Always Expect Delays

I told a friend recently that we never had a trip gone as planned , There are so many unknowns that you need to be flexible enough to go with the changes. But this time it's new , the change happened before we left. I found out yesterday that our bikes will be a week late. This is why Air freighting is a good idea unless you are flexible to move your plans a week which we are and hence we will start a week later than expected .

That said we plan to start our journey from the west (Perth) and go east (Brisbane) we are also looking at renting bikes in New Zealand for about a week to ten days since shipping them from Australia will be time consuming and we rather be traveling than going through the process of shipping the bikes and clearance.

OMG we will sea frieght

Well since we have decided to go on our next trip to Australia starting this August 2016 , I have been dreading getting the bikes ready for shipping especially since it is very hot now in Kuwait and it takes a fair amount of work removing parts from the bike and securing everything.

So I suggested to Sea Freight the bikes since we have about a month before we start with the condition that the container can be tracked.

And so we managed to save our selfs some money and pain and just put all three bikes in a 20 foot container to Perth with the expected arrival of the 3rd of August about 3 days before we arrive. We managed to finish all the paper work today and get the bikes on their way.

Getting ready to Ship

Yesterday we managed to visit Sandra & Javier at DakarMotos and hand over all the required documents for the shipping. We also managed to get the bikes cleaned in preparation for the boxing up at the airport that we did today. All in all they were very organized. 

The wooden pallets were ready for us , all we had to do was disassemble some of the bike , we usually remove the front tire ,windscreen , and lower the handlebar to reduce the volume and subsequently the cost.

It was a bit hot in the warehouse and when we finished we had to wait for the bikes to be inspected before we could leave.

We managed to visit the Kuwait Embassy yesterday and take pictures with the staff Mr. Fawaz Al-Qahtani, and Mr. Nabil Al-Mulla ; who invited us this evening for dinner at a local middle eastern restaurant.

Finally arrived in Buenos Aires

Well the ride was nice although we did get into traffic which is expected in a big city like this. Along the way I felt something hit my neck it started to sting , with the bugs flying into my helmet I believe it could be a bee that stung me.

It started to get uncomfortably hot and I was tired of riding and happy that we are almost finished form out trip , it has been two months of adventures and its time to get back home.

We made reservations at a boutique Hotel and got ready to meet Sandra & Javier at Darakmotos with all the papers to start shipping which they mentioned would take 3 to 4 days.

To Sierra de la Ventana

As usual all we are doing at the moment is getting to Buenos Aires to ship our bikes and finding interesting places to stay along the way we started riding inland and the scenery started to get greener and wormer since it is summer here now.

Sierra de la Ventana is a small wood cabin kinda town with many specialty shops and good Ice cream. We enjoyed walking around town at night and experiencing this laid-back place.

To Puerto Madryn

We left early from Hotel Bahia and wanting to get as many kilometers as possible we headed to Puerto Madryn where we stayed at a hotel on the waterfront  It was a nice small town , just what we needed to rest and continue on our way to Buenos Aires.

We have been in contact with Sandra & Javier at Dakarmotos in Buenos Aires for a few days now getting ready to air freight our bikes. They insisted on not using our Carnet when we entered Argentina and to get a temporal import permit since it would make shipping the bikes out of Argentina easier.

While searching for the quickest route I was looking for a place to stay and found that Sierra de la Ventana was just the place away from any big city which is were we are headed tomorrow.

Tire Surprise

I tried the internet to track down any lead for a tire replacement shop but could't find any thing. What to do? well we decided to ride any way and see if we would find a place in Rio Gallegos in Argentina which was only 260 km away. When the strangest thing happened, Ali the social bug that he is has managed to make friends with Juan Carlos the Hotel manager especially since Juan Carlos was another manager in Salta Argentina and they both looked alike. And right when we were about to leave we ask if he knows where we can get tires for our bikes.

He says he may know some one and casually takes out his phone and makes a phone call he then states that his friend has three rear tires for our bikes. He gets in his car and we follow him to a professional workshop with no sign but pretty impressive hardware having at least 4 bike Jacks and the exact Heidnew tires to replace the ones we had dilemma resolved. Two hours later we were on our way to Argentina arriving just before dark at Puerto San Julian where we had stayed before.