#4 Retrieving the bike

All week long, Friday, being the day we were to pick up the bike, had been on both our minds. The first difficulty we faced was locating LAN cargo.

We were told to ask one of the buses heading back to town from the airport to drop us off on the way for free. No problem, except of course convincing a bus driver to do that in our pigeon Spanish. Fortunately, we met the first of many helpful Chilean's as we were attempting to communicate with the bus driver and he told us to get on and follow him to LAN Cargo, where he also showed us (I use 'showed us' literally as all communication was by body language) how to get an entry pass into the customs area.

There we met a 6''6 American greenie who was on his third day at customs trying to retrieve his bicycle which he wanted to ride to Puerto Montt with his wife and child in tow to do some reforestation work. We passed an hour nervously waiting at one of the many counters as we listened to his complaints about Chilean bureacracy and the difficulties he had finding an organic food store the previous day.

We had heard others (including the American greenie) pay taxi drivers to act as their translator but we had no need. Perhaps we got lucky as a number of times people helped us fill in the necessary paperwork, or in some cases did it for us. Often people who spoke some English would here our conversation and jump in with some translation assistance. Words of the day: documentos, moto, escribalar, laughter, lots of gracias, more laughter, more gracias.

One big fear we had was being slapped with a whole lot of additional charges to retrieve the bike. There were some but overall the cost didn´t exceed $100. I was a little dissappointed that I could have saved us some money by devaluing the bike. At the time saying something I knew in Spanish (ten) seemed more important!

When the crate was in sight, identifiable by its misshapen exterior covered in a second-hand Suzuki cardboard box, we could sense success. By this stage it was nearing 1.30pm and we were determined to retrieve it before everyone buggered off for lunch and siesta.

Over the next couple of hours we removed the crate and Reece expertly put the bike back together. We held our breath as we turned the key in the motor but there was no need, it started first time. A few minutes later, panniers connected and gear on, and all of a sudden the trip became very real as we drove away for our first ride on South American soil. A couple of hours to get back into the city (the one-way street system proved a challenge) and we felt the whole experience was worthy of a celebration - dinner of parilliyida at a local restaurant (effectively a bowl of different meats, the waiter seemed quite taken back when we ordered a side of salad).

The bike doesn´t have a scratch on her!
No need for the hastily arranged insurance
in Auckland on our day of departure.