One week from now, I will be leaving for Germany and the start of this trip. I have been remiss in not keeping everyone up to date on the preparations, so let me try and catch everyone up.
Visas and such -- The process of finding the right person/company to help obtain visas and letters of introduction was similar to a childhood game where there were no rules, no boundaries, and the goal was to find a prized object not hidden, but located in a distant foreign land with unknown geography. Eating a single grain of rice with chopsticks is easier. I was finally able to establish contact with STANtours, and they are helping me. The cost for the Central Asia visas, plus the tour guide (mandatory) inTurkmenistan, came in at about $2,500. That was what I expected. The applications are all off with the passport to be processed.
Russia and the Crimea -- I intended to return through the Ukraine when I exited Russia Westbound, because I wanted to vista Kiev. That plan is in a state of flux. The only alternative is to go North around Moscow, and exit through Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania. Maybe the situation on the ground will have eased by September, and I can still get through the border into Ukraine. There is also the question of whether Russia will even issue visas to U.S. Citizens now. I may not get to Mongolia on this trip.
The motorcycle transport -- The motorcycle (which needs a name, right? Something denoting power, and perseverance and toughness. Give me suggestions. Bonus points for mythical creatures or beings, even more bonus points if the name is in an ancient language) is aboard the Hoescht Express, through the Panama Canal now, and headed for Savannah, Georgia. If you enter the vessel name in a website like vesselfinder.com, you will get location information concerning the vessel, as well as other information. The motorcycle is in container AMFU-8609569, which you can also track. This may become necessary if the container is off loaded from the Hoescht Express and loaded onto another vessel. The motorcycle is now scheduled to arrive on April 11. Yes, that's right, 11 days later than originally planned, which is why . . .
It's great to be a U.S. Citizen -- The U.S. is the only country of which I am aware that can charge you for proving to them that you have not broken any export laws before you can ship your property out of the country. Mind you, this is not an export fee or license, this is the cost of proving to the government that you are a law abiding citizen. And it is not paid to the government, but to a private company with whom you have never been, as lawyers say, in privity of contract. Here is how it works: The U.S. Government apparently is unable to perform its own security functions, so it contracts these security functions to private companies (Like the NSA does, and DoD, and CIA, and any number of other Agencies and Departments. They have had great success with this model, right?). The container in which my motorcycle was loaded was randomly selected by Customs and Border Patrol for further inspection. Can't complain about that, but they didn't inspect it. The container was moved to a bonded customs warehouse, where it sat for inspection for a total of 11 days, including the inspection. The inspection was a simple scan of the container. But the bonded customs warehouse is a private company. And the container had to be hauled there by a private company, and it was being shipped on private vessels, all of which costs money. Please remember that when you are shipping freight, you get charged based on two parameters: whether the freight is moving, or whether it is sitting. Yes, if the freight is sitting, you are charged for what amounts to rental of the equipment, and yard space. So you are paying whether your freight is sitting or moving. And it gets even better. Lets look at some numbers. The freight charge from Long Beach, CA to Bremen, Germany, for my motorcycle is $695. That is an excellent price. There were two other motorcycles in the container, being shipped at a price of $495 each (I paid more because mine is in a crate, which requires the company to use a forklift). Total shipping charges for the container is therefore $1,685. Now what did the three of us pay for the inspection? $2,760, or 164% of the shipping price. But there is more insult. Included in the $2,760 was a fuel surcharge of $67.20. Assuming a price per gallon of $5.00, that would be 13 gallons of fuel. Assuming that the tractors only got 6 miles to the gallon of fuel, that would be 78 miles. Where in the world did they take the container? I hope it got to go see some place like Disneyland.
What I will be doing between April 1 and April 11 -- I am going to rent a car and tour around Germany, etc. I would go crazy sitting here, and I can make use of the time to visit some places I otherwise would not see. However, it also means I don't think I am going to get to Morocco this trip. It just depends, I suppose.
So that is the longish up date. I will get some more out soon.
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