What a long day!
We went to the airport at 11am and finished the process at 7pm!!
First the cargo company had to cancel some paperwork that said that the bikes were going to be nationalized and create the paperwork for them as personal vehicles in transit.
In the meantime we had to go from the warehouse to the customs to find out what the process was!! No one the entire day seemed to know what they were supposed to do or what the process was but at least this time we went by car. It is about a 10 minute walk between the warehouse and the customs offices – not to mention that every time we went to the warehouse they wanted us to open up our bags, patted us down and got our IDs.
Back at the warehouse we had to wait for the entire airplane to be unloaded to then get some papers so that we could go back to customs again – walking this time.
Then a fee popped up – some handling fee!
We were outraged since we already had paid a fortune for this service in Panama.
After some back and forth they gave us a small discount – but we had to pay something anyway.
Off we went to customs then back with two very nice and flirtatious customs ladies who inspected our bikes at the warehouse – by car 🙂
Back to the customs we got more paperwork done, photocopies, and then cleared our papers with the cargo inspectors next to the customs office.
We thought we were in the clear and happily walked back to the warehouse where we found out that there was yet another inspection that had to be done by a cargo inspector – there were 2 of them in the warehouse. But I had to go back to customs to request an authorization for them to inspect the bike.
By this time I was fuming… charged to the customs building and got them to come to inspect the bikes…
Back to the warehouse we waited for another eternity for them to fill out paperwork and so on.
UFF!! So now we were clear to get the bikes out of the warehouse.
“Where is your truck?”
“What truck!? We’re driving the motorcycles out of here!”
“Oh… don’t know how we’re going to get them down from the loading docks…”
We ended up having to maneuver them through the lobby and down some stairs… it was actually kind of fun 🙂
Our plans to leave Bogota today didn’t go through so we’re back at the same hotel… it’s a record for us in this trip – 3 nights in the same hotel!!
Tomorrow off to Medellin!!
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| From Motorcycle NY to SP |
Hey Lucão!
What a load of bureaucracy!
Hope you have a safe ride from Colombia to Equador!
Take Care!
Roberto
Nossa fliho, what a bore…well, welcome to SAmerica!
Anyway I am glad the bykes arrived….
Have a wonderful trip to Medelin.
Take care and protect yourselves with light.
Suzana
You never told us Why you flew to Bogota, is the jungle to dangerous?
Hey Guys,
We just saw the new James Bond movie, he gets things done in record time and drives down stairs, escalators and much more! I am happy to see go back on the road it’s fun riding along via this wonderful blog. Safe travels. Hugs,
Aviva
Yes he did… the infamous Darien Gap… there are no roads btwn panama (was it, or was it somewhere else?) and Colombia… everyone/thing had to fly… bummer… 🙁
ps- porque as bikes morrem depois de descer escada???
could finally see and listen to elusive Marc´s face and voice in this last video 🙂 . Claude said Cartagena is worth seeing. bjs p
oops just saw looked at the map and learned where Cartagena is- far north, out out of you way!p
Easy riders, boys. I luv the expression on your faces. Hope you had a good night sleep and back on the road with your babies.
Safe trip. Bjo, Norita
Uhuuhu!! And the ride continues 🙂
Keep posting comments 🙂
All great and funny!
The bikes were scared from the flight so they weren’t responding quite well when we woke them up – nothing to do with the stairs 🙂 They just hadn’t been used in some days and had all that change in pressure from the flight so the fluids were all in weird places…
Hey Marc, I sent the “package” (without the candy !!) to Medellin last week so it should be there by now, let me know if you get it
take care, ride safe y DISFRUTEN !!
Saludos
Mario
great news! i guess there have been moments in the past 49 days when you wanted to put down the bikes…absence makes the heart grow fonder :=)
njoy
xrachel
Thanks for sending the package Mario!!!