{"id":1384,"date":"2013-01-07T15:39:15","date_gmt":"2013-01-07T15:39:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.capetocairo2010.co.za\/?p=1384"},"modified":"2013-01-10T03:08:08","modified_gmt":"2013-01-10T03:08:08","slug":"7-january-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.capetocairo2010.co.za\/?p=1384","title":{"rendered":"7 January 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Big day has arrived. <\/p>\n

What started with a lot of trepidation associated to the unknowns of getting the bikes out of customs turned out to be a breeze. In the run up to this day, there was a lot of talk about the corruption of the Argentine customs process with a lot of \u201cbrown envelope\u201d type negotiations taking place. These rumours couldn’t have been further from the truth. Sandra and Javier from Dakar Motos<\/a> were incredible. Their costs to run this gauntlet are reasonable and Sandra got us in and out of there within a few hours. There are NO bribes or \u201cunder the table\u201d type processes contrary to what the rumour mill has to say. Each cost is properly invoiced and receipted and the costs associated with getting the bikes out of customs are no more and no less than what one would pay anywhere in the world for an exercise of this nature.<\/p>\n

That’s the good news. On the downside (and I suppose to be expected from a BMW), once we had uncratered, the bikes, ripped off the plastics, put the screens and mirrors on and donned our riding gear, the KTM fired up and raring to go (as she ALWAYS does) and little fatty (the BMW) let out something akin to a burp and just stood there with that blank expression that BMW designers have ingeniously managed to engineer into the GS1200!! Battery flat\u2026courtesy of the 3 million electronic gizmos that can even tell you your sphincter pressure for when the going gets tough!! So, the guys at customs helped us out by sourcing jumpers and we managed to fire her up with the help of a forklift and rode straight to BMW Buenos Aires to replace the darned thing. Riding in 34C is bad enough, but getting to BMW and being ripped R4,350 for a battery was just adding insult to injury. <\/p>\n

All of this aside, Enrico and I are both in high spirits about the fact that the bikes are out and we are ready to go. We are going to use tomorrow to do final packing and checks and will leave for Mar Del Plata (about 415km away) at 6:30am on Wednesday the 9th.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_2762\"<\/a>   \"IMG_2764\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

Little Fatty and the Supermodel in the crates.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"IMG_2765\"<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n

Sandra from Dakar Motos<\/a> and Enrico<\/em><\/p>\n

\"IMG_2769\"<\/a> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Where most GS\u2019s spend their life!!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Big day has arrived. What started with a lot of trepidation associated to the unknowns of getting the bikes out of customs turned out to be a breeze. In the run up to this day, there was a lot of talk about the corruption of the Argentine customs process with a lot of \u201cbrown […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theamericas"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t