Hi,

I'm Saskia, 31, German living in the Netherlands and I am currently on my way from The Hague to Cape Town. As I am typing this, I'm in Limbe, Cameroon. I didn't keep a detailed written blog up to Accra, Ghana, which is why I only post a short summary about the part between The Netherlands and Ghana below.
From Accra onwards, the information gets more detailed, including information about the Nigeria-Cameroon crossing by speedboat.

I hope reading is enjoyable and useful. Let me know if you have suggestions. I am planning to add to this as I go.

Best,
Saskia




The Hague (Netherlands) -> Sukuta (Gambia) [short summary]
In June 2023 I left the Netherlands to ride into Africa with my BMW G650GS. The first leg of my trip led me to The Gambia, via Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania, and Senegal. It was an amazing experience.
Originally, I only aimed to ride to Morocco, but had soon developed the ambition to go all the way to Dakar. What an adventure that will be, I thought. My plan was riding to Senegal and back. However, I enjoyed the trip so much, that I decided to go further onwards to Ghana, from where I planned to ship my bike back to Europe.
Fast forward, also this plan was scratched eventually, as I decided I wanted to go all the way to South Africa instead.


Sukuta (Gambia) -> Accra (Ghana) [short summary]
The second leg of my Africa trip was an incredible and memorable experience. Cruising by motorbike through The Gambia, Senegal, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Côte d'Ivoire, and finally Ghana was a blast and privilege.
Border crossings were definitely an experience. Between Senegal and Guinea, we (I rode this section of the trip together with Jack from the UK who was doing the same route as me) had to work through 8 or 9 stops along 60 kilometres until we fully completed the crossing to Guinea: Registration of personal details, health checks, immigration, police checks, customs, and random stops, of which I couldn’t figure out the purpose. The procedure was mostly easy, just very slow. To cross these land borders, one has to let go of any tendency for efficiency or speed. When we sat at the immigration desk in a dark small shed (which is clearly also used as living space) and the officer started a new page in his notebook, we had to patiently watch him pull out his ruler, and slooowly draw columns to set up the new notebook page for minutes, before actually starting to record our details. Better not be in a rush…
Not at every border crossing we were greeted by old men in uniform: At the Sierra Leone post, the immigration officer was a lively, charming, extraverted lady with stylish clothes, golden jewellery and indoor sunglasses. Entering Ghana was a fun experience as well: Never have I heard so much laughter and joking around at an office place. And one particularly enthusiastic Ghanian immigration officer made very sure that we knew how incredibly welcome we are in Africa and in Ghana by repeatedly and enthusiastically yelling it at us while we were waiting for officers kindly filling out our entry forms for us.
The most rural border crossing was in the North of Sierra Leone, where we were initially greeted by a group of goats, and the immigration officer had to be called upon and showed up in jogging pants.
Roads weren’t always as bad and underdeveloped as the video and pictures might suggest. Most countries have paved main connection roads, although sometimes with serious potholes and gravel/sand sections. But if large semi-trucks can make it through those, so can I on my motorbike!
Most of the real off-road on this trip was (more or less) voluntary. In fact, if one would want to cross West Africa by paved road only, the only significant non-avoidable off-road stretch would be the infamous mountain pass between Koundara and Labe in Guinea. This is a 25 kilometre long piste, which I felt very proud of accomplishing with my big adventure bike – until I saw locals with 3 passengers on a bike half my size, as well as 30-year old cars with 2-wheel drive and a ton of luggage on the roof next to me blasting through the sand. Humbling. We took the Northern rural border crossing from Sierra Leone back to Guinea, which involved around 100 kilometers of off-roading. For me as an off-road beginner this was a challenging day, but happy to have made it!
After Guinea and Sierra Leone, crossing into Côte d'Ivoire felt like floating on a cloud: Perfect tarmac roads with stripes and road signs, traffic lights were back, and driving was mostly a relaxed affair. That bubble of comfortable, stress-free riding burst immediately once we crossed into Ghana: Potholes were back and traffic participants were driving like madmen. Of all the countries I have been to by motorcycle (that’s 40 by now), along with Georgia, I would rate Ghana as the worst country to ride in as a motorcyclist from a traffic perspective.
If we ignore the crazy traffic for a second, I have felt perfectly safe at all times. We happened to travel this section with the two of us, but I would have no concern to ride through any of these countries on my own. The people I interacted with are some of the kindest, friendliest and most welcoming I have encountered on all of my trips.
I am more than glad that I got to experience this area of the African continent by road, which is an experience I will never forget.

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