WEST AFRICA
2022/2023

TRIP MAP

West Africa map

The route, as tracked on Polarsteps. I had to change my initial plans to drive to Abidjan as getting the visa took much more time than planned. Classic TIA (acronym explained further below). 

PREPARATIONS: THIS TIME IS DIFFERENT

Africa is different. It really is. 

And that's why this post a bit different from my other reports. I had to put much more effort into planning and preparing this project, and that is what I will focus on here. If you are interested in reading my travel diary then you can connect with me Polarsteps, where I kept a blog-like report on the trip. I do not check the app frequently when I am not traveling, so please send me a message so that I know who you are and can add you. 

Koundara Guinea

Let's start with the necessary preparations of the car. Although the G wagon was almost ready for action, it nevertheless took countless hours to get it to perfection. The most important upgrades included a new set of wheels to match the "African standard" so that I would not need to take along a second spare wheel. I had red from several sources that the tyre size of 265 85 R16 is the easiest to find in Africa, but also elsewhere. The idea of not taking a second spare is hotly debated and often a topic discussed when running into other overlanders (especially the ones that did bring a second spare). For me, it is part of my mantra to travel as lightly as possible and I would only consider it when traveling into extremely remote areas.

In the same sense I tried to not bring anything that I would not really use, with a few exceptions, which is mainly medical equipment and other items that can be crucial to surviving unforeseen circumstances and a few spares that I assessed will be the most likely to be needed: a starter (automatic gearbox, cannot be pushed to start), belts and related pieces, and all service-related items. No alternator (it can be fixed anywhere and I can work around it using the cars two circuits and my solar panels. I also took along any tools that would be hard to find, bolts, soldering iron, etc. 

Apart from that I needed to make slight upgrades to my kitchen and most importantly, design and construct the water filtration system, which took much more time than any other preparation.

Refuelling in the desert

More painful and much less fun were administrative preparations. I was planning to do the large share of the trip by myself. I had not been on extended solo overlanding trips before. To be sure I would be ok with it I gave it a shot during the last two weeks of the Balkan trip, three months before starting the West Africa trip. And yes, it worked! I liked the ability to plan every day on a rolling basis and make decisions as I please. I also noted that it made me very open to meet other travellers and locals, which I enjoyed. Importantly, though, I realized that it also requires me to be much better informed because I cannot take as much risk when by myself.

For me, thorough preparation means collecting tons of information to minimize uncertainty and to prevent needless wasting of time in undesirable places (that is, large cities) during the trip. What makes things tricky is that for some countries, information is limited and the little information available is extremely scattered. To give you an example: the 2013 Lonely Planet guide on West Africa devotes a full 5 pages to Guinea, a country larger than the entire UK.

I created an Excel sheet and dashboard to keep track of the most important information: 1) visas, 2) security and health risks (i.e. which regions to omit), 3) rainfall (unpaved roads become impassable), 4) diesel quality (more on this here) and prices, and 5) all things money, such as card payment acceptance, ATM availability, and exchange rates (I hate to arrive to a border and not having an approximate sense of the exchange rate when there is no phone reception). If you are interested you can download a copy of the template here. Remember though, at this point, this is an outdated and incomplete template containing links to sources, meant to be a starting point for your own research, not a ready-to-go document.

Apart from that, I recommend consulting travel books (research which ones are helpful as the reality changes all the time) and importantly, join Facebook pages: the communities on Overlanding West Africa & Morocco and West Africa Travellers are extremely knowledgable and have access to up-to-date information and many members are happy to help. Another helpful source is this site, which discusses the need of a "fiche" to cross Western Sahara and Mauritania (I handed out about 50 copies of it).

And this is probably where TIA comes into play. TIA stands for This Is Africa and it nicely summarizes all the pleasant (and not so pleasant) surprises and unforeseen circumstances you encounter along your journey. It means that no matter how well you are prepared, be ready for changes...

...all the time.

RULES OF THE GAME

This is a topic close to my heart. Always leave behind a place you visit as it was, better yet try to leave it behind better than you found it. Overlanding has become very popular over the past years and a growing community means that not only good behavior proliferates. Good behavior starts with simple things, such as not leaving any trace when you spend the night at a beautiful spot. When there is garbage from previous visitors, then I tend to clean up to make it a better place. That's what I have my black garbage bag attached to my spare wheel! 

