Selling the BMW

I had the idea of traveling around the world by motorcycle when I left Japan. I met, however, a woman in Bogota, Colombia. We met almost every day during five months. Meanwhile the six-month visa was going to expire. In this country you cannot get a further extension of the visa and must leave the country for six months. I rode out of Bogota for a journey around South America on October 11, 2003. I traveled with the woman for the beginning three days. I promised her that I would come back till Christmas of the following year at the latest. So I traveled quickly. On September 18, 2004 I went back to Bogota after 11 months, which was earlier than my promise. However, 11 months should have been too long for a Latin American woman to wait. Her love for me had burned itself out.

We arrived at the Ecuadoran border on January 8. It was Saturday that day. We came to know that Colombians require a Colombian certificate of noncriminality to enter Ecuador. But, we were told that the certificate wouldn't be issued because the banks were closed. It was, nevertheless, Colombia. We got the certificate, paying money three times more, and successfully entered Ecuador. But, but, an unexpected thing happened. At the border there were officers who only check the incoming vehicles and the customs office that gives the permission of my bike was in the town of Tulcan, 5km away. The officers told us the office was closed on Saturdays and ordered us to go back to Colombia and come back again on Monday. I asked them to allow us to stay in a hotel in Tulcan till Monday, but they kept saying "No". I made a detour, saying them we would go back to Colombia, and headed toward Tulcan, instead. Fortunately there was no police check on the way and we came to the entrance of Tulcan. Just at the moment when I thought I had made it, a car was coming from behind. The driver told us to stop. He was one of the officers at the border. He told us that he would arrest us. Listening to this, Maria joyfully said, "This is really an adventurous trip!" I was uneasy. Luckily we missed being arrested and went back to Colombia. However, Maria, expecting the loss of two days, would have to fly back to Bogota immediately after the arrival in Quito. Quito was the place that she wanted to visit most. She called her office in Bogota and took another three-day holiday. The vacation, which was only a week, became to be two weeks. I was happy with the three-day extension. On Monday we entered Ecuador again and arrived at the customs office at 9:30. It was past two in the afternoon when I was given the permission of motorcycle importation. However, I found a good thing. The customs office didn't stamp the permission on the passport this time and gave only a sheet of paper of permission to me. Besides, I witnessed the document being written by the Microsoft Word. I guessed that the customs didn't have a data communication system with the immigration office. If so, the government wouldn't notice my selling the BMW in Ecuador on my departure from the country. I thought that I wouldn't have to go to Santiago to sell the bike.

On that day we stayed in a hot spring resort. We bathed in the thermal pools in the morning of the following day as well and left for Quito after one in the afternoon. When we came close to a hotel in Quito, a young man waved his hand and jogged along our bike. He introduced himself as Gerald who was a motorcycle traveler from Germany. He invited us to a dinner of some motorcycle riders that would be held on that night. We accepted his offer.

We went to the hotel where Gerald was staying at the appointed time. Soon later, Ricardo, an Ecuadoran man as tall as 195cm, and Ralph and his wife from Australia came. We went to a "sushi" bar by Ricardo's car. Ricardo traveled around South America by motorcycle and even published a book written about his trips. The riders of the world frequently visited his large house and stayed there. Ecuador was the only country in South America that required a carnet for a tourist by vehicle. The government abolished it in September of the last year. Ricardo realized this, persuading the president and Congress and so on to do this.

Gerald told me that I wouldn't be able to sell my bike in Chile because of their computer system connecting the immigration and customs offices by online. The information from the Peruvian Esperantists still had some uncertainty. So I called the two men whom I met before and who told me they wanted to buy my BMW in Quito. But I couldn't sell it to them. So I consulted Ricardo. He immediately called his friends for me. One of them, Felipe (pseudonym), told Ricardo he wanted to buy. Ricardo told me my BMW would cost $4,000 to $5,000. I thought it would be OK if I could sell it in Ecuador. I expected to sell it for $5,000. Ricardo suggested me to go with him to a motorcycle race course in Latacunga, a town 70km south of Quito, where Felipe wanting the BMW would also come next Saturday. I accepted his offer, without mentioning it.

