Brother...reading every word and can't fathom the sense of dread you must have felt when you realized the panniers were MIA. I'll be doing the same trip solo in a few weeks and starting to doubt my judgement. I guess, however, if your dreams don't scare you a bit, maybe they're not big enough?

Gordon: based on your experience so far are there any other visas which you would now recommend obtaining in London before starting? (In addition to Ghana and Nigeria).
I’m thinking in particular of:
- Guinea: Would it help one to avoid a visit to Conakry with the “immigration form”, (from what you say, it seems that might be desirable on several levels)? But then doesn’t one still have to go there come what may to get the Carnet stamped?
- Côte d’Ivoire: similarly, could having that visa in advance help one to give Conakry a miss?
- Cameroon: would having that enable you to by-pass Lagos?
- Congo: it sounds like getting the visa in Yaoundé or Douala involves either a long delay or a hefty “expedite” fee. Could that be avoided by getting it in advance?
- DRC: (as for Congo).

I am now planning to get my bike down to Casablanca in the next three or four weeks. I’m just waiting on a new passport (mine didn’t have enough blank pages left).
Then back home for a few weeks, three weeks holiday with ‘er indoors, and finally starting the main ride from Casablanca on the 14th or 15th of August. Solo (for a number of reasons). Nothing in my diary then until Christmas. I hope that will give me a decent margin for any delays.

Good luck, chin up and stay safe.

Chris.

Chris: Guinea visa can be done in Dakar and you have to go to Dakar to get your carnet stamped anyway.
It would be great if you could get a Cote d'ivoire visa beforehand. We went to Conakry to get ours but if you already have it you can just ride from border to border and don't need to go to Conakry to get the Guinea visa page put in your passport. You can then cross the country in less than 5 days on the entry paper. I'm not sure where you could get the Cote d'ivoire visa though as the embassy in Dakar won't issue it. Maybe try in Morocco?
We got the Cameroon visa in Abidjan but it took 8 days to process. I'd rather spend time in Abidjan than Lagos! Again, not sure where else you could get that but yes, you want to avoid Lagos if possible.
We haven't received our Congo visas yet which is why we're still in Douala.

Problem with getting lots of visas before leaving your home country is the expiry of the visas you have already obtained. If visa processing takes up to three weeks in London for a Ghana visa you can't afford to then send your passport to multiple different embassies after that without the first one you obtained expiring! Expediting our Ghana and Nigeria visas in London meant we spent about £750 on those two visas alone.

Good job on the passport, you'll need loads of blank pages!

Let us know if you need anything else.

I posted this on a separate thread in case anybody wants to discuss it but for Africa overlanders it is relevant.

Many overlanders talk of buying Brown Card insurance when travelling in West Africa. This insurance is often sold at borders and the agents selling it say it is valid in all the ECOWAS countries. That means it pretty much covers you from Mauritania to Nigeria. I have bought it in the past but on speaking to real insurance agents, they tell me it is invalid. They tell me that the problem is that the Brown Card is not actually and insurance in its own right. It only extends the cover of an existing policy to other ECOWAS countries. If you're familiar with the old European system it is the equivalent of a Green Card, you still need to have an insurance policy on your vehicle in your home country.
For a Brown Card to be valid, you would have to have valid insurance on your vehicle in an ECOWAS country, then the Brown Card would extend your cover to other ECOWAS countries. Overlanders with vehicles which are not registered in an ECOWAS country are not likely to have a local insurance policy upon which Brown Card insurance could be added. A search of the official Brown Card insurance web sites seems to confirm this. Also, Brown Cards must be typed, not hand written. As I understand it now, if you buy hand written Brown Card insurance at a border you are effectively buying a piece of paper which the police will accept as insurance because they don't know what they are looking at but in the event of an accident, when the insurance is checked, it will be found to be fake. I'd like to know the experience of others with the Brown Card for overlanders.

