Postscript: Back in England 7th October 2004
I arrived back in England about a week ago, it took me a lot longer than I expected, and I still can't say exactly why. After arriving in Fortaleza it was a few days before I was able to get in touch with the local customs agent, Beto Rocha. I met him on a Friday and spent the day putting paperwork together. This entailed going back in time to day on Central American borders – lots of photocopies. Not just ordinary photocopies but authenticated photocopies. So I had to go to a special shop where they made the copies then stamped, stickered, and initialled each page about about half a dozen times. Every single page of my passport, including the blank ones, 3 times. I'd seen a sketch on a satire show about Brazilian beaurocracy, it now looked more like a fly on the wall documentary.
Strange giant sculpture on Fortaleza's main city beach front.
On the following Monday afternoon some guys came in a truck to pick up my bike to get it crated, then weigh and measure the crate to price everything up. This took about a week. The figures then went to São Paulo to the shipping agent who were dealing with the airline. They then had to put te air way bill together and send it back up to Fortaleza. This also took a week. A week when I kept expecting it to arrive every day, and couldn't really go anywhere, even though there was nothing for me to do. Finally it arrived Friday evening. The bike was due to fly on the following Wednesday.
So the following Monday, more than three weeks after arriving in Fortaleza, the bike finally went to the airport, where we spent another few hours with more paperwork for customs. Then some bad news. We were booked with TAP, but the girl in charge there turned round and said she had a big shipment of fresh fruit to go in the plane, and we may not have room for my bike. Miss this flight and I was looking at another week of waiting.
Tuesday it was back to the airport. The crate was too big and would need to be cut down. They had gone way over the top in building it, and there was plenty of room to cut it down. I was also told that I needed to drain the oil. So the crate was broken open, and the bike came back out. To reduce the height I took off the windshield, but rather than draining all the oil I just emptied the reservoir, as I couldn't open the main drain plug. The tyres had to be completely empty, the battery totally removed rather than simply disconnected (in the end I threw it away because it was in need to replacing anyway). Plus the TAP girl kept asking me if I was absolutely shure there was not a drop of petrol left in the bike. I had syphoned off all I could before the first packing, but of course expected there to be a little left. Nonetheless I swore there was nothing there at all, with no battery no one could ask me to prove it.
It took all day to get it all ready again, but by then we had finally got clearance from customs and I had a guarantee that the bike would fly the following day. I could at last think about going home.
That evening became my last in Brazil. For the last couple of weeks I had been hanging out with a guy from New Zealand, James whose KLR has broken down on the road from Belem. He was the first overland biker I had met here in Brazil. Together we had discovered, at one particular bar, a fantastic local custom. There we were sitting drinking when a waiter came and delivered a note written on a napkin. It was from some girls who wanted to talk to us. How easy is that! And it was not an isolated event. The record on one night was four notes.
So we ended up spending a few evenings with Bruna, Diane and Alyne as a result, including my last night.
Alyne and Diane
James and, er, some knickers.
The next day I went to a travel agent, bought a ticket and was on my way by early afternoon. By Thursday I was back in England, to be met by... no one. As it turned out all my family were away on holiday.
So here I am back home, bike and all. Winter is on its way, my tan is fading and I'm already wondering why I came back. The future looms ahead and for the first time in nearly a year, I'm actually going to have to do something about it.
The End.