure
Great to hear that the bike has now got through Customs and that you have secure parking for it. The open road to your fantastic adventure is getting tantalizing close
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