Canucklr: Good luck with your trip. It's not easy but hopefully some of the info on here will be useful. Let us know how you get on.

Congratulations on the completion of this trip and thanks for posting your journey as it was helpful. I budgeted 5 mos. to get to South Africa, but finished in 3 arriving at the end of August. I expedited my trip because, as you know, most of Africa is a rather hostile and unpleasant place to motorcycle through with Namibia and South Africa being the exceptions. I probably wouldn't have done it if I knew what I know now and don't recommend it.

I completed the trip without a carnet and definitely would recommend not getting one though I've heard rumours that Angola may now require one. I had no problem with TIP's/Passavants and even while paying some of the highly suspect fees, it was cheaper than a carnet.

The DR650 would not die or break even after filling it with crappy fuel, dumping it it frequently in the mud and crashing it once.....it just kept going. Only failure was a broken speedo cable. The bike is a bit bent.....but a few replacement parts and fasteners will straighten the girl out again. The Motoz Tractionator GPS tire I installed in Morocco lasted the entirety of the trip.

I too ended my trip at African Overlanders and will have the bike shipped to South America where I plan on picking it up in January and riding back to Canada possibly with another Canuck on a KLR I met up with in Namibia. Sorry to hijack your thread, but I thought I'd would recognize your accomplishment and let you know how things turned out for me.

Excellent job. Well done and thanks for posting your update. Really good to hear you made it all the way to SA. Answering the carnet question will be a big help to others doing the same route too.

The border crossings, corruption and visa issues certainly make it a challenge. Sounds like your DR650 was the perfect bike for the trip.

Good luck for the next leg and keep us updated, we'd love to follow along.

Chris: The Brown card wouldn't extend UK insurance. It would extend a policy issued in an ECOWAS country to other ECOWAS countries.

Markharf: Yes, a rented bike would probably have local insurance in an ECOWS country, and so a Brown card would be able to extend that to other ECOWAS countries.

Sent from my SM-A137F using Tapatalk

Got it! (I think):
- get at least third party insurance in the first ECOWAS country. For me, that’s Senegal.
- either there, or in the next ECOWAS country (for me Guinea) get a Brown card to extend cover through all the Brown card participating countries (last one Nigeria).
- after Nigeria get at least third party insurance in the first CEMAC country (for me that’s Cameroon)
- either there or in the next CEMAC country (for me Gabon or Congo) get a Pink Card to extend cover through the Pink card participating countries (last one Congo).
- on entering DRC and onwards there seem to be no more similar systems, so it’s back to purchasing insurance country-by-country.

Phew! It ain’t half complicated.
No doubt expensive too, but I have long realised this project is not going to be cheap.

Yes, it is complicated and expensive. I'd suggest getting a Brown card at the Senegal border. You'd need something to show if you get stopped by cops. Then, when you get to St Louis or Dakar, ask a real insurance agent if it's valid or not...

Sent from my SM-A137F using Tapatalk

Your Calabar-Tiko border experience sounds like another full-on nightmare, and a financial black hole. “Nerve-wracking” is putting it mildly.
Still, I guess we do these things in the hope of gaining some memorable experiences and dinner-party stories, and it certainly ticks those boxes!
With the benefit of hindsight (I am always happy to profit from your experience) might it have been preferable to cross into Cameroon via a land border post further North?

I noticed Kyle crossed a land border and ended up camping in Rebel territory. I certainly wouldn't do that. All advice is not to put yourself at risk in the rebel area. We met some other overlanders, and they flew their bikes from Cotonou to Libreville and skipped Nigeria and Cameroon. That's probably the best option, although having ridden through Nigeria I'm pleased to say we did it, I just wouldn't do it again.

Sent from my SM-A137F using Tapatalk

Well done getting through Nigeria. Another challenge overcome, and hopefully enormous satisfaction when you look back.

