Hi
We went on the Plymouth-dakar,
we were in group three that went parallel to the real paris-dakar.
we where in two rusting Rover Montego estates they both perfomed very well in the desert and on the beach's, as most people know the desert crossing part is quite easy if you have any sort of off-road experience.
we also build Paris-dakar cars and our entry this year came 28th overall. My wife and I do a lot of travelling in our 4x4 truck and also as racers in varies desert races so we see many sides to border crossing ( easy and hard)
you can see some strange pictures at
http://plymouthdakar.mysite.freeserv...e/pictures.htm
As for the senegal crossing there was much talk about the problems we where going to get at the border, When our group assembled at Marakech there was a huge drunken argument about the problem, one of the guys had phoned home and had been informed that the first group of 30 cars had all been charged 300 euros each, then had there passports confiscated while they where escorted to the Gambian border.
This also happened to group two, who where allowed to stay overnight at Zebrabar campsite in Senegal,I was told they paid £650 approx for the group guide/customs offical.
our group split up before the border ,Myself and my brother in the two montego's along with two other cars decided we would have a shot at the Rosso border ( all the others had done Diama) we ended up with another 6 cars with us mainly the kids (as we called them) on/or the stupid teams.
we managed to talk our way into senegal across the ferry. we paid only 50 euro to one guide ( for all the cars).
and paid the fees as per chris scotts account on the western sahara pdf file.
we entered into senegal without a carnet or a passez laiser and were free to roam, we went to st Louis then to Dakar to watch the Paris-Dakar finish.
The rest of group three went direct to diama and where kept waiting for 5 hours, then got charged 95 euro per car and escorted to the zebrabar campsite where they stayed without passports until the monday morning,
The guide sent with them was not in uniform and did not know his way to Gambia, he got lost many times, he also tagged some german trucks onto the convoy which slowed it down a great deal, general opinion was that the guide was just the brother/friend of the main man at Diama scamming some more money of everyone.
we continued direct from Dakar to the Gambia in smaller groups and had no problems, the customs on the senagales side of the gambian border gave no problems and it was nice to be greated with 'welcome to the Gambia sir' by the gambian border police.
we entered Senagal on the 17 Jan and left on the 20th Jan 2004
beady