| Jeff Poulter & Graham Tillotson: 5th/6th September 2004 |
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Quito - 5th Sept
Well, we arrived in Quito this afternoon after an uneventful air COPA flight. The only passage worthy of note was that I left my Swiss Army knife in my bike jacket pocket when I went through security, so they confiscated it. Then they searched my tankbag and found an old screwdriver and confiscated that too, accompanied by a stern look. Mildly embarrassing but, hey, I'm travelling by bike: you always carry a screwdriver when you travel by bike! The approach to Quito airport is interesting too as the airport appears to be in the middle of their city. We landed seemingly between houses, with more streets virtually on the edge of the runway. If a plane veered off the runway it would take out the equivalent of a small village.
It's Sunday here so we don't know whether the bikes have arrived yet - we'll go to the airport in the morning and find out. Because it's Sunday, everything is closed up but we did find an interesting small Indian market in one of the parks. We've put up at the International Hostel which is basic but clean and fairly roomy. It's also within budget which is unusual for a capital city. Quito is at 10,000 ft so lugging the luggage around caused surprising breathlessness but I guess we'll get used to it in a couple of days.
Quito - 6th Sept
Well, finally got the bikes out of Ecuadorian customs. What a hassle. Blow by blow below. Poor Graham's getting worse. It's now a full blown cold (another) which is going down on his chest. Apparently he suffers from bronchitis and stuff. So this might take a little time to sort out. If he shows no signs of improvement tomorrow we'll find him a doctor.
Well, the saga is two days and ten cabs old. Yesterday, armed with an address given to us by the cargo company in Panama, we showed it to a taxi driver who dropped us off at a skyscraper office block in the financial district. We checked and double checked but he was right. On the tenth floor we presented our paperwork. They looked at it and charged us $30 for storage, told us the name of the warehouse and told us that we would have to go to customs at the airport first. This we knew. Another cab.
Lost Cargo Bay !?
There was no obvious cargo area so we went to the passenger terminal and
asked at the information desk whence we were directed outside the building,
towards the customs office. It said customs over the office door but lied
and while the chappie therein was trying to explain why we should disturb
him no further, another customs man appeared who was then deputed by the
first to take us to the right place. He guided us out to the grotty side
of the airport which looked much more businesslike. But, to out surprise,
he left us in the comfortable outer office of a clearly senior manager.
I looked at GT and he didn't believe it either. We had passed the places
we usually end up, where punters are herded around a single fibre-glass
chair and left to wait their turn while the bloke behind the small dusty
window watches a re-run of the Olympics on TV.
But, no, the Jeff's secretary addresses us in good English (turns out that she spent two years in Cardiff and we still understood her). We explained. She talked to her boss who, on discovering that we had no triptic (carnet, we think) suggested unloading the problem onto some other bloke. So this nice lady escorted us down the stairs and round the corner to the office of a man in uniform with "Commander" on his epaulets. He kissed her cheek (hey, Graham, that's a good sign): they chatted earnestly, sucked teeth, enlisted yet another bloke and discussed animatedly how they were going to solve this once-in-a-lifetime problem. It went on a long time, then somebody suggested summat, they all beamed, and the nice lady said "perfecto". This sounded good, promising even.
Job's-Worth is Back !!!
Nice lady than took us upstairs to matron Harridan-in-chief who quivered
with immediate umbrage at whatever plan had been cooked up downstairs.
The equivalent of 'more than my job's worth' rang clearly around the room,
followed by 'I should cocoa, sunbeam'. Nice lady looked crestfallen and
explained that we would now have to write a formal letter of special pleading
to the head of customs but she couldn't do that, it had to be a customs
agent. She thus hailed a passing go-for, gave him our papers and instructed
him, presumably, to find us a customs agent.
