Day71-VStroms Crated for Steamer to Port of L.A., Mon, March 7, 2011

VStroms Stripped and Crated!

Start & Stop: Vina Del Mar, Chile

Mileage:  0 miles

Hotel: Hotel Vancouver, 2 Poniente N0. 561, Vina Del Mar, Chile

Fuel: $700 Chilean Peso /l liter ($1.48 USD/1 liter) or $5.51 USD per gal!

Currency Exchange: $1 USD = $473.95 Peso

Weather:  Overcast, cloudy, scattered showers

Dean: I’m up at 6:30 AM for major reapcking.  Lisa did all her packing and repacking last night.  The decision is “what to carry home as check-in luggage” and “what to leave with the bikes in the crates”.

At 7:30 AM we ride 10 miles to the Chilean Aduana (Customs) in Valparaiso.  Our 8AM Aduana office opening really opened at 8:30AM which in South Americanese translates to 9 AM.  I do my job of lookin’ good, guarding the bikes, and answering questions from anyone who dares talk to me, while Lisa goes in to finalzie our paperwork to get our VStroms out of Chile and into the good ol’ U. S. of A. – Puerto Los Angeles.  Opps!   That’s Port of Los Angeles, California.

Portuguese, Spanish, English and a lot of map pointing.

While waiting, up rides a group of 4 BMWs from Brazil then 20-minutes later a couple of bikes from Argentina shows up.  Then Lisa comes out of the Aduana.  The Brazilians are talking Portuguese, the Argentineans Spanish and I’m talkin’ a modified pig latin.  It was mostly map pointing, a lot of hand waving with everyone laughing and smiling.  We all seemed to have had a great time!  :)

Lisa: More hurry up and wait at customs. I checked in with security at 8 am and was told the offices open at 8:30. Because we were having such a nice chat with the head of the Stevadores there at the port, I walked in again sometime a little later. A nice man, clearly an executive at the port, was waiting for me at the door and, in very broken English, told me that I was in the wrong office and needed to go the to Valparaiso Aduana, not the International Aduana.

For those new to the blog, this sort of thing is pretty par for the course. I do a lot of walking back and forth, trying to find where I actually need to be so this came as no surprise. What I could not gather was exactly WHERE this place was and since he couldn’t explain it to me, he brought me to see his boss who speaks better English.

Now we’re getting somewhere. This was the big cheese at the customs office and he was super helpful. After chatting a bit, he asked me who my freight agent was and what the plans were for the bike. I passed him the info I had for the agent but told him we had not been able to reach him. Because there are several different prefixes in the area, we couldn’t make sense of the phone number. Mr. Important got through to the office immediately and but because it was still before 9, he got the answering service.He told me to come back in 45 minutes and we’d try again to reach Leopoldo, our contact in Chile.

I went back outside and joined Dean and his fan club for a while, trading email addresses and taking photos before going back inside to try to sort things out.

El Jefe got through on the first call and was then referred to someone else, getting another name and phone number in a rapid conversation of which I understood about 3 words. I was so happy he was taking care of this part for us. I got a piece of paper with a new name and an address just down the street so I dragged Dean away from his adoring groupies and off we went.

Senor Vegaras was in a small office with an amazing view of the harbor and in beautiful English walked me through the steps to release the bikes from the Aduana system so we could exit the country. He then set up the transfer at the dealer and in 20 minutes or so, this part of the deal was done. I almost danced out of the building to where Dean was waiting with the parked bikes. YAY!! Now we “just” have to get them crated.

Dean: We make several trips to the dealer to see if our metal pallets are available.  Our friend Matias is out of the of and will not be back until tomorrow.  No one knows anything about our pallets.  We are told to come back at 3 PM.

Existing metal pallet being modified for our VStrompasouruses.

Everything stickin' out removed. Fuel cell re-centered over seat.

Just before the entire bike was shrink wrapped.

This is the showroom price of a new DL1000 in Vina Del Mar, Chile.

We finally find someone who knows about the crates/pallets.  All is good.  We make our final ride to the dealer for crating.  First we strip anything that hangs-out off and roll my VStrompasourus’ onto a metal pallet.   The Jesse saddlebags removed.  The Tanji Flatbed Fuel Cell drained, removed and shrink-wrapped inside the metal cage.  Windshield, mirrors, and hand control guards (barkbusters) removed and boxed.  Handlebars lowered, purchased new ratchet straps to secure bike to pallet, and by 5PM my “125 cc” VPig is crated!

Tomorrow Lisa’s VPigglet gets crated.

Hotel Vancouver is not a traditional hotel.  It’s a bunch of apartments in a hodge-podge layout.  WiFi is somewhat limited in the rooms but good in the community/dinning area.  It’s in a very safe area, just a half-dozen blocks from the restaurant row.