The same goes for how to behave when interacting with locals. Your visit should not affect local communities in a negative way. Unfortunately, the contrary is something you observe in many parts of the world, including Africa. Places that are highly frequented by inexperienced or not well behaved travellers can become "toxic". For instance, well-meant gestures by travellers that involve handing gifts to local kids can quickly turn into an expectation that all passing overlanders should hand over a gift, and if this is not done, kids can become aggressive. I had nasty encounters in rural Morocco, where local boys would take position, pick up stones and make threatening gestures. I also had a kid running after my car on a dirt road the car and climb up on the back holding on to the spare wheel to pick things out of my attached bag (in this instance the kid "stole" plastic out of my garbage). Not only is this bad behavior, but outright dangerous for the child. My rule of thumb: I do not make gifts to either kids or adults, unless I spend time with the community and establish a certain degree of bond. 

Speaking of adults, this is where we get into the topic of bribery. The same mechanisms are at work here, except that this is a different level and more institutionalized. Just do not do it! The only excuse to do it is if your life is in serious danger. I have travelled a good share of the globe in vehicles and I have so far been able to not engage in bribery. Yes, it sometimes costs you more time and extra work to do the right thing, but if you do not have the time in the first place, then why go on a trip? Before this trip, I had learned my lessons from Central Asia, which was manageable: the worst we had was waiting for two hours at a barrier in the middle of the Turkmen desert, where an army official tried to extort 10 USD from us so that we could cross a bridge. Playing the game of not understanding and providing all kinds of useless papers (including a random receipt from Georgia), did the trick and is my default strategy in such situations. I had read that in West Africa travellers are much more exposed to bribery risks than in other parts of the world - yet, I have been able to manage. Take your time, smile at the officer, tell the story of your trip and if need be, of your life. This is the only way you can leave the place better than you found it. By the way, the situation in West Africa was much better than I expected. Especially Guinea, which had a bad reputation seems to have vastly improved. I would usually just get friendly requests for "a gift" (which I obviously declined, with a nice smile).

The only "tricky" situation I encountered was an orchestrated professional scam when returning from Senegal to Mauritania. Most informed overlanders choose the Diama border post when crossing between Mauritania and Senegal as the main border post, Rosso, is infested with corruption and bribery (again, bad behavior by past travellers plays an important role here) and is known to be one of the worst land borders in the world. Same did I. All went smooth when going south, but on my return trip, the "agent" selling Mauritanian road insurance "did not show up that day". It was late afternoon and I checked with the head of the gendarmerie at the border what I could do and he advised me to continue my trip and to buy insurance in the first town, 50 kms from the border. Smelling the rotten fish I ask him to have that in writing (no) or at least to have his number in case of an issue (no) or his name (no). I was sent away impatiently and told to continue now. Not much of a surprise, 30 kms later I am stopped by the Gendarme and a well-spoken civilian asking rudely to see my insurance. The civilian is obviously working with the Gendarme and highly skilled. His strategies switched between being agressive and shouting at me to then quickly turn to a nice person being "here to help me". No luck today, my friend. I wait and I don't pay! After finally being released (incredibly that was the civilian's call, not the Gendarme's!), I bought the insurance at that sleepy town. I later read on iOverlander that this guy is known to be a professional "owning" that crossroad where every traveller passes by. He is running a few more scams, not only this insurance scam.

To sum up: do your homework when planning for your trip, so that you are prepared for such situations. What I cannot stress enough is that overlanders should absolutely get a Carnet de Passages (CdP) when traveling beyond Mauritania. Senegal does not allow foreign-plated vehicles above a certain age to enter the country legally, unless they have a CdP. This has led to the creation of a very successful scam at the Rosso and Diama borders, where a group "provides" a piece of paper costing several hundred Euros to "facilitate" the entry of cars without CdP. A whole network of beneficiaries has grown out of this business over the past decades and there is no way this scam stops, unless they run out of victims. That is why I urge you to do the right thing and please, get a CdP, so that you can cross borders freely without having to engage in dirty behavior and leaving behind a toxic environment. You can check out the above mentioned Facebook groups if you want to read into this topic in detail. I have not yet heard of any excuse I deemed valid as to why someone had not gotten a CdP. There are so many options to get one, the Swiss TCS provides CdPs for foreign cars and individuals (their team is amazing), I believe so does the German counterpart, and I have heard that Georgia (the country) offers an interesting option. Research the topic thoroughly and you will be able to find a solution, even on a small budget. There is no excuse.