We are now good for visas all the way to the Nigeria border. We are planning to try and get Nigeria in Bamako. Meet a motorcyclist going north who had friends that got theirs in Bamako earlier this year. Fingers crossed.
You have