So, after all, we ended up where all the other poor sods were trying to
plead their cases, being introduced to an extraordinary looking man whose
name I missed. We explained, he looked confused. By our Spanish, the problem,
or both I couldn't tell. In fact he looked more than confused: he looked
like a more worn, hang dog version of Manuel from Fawlty Towers and scruffy
to boot. He was wearing a 'suit' collar and tie. The shirt had obviously
been clean a month or so ago and the tie had been used to wipe out the
frying pan before leaving home this morning. But it was that suit. The
suit was a killer. In fact, and I don't say this lightly, it eclipsed even
the Bulgarian one-size-fits-all suit. It looked as if it had been made
by his granddaughter from one of her cot blankets: the material had pilled
and the right leg (only) had perfect double creases; the jacket hung lifelessly,
shapelessly from his shoulders while the lining was dangling below the
hem of the jacket at the back; one button was missing and the whole ensemble
was a sun-faded beige. At least, the jacket was: the trousers had been
washed more frequently so they were an insipid grey and this probably also
explains why they were two inches short of his shoes. The wardrobe genius
at MGM could not have created such a suit.
Graham and the suit went upstairs to re-tackle the Harridan and plead the undeniable logic of our case. He harangued, she humphed and bureaucracy won. As the suit came downstairs he hailed the other agents asking if anyone had any suggestions what to do with motorcyclists. Happily, I cannot help but feel, we understood little of the responses but someone suggested Big Bertha.
Minutes later, Bertha was soothing our concerns, saying that it would take a few hours and $50 each. We left her all our documents, including bike registrations, licences, and passports. If Bertha did a runner or fell under a bus (albeit it would need to be a hefty bus) we could spend the next century in jail. It was 11.30. Could we come back at three? Cab back to hostel.
At 3.00, as we were climbing out of the (4th) cab at the airport, Graham bumped into Bertha in her car about to set off for the financial district and the tenth floor where the dickwits had not properly cancelled the air waybill. This meant that the exercise could not really start until tomorrow . When tomorrow? Oh, come at 10.00. Cab home. Graham is starting to feel poorly and takes to his bed.
This morning Graham is feeling worse. Looks like another cold, poor sod,
but he dreamily gets ready for another airport assault. Cab six drops us
at Bertha's at 10.00. To-do no es listo. Well, there's a surprise then.
When? Difficult to say because the bikes have to be inspected by a customs
officer.. One o'clock should be OK, though. Oh, really? Cab seven takes
us back to the hostel where Graham re-enlists his horizontally.
Taxi - Road to Nowhere
I prod him into some semblance of life at one-ish and cab eight takes us back to the airport. We sit around for an hour or so. Graham is dying but has the good grace to expire quietly. After an hour and a half, following instructions, we board Bertha's car once more to find a strange bloke in the front seat. We head out of Quito for a few kilometres and eventually turn into a secure warehouse where the bikes are duly inspected by the bloke from the front seat. The customs officer, for it is he, declares himself satisfied and we spend another half and hour driving back to Bertha's office while Graham moans in the corner of the car. Yes, of course it is a stupid, pointless waste of time, but we are now house trained and we want our bikes back, please mister. The we cough up $50 each, the customs wallah stamps and writes in our passports and, with two of Bertha's daughters, we head off back to the warehouse in cab number nine. (Cab ten is the theoretical one for which we paid in advance so that the daughters to return to mum's). We are rushed another $28 (more storage, you see. But it is their bloody fault that we…oh, forget it).
I am relieved that we may be getting the bikes at last and GT's dead on
his feet anyway, so we only notice a few superficial bangs and knocks on
the bikes. We change into all our gear, start the bikes and stop two yards
later. Both front tyres are flat. Some bastard's let them down, to lower
the height, we surmise. How pissed off can one be? Oh, verily was I mightily
peeved. Graham looked concerned then died. I stripped off and proceeded
to pump up two tyres with a small hand pump. I didn't think it fair to
ask Graham to do his own, He was, after all, dead.
The corpse and I rode back to the hostel and I then rode the bikes up the front step, through the reception and down the steps to the back yard. Tomorrow I'll assess the full damage but, now, I need to brush up on my undertaker vocab and I need a beer.
Jeff 05.09.04 & 06.09.04 |
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