Hi everybody.

I'm looking at a trip from UK down to Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania, Senegal, then on to Mali, Burkina Faso, Ghana, maybe Togo and Benin, by Land Rover.

The catch is that I can't leave before April 2006, and I need to be back during August 06, with a maximum total length of 3 months, to avoid divorce proceedings from my wife, who will only be with me for a month of the trip.

Reading around, the advice seems to be to avoid crossing the Sahara between late April and October. Does this apply to the Atlantic route as much as the more taxing inland routes?

Can I ask the experienced travellers here if you think that leaving UK in early April would give me enough time to get through the Sahara, still allowing time to enjoy the journey, before it gets too harsh to travel? I'd rather focus on spending time in the southernmost countries, so if it would be feasible to make Senegal within a month, then spend the rest of the time mooching around the rest of the area, that would be fine, but I'm not sure how practical this would be.

What about hitting Burkina et al in the height of the summer? My thoughts were that they may be equatorial enough for it not really to make much difference, but having never been there, I don't know how true this is. The alternative is probably not to go at all, unfortunately!

Any advice gratefully received.

Thanks, David

...I should also add that I'm intending to ship the vehicle back from Ghana or somewhere in that area, so I don't need to allow for the return trip. The alternative would be to ship it out there for the start, but this would seem to make the timings for the Sahara crossing much worse.

Don't you just hate it when you keep thinking of other things to add? Sorry!

I wanted to say that I realise this is a Motorcycle-focused forum but I got here from sahara-overland.com so I hope it's not a faux pas to post non-bike questions here!

David all I can tell you-and you probably know this already-is that the rains generally come to Mali (assuming no drought as in 2004) in August and last trough September. However-see post in Sahara Topic-the road to Bamako is now/about to be tarmaced. I haven't been in Mali in the rainy season but some of the tracks in the Dogon I've been on would be tricky in heavy rain.

I'm sure others can be more specific.......

Good luck !
Q