Getting the bikes ready to ride

Today is the big day we pick up the bikes from the cargo terminal. We took a taxi out to drop our luggage at our Motostay host Modesto’s apartment and then continued onto the terminal nearby. The Swissport company had sent us a notification by email that the bikes where ready and where we needed to go to present our waybill. You go into the main entrance and present the bill. From here you go upstairs to pay the 40 Euros “for delivery of the paperwork”. From here you go back down stairs and get the paperwork stamped.

Then you walk 500 meters down the road to the huge blue customs building. Go in the plaza and enter the first set of doors on the right. Go to the desk ahead and ask for your temporary import permit. What is supposed to happen is they are to issue this for free. The problem here is the man who is running the show and who also does not speak English. Our Spanish Riding friends know him well and have had issues with him many times. He initially told us we needed to go across the road to the freight forwarding office to obtain a DUA, which is a bond for import. When we arrived there we were told by the official, who spoke English perfectly that since we are not Spanish citizens we require a TVIP and we do not need a DUA nor can he issue one to us. We returned to the Aduana to explain this. The dude there had not changed his mind and spent the next 90 min telling all the other workers not to stamp our paperwork. Finally another guy in a suit showed up and was chatting to our guy. He then came to us and asked us to follow him up to his office. He also spoke English well and explained that he would stamp our waybill so that we could get our bikes, but that we had to sign a declaration stating we were temporarily importing the bikes and this was for 6 months. Downstairs we hand wrote this and signed this. They took copies of this and our passport entry stamp. Basically this was to save face for the first dude who refused to just stamp our paperwork. The declaration is worthless; because once we leave Spain they will not know where we are in or out of the EU since there is no border control. We were happy after 2 ½ hours to get our official aduana stamp.

Then we walked back to Swissport and presented our papers to the first floor clerk. She than hand you a number, which you take to the loading bay. The guys there were great a rushed to get the bikes for us and even cleaned up all the mess. We put the mirrors and windscreens back on, reconnected the batteries, and put some air in the tires and we were off. It was great to come home to Modesto’s place where he was making us a traditional Spanish potato tortilla for dinner.

Today we went by BMW Madrid, which is only 11 km away to organize some service work. Javier was awesome and said he could get the work done in the next 2 days. We need valve checks, new radiator fluid and spark plugs. We dropped off the 650 and headed downtown on the 800.

Modesto had also told us where to buy parts for a discount. We got all the items on our list here including Daniel’s new Gelfer front disks.

We have met the famous Alicia Sornosa 4 times by chance on the trip so far. The first time was in Dawson City, then Haines Junction Yukon, Oaxaca Mexico, and finally in Santiago de Chile. She is from Madrid and happens to be home now and so we planned to meet downtown for lunch. We met up with her, her boyfriend Daniel (He is from Valencia and they met while riding in Ulan Battar!), and some other riding friends for a traditional Madrid lunch of Artichoke tart, fish, and cheesecake. YUM. Then we had a little tour of the city.

We planned to meet for dinner also and with Modesto and Jose from Portugal and we had an awesome seafood meal. Another small world coincidence is that Jose knows Jorge (who we met 2 weeks ago in Uruguay).

The other advantage of staying with Modesto is we get to hang out with Luna.

The next item on the adgenda was the suspension service for both of the bikes. Modesto recommended DMX Suspension Spain and we are so glad he did. Damien and his team did an amazing job. How many suspension shops have their own track for testing the bikes?

There shop is stunning. They have fully computerized diagnostics. He can do anything that you need and can even machine any parts required.

After rebuilding the front shocks they also noticed the 650 had pretty damaged steering head bearings, so it was a trip back to BMW for the parts and back to DMX the next day. Damien is an absolute perfectionist and he wants you to be completely happy with your new suspension no matter how long it takes.

They also treated us to lunch including 2 desserts for the guys.

For the weekend we headed south of Madrid to the village Modesto grew up in. La Solana is 200 km of highway driving, but it gives you access to tons of curvy mountain roads. The rest of the weekend was a loop into the mountains to the village of Yeste and back for 790 km.

First we stopped at his family home where he has a full motorcycle workshop. We needed to do oil changes on both bikes, install Daniel’s new front disks and brake pads, clean the air filters.

Then it was off to the hills.

It is amazing here how you can be riding along and in the middle of nowhere there is a quaint village with a nice place for lunch or a nice small hotel. There were blooming almond trees everywhere.

We finally stopped after dark in Yeste and found a good room for 3 in the Hotel Yeste! We were glad of the extra electric heater provided as the temperature was near zero.

On Sunday we stopped for lunch in Hornos where there is a nice castle up on the hillside. I love it here when you order a drink you always get a snack with it!

Headed home we passed lots of small villages perched on hills and acres of olive trees.