Driving days from Nefta to Borj Mokhtar
 

Can anyone tell me how many days I need to allocate to drive from Nefta to Borj Mokhtar? Have spared 5 days - is this realistic? Is the border at Borj Mokhtar ok to cross these days?

Hi,
Northern Mali is highly insecure these days. Think about the hostages still being held and killed, 11 gendarmes killed near Tin Zaouatine etc.
Algerians authorities in BM will have you sign a declaration that you had been warned and take full responsibility.
Apart from that: 5 days is a bit short, 6 ok. You have to go via Tam.
Border crossing onto Niger is possible and a bit less risky (see reports and discussion on this bb).

Driving days from Nefta to Borj Mokhtar
 

Hi
In Dec 2007 (20th to 31st) from Tozeur (25km east of Nefta) it took us 12 days to Borj Mokhtar. Our route was Touggourt – Illizi – Djanet – Tamanrasset – Borj Mokhtar.

Tozeur - Touggourt (1 day) which included border crossing.
Touggourt - Djanet (4 days)
Djanet - Tamanrasset (4 days) straight across the desert mostly on the main piste past the Military post at Serouenout.
Tamanrasset - BM (3 days) straight across the desert on the main piste.

Considering we did it in a Peugeot 505, not much ground clearance and 2 wheel drive, we got stuck several times, in a 4x4 you would definitely cover more distance per day. Or if you take the more direct route via In-Salah / Reggane to BM (that’s if the Reggane area is accessible to foreigners), otherwise you have to go via Tamanrasset to BM, I assume ?? you should be able to make it in 5 days, but that’s really pushing it.

From BM we crossed over to Tessalit (Mali), in BM our Algerian guide who had been excellent all along, tried to force a local guide (I assume his friend) onto us for a ridiculous amount of Euro 400, insisting we’ll need one, as it was still quite some distance to the Algeria/Mali border line and the piste to the Mali border frontier in Tessalit was not exactly very clear as there are a lot of smugglers routes criss crossing, In the end we decided to go with out a guide, we did get lost once, but with our GPS, map and a bit of luck, we were able to find our way to Tessalit.

In Tessalit we had no problems neither with the Gendarmerie nor Customs officials. Although they did not let us nor the local trade travellers leave Tessalit for Gao that evening, due to the security situation in Northern Mali. How the situation is today with all the recent news of kidnap and killing I can’t say.

Yves and Tunde
Thanks for your replies and advice.
will allow 6 days. Sounds like we are better to cross into Niger and then into Mali???? which was the original route I had planned.
Will look through the posts - new at this so still learning my way!
Any further advice on best way from Algeria into Mali would be appreciated - seems to be the only difficult border crossing in my trip oveland down to Ghana.

I would say BBM into Mali is not so much a difficult border crossing, but that it leads into a risky area where you may well get charged a lot for guides. As things stand now it's not worth the stress.

North Niger out of Assamaka has not been without it's issues this year - Micheal Germaneau crossed there tho he took the other piste. But once you get to Arlit (210km via the main piste from Assamaka) there's a sealed road and military convoys down to Agadez and so on.

Ch