Despite the aggro and expense, your route into Cameroon sounds more attractive than Kyle’s inland one. Potential rip-offs seem preferable to long off-road sections and wild camping in the boondocks (against FCO advice).
And once I’m getting closer I will take your advice and look into potential sea/air routes to bypass some of the badlands. Maybe less satisfaction, but a lot less hassle.

Good luck with the Congos. I’m guessing that after them life will get much more agreeable.

One question: do you use the Maps.me app? It works offline once you have downloaded each country or regional map, and there is a “hotels” function which has got me out of a scrape a few times (and taken me to some strange and interesting places).

We stayed in Douala for a while. My CRF1000 had blown a fork seal way back in Guinea. There have been some rough roads since then. The oil has pretty much stopped leaking out now. There is just enough coming out to wet the caliper but not enough to run down and drip onto the wheel rim. Despite having new brake pads before leaving the UK the left pads are down to metal and scraping the disc. The right side has been well lubricated with fork oil of course! We needed to get some new seals and pads sent out to us.

The previous weekend was the King's Coronation and consequently Monday was a national holiday in the UK, so the spares, although ordered on Saturday, were dispatched on Tuesday. With overnight delivery from the suppliers, Belinda received them on Wednesday and DHL'ed them the same day. They arrived in Douala on Friday morning which is amazing service on DHL's part.

Sadly that performance isn't matched on the Cameroon side. The customs do everything they can to prevent the timely flow of goods anywhere. We went to the DHL office the package was addressed to. No, it's not coming here said the counter staff. Try going to the airport.

At the airport office various staff looked at each other before a waybill was printed. They then motioned for me to go upstairs to a customs office. The three people inside sat at desks chatting. One motioned to take the paperwork. He put it on his desk and carried on chatting. After a lengthy wait he left and gave it to custom woman 2 to deal with. She put it on her desk and carried on chatting. A long wait later she looked at it, tapped a lot of keys and wrote a number down. 67% import tax.

Clearly extortion so I said no. She referred it back to customs guy 1 when he returned. He made various implausible excuses but eventually told her to recalculate, now it was down to 55% tax. After over an hour of this, that was as good as it was going to get. Downstairs to pay at the money counter. Cashier on her phone ignores everyone. A helpful local guy, who is familiar with the procedure, pushes my paperwork to her. She puts it on her keyboard and ignores it.

I wait and eventually she says it's not on her system. Customs is one system, the money is another etc. A long wait later she takes the 55% tax and adds another 2% to it for her services. Back up stairs to get the payment approved by two obnoxious customs guys in a different office. Neither is interested but one starts wanting more paperwork and shows a document of unknown origin which isn't necessary. I remain calm and through Google translate ask politely for help.

He motions to obnoxious customs guy 2 to do something. OCG2 can't do it so OCG1 comes over after stamping the receipt from the cashier. They motion for me to go downstairs. Back downstairs, next to the cashier is another kiosk. Woman takes all paperwork and copies it. She keeps some and gives me some of the copies and motions for me to go outside. Still no one shows any interest in finding my parcel, I ask a security guard for help using translate on the phone.

He motions for me to take a seat. Nothing happens. I ask him again and he goes off to look for someone. Guard comes back with a thumbs up signal which is hopeful. Sometime later I see a man with a parcel about the size I was expecting. Various scans, form filling and signing later he hands it over. 2.5 hours to collect a parcel. I relay this (somewhat boring) story to give you an idea of how things work out here and why it takes so long and costs so much, to ride through Africa. You can't rush it or change it and extortion, corruption, indifference and lack of work ethic in the government departments is just the way it's done.

While in Douala we decided to try and get the Congo visa. There is a consulate in Douala and they told us we needed copies of documents and accommodation reservations. They gave directions to a copy shop up the road. We made a hotel reservation, emailed it to the copy shop, they printed it and made copies of Yellow Fever certificate etc. Back at the consulate we handed over all documents and 60 000 CFA. The reception lady told us to come back on Tuesday to collect the passports. It was 4 days to wait but the visa was processed and ready on Tuesday.