I'll update a bit now I'm through Sierra Leone and Liberia for completeness on this excellent thread. Both are pricey. Moee expensive than Conakary

Sierra Leone was pleasant enough. Black market rate is way above the official rate. For all currencies. I was carrying CFA as my hard currency. Not a great deal to see and do but the beaches of freetown are spectacular. The roads are greay whe* good as their new. And atrocious wheb they are not new. The road around the Freetown peninsular is nearly complete and will be a fantastic ride in a year or two.

To Bo, the road is paved and good. South to Zimmi and the Liberia border gets worse and worse. Dry season for me a s was the worst road I've seen. Even the locals said terrible road

Liberia has equally not much to see. Monrovia is expensive with few if any camping. Its a bit unsafe after dark too. Still. I liked Monrovias vibe. Spent 6 days there over NYE. US dollar is the currency,* Liberian dollar serves as change of $1. 100 liberian dollars for $1. Bonus of this is you can withdraw US dollar from ATMs should you be in short supply of them

The road from the border through Monrovia to Ganta are excellent. After that. Piste to Cote D'Ivoire. Bad road. But not as bad as Sierra Leone.

In both countries people arw generally very friendly. Sierra Leone officials chanced their arm for money. Ofte* harmlessly. Except immigration on the way out

Liberia never asked for anything once. Refreshing!

As for Carnets. Sierra Leone didnt need one. I was with another biker. They asked for my carnet and stamped it. But aftet some talking they let him through with nothing. We split in Sierra Leone.

In Liberia I had them stamp my carnet but probably shouldn't have bothered. You get the vehicle permit with the visa. The customs did talk about a pass. But said as less than a week they'll not bother. I wasnt clear on what he was on about. I think he didn't understand the point of the carnet. But summary is you can do both without a carnet

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Hi,

Thanks for all the info. That's really helpful in planning a future trip through Africa. I'm curious, how long did it take you exactly to get from Spain to South Africa?

Also, if you were to do this trip again, by yourself, which route would you take down?

Thanks.

Luke

Hey Luke,

I did it in 6 months but I'd probably take more time next time personally. I went down the West Coast, but I'd probably do the East Coast if I were to do it again because the West Coast was just a headache.

Yeah i was thinking of doing both, going down the west side and up the east side. Seems like most people do the east side, which is why your trip was cool, you just dont see that many people going down the west side. I will probably take a ktm 690 enduro r, since im not planning on riding two up for any of it. A 1190 would be a lot of fun too but id prefer something a bit lighter/

Knowing what you know now, would you have skipped any of the countries on your route down? Senegal, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau,Ghana, are these worth seeing and spending the time to get visas for, or is it better to just skip them?
The rest of them seem unavoidable if you are riding down unless you put the bike on a plane or boat to get around them, but that gets expensive. Did you consider going to Timbuktu when you were in Mali?

Africa does seem like it would be challenging to say the least. More to worry about than a lot of other places. But it makes for a challenging adventure. I did south america on a klr, and that was fairly easy, no major issues with borders/police/visas/etc. Just bike problems.

Thanks again for sharing the information. I liked your ride report too. Really gives an idea of what west africa is like.

You really should not skip Guinea, especially the Fouta Djalon region. In so many ways this is the most beautiful part of the region. Well worth best part of a week.

Hi everyone,


This is a super useful thread, thanks for all the info.

I'm planning a trip starting in Senegal and then overland till Gabon (by public transport).

Does anyone have recent info or advice about the Equatorial Guinea visa coming from north to south? Like in which embassies the requirements may be least difficult to meet.

Perfect for a start, would be to get the list of embassies that issue EG visas to non-residents.

EU passport.

Any help will be much appreciated!


Cheers,
Antonio

thanks for sharing this

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