As Ricardo told me Felipe would surely come to the race on Sunday, I went there again. A large audience and more than 100 motorcycles came to the race course. First of all Felipe came to me and set his price of $4,000. A man who came next told me $3,000. So I put a sheet of paper written "For sale $5,000". A lot of people came to see my bike. As two of them told me they would call me later, I wrote the telephone number of my hotel on two pieces of paper and gave them to the men. But I didn't ask their names and the telephone numbers. It was my bad mistake. I waited on for their calls in my hotel room for several days, but there was no call. As there was no use only waiting, I looked in the telephone directory and called five motorcycle shops. Two of them answered me that they wanted buy the BMW. As one of the two was far and not easy to visit, I went to the other shop nearby. The owner of the shop told me that he himself wouldn't buy it, but that he would find someone among his customers. As he asked my price, I just told him that a motorcycle shop in Santiago wanted to pay around $7,000. He also set the same price. He told me it would take one week. I waited for four days and got his answer that $7,000 was too much for the bike without proper documents and its reasonable price would be $3,000 to $4,000. So I went to the farther shop next day. The shop didn't want to buy either, but the owner told me he had a friend who was interested. As he didn't call me at the appointed time of five in the evening, I myself called him. He answered me the motorcycle that his friend wanted was not the model of my bike, but an enduro bike. I gave up trying to sell the bike in Quito. Ricardo told me the bike would be surely sold in Cuenca and gave me the telephone numbers of two people. One of them was Nicanor, who was one of Ricardo's best friends, according to Ricardo. I arrived in Cuenca after 10-hour motorcycle trip. I called Nicanor. He told me he was a journalist. It reminded me that he was the person who had written the preface to the book of Ricardo. He told me he would not only call his motorcycle friends, but also put an advertisement both in the Internet and his newspaper. But it is prohibited for a tourist to sell his motorcycle. I passed up his idea of the advertisement in the newspaper because it would be too risky.

While Nicanor was informing about my bike to find a buyer for $5,000, I called the two people who gave me their prices of $4,000 and $3,000 respectively at the race course. They didn't change their offering prices while mine was $5,000. About two days later, a man who had gotten the information from Nicanor came to my hotel. He also left the hotel, saying $5,000 was too high. I waited still more. I also got contact with some motorcycle shops, but in vain. I waited for a week after all, but I couldn't find any other buyer. So I decided to sell my bike to Felipe for $4,000. Felipe consulted the lawyer of Quito, whose phone number I gave to him, on the phone about the registration of my BMW in Ecuador. He told me he would buy. Another two days passed while I received money and delivered the bike to Felipe's house. We made a contract at last. That night Felipe, who consulted some lawyers in Cuenca as well, came to my hotel and asked me to accompany him to a government office called Notaria on the following day so as to register both the Californian certificate and the Ecuadoran permission of my BMW that I had given to him. It made me postpone my departure another one day. At nine of the next morning Felipe came to my hotel to pick me up, and this time told me that he needed the extension of the permission for the BMW that would expire soon. He took me to the office in charge. I was waiting for him outside. Felipe came out of the office and told me that he wouldn't able to buy my bike on account of the impossibility of its registration.

I had to return to Bogota in eight days in order to make a report of my visa to a government office. I didn't have enough time to go to Lima in Peru. I decided to go back to Bogota first. I gave the money back and got the bike back. Another one day passed. I called Ricardo in Quito and told him I would ride back there next day. At that moment Ricardo informed me that he had a friend who wanted to buy the BMW in Quito. On the next day of my arrival in Quito, I visited the friend with Ricardo. And, I sold my BMW to him for $3,000.

If I had more time, I would have traveled to Peru. Although selling the BMW was important, my visa was more important. I think I did everything that I could do to sell the bike. So I was tired. I wanted to be free from the BMW. I wanted to go back to Bogota which has my reliable friends and my sweet home. It was a trip of just one month. Although I got tired, I could see a different aspect from the motorcycle trips that I had before. I was able to have a new experience. And, my motorcycle journey around North and South America ended just after three years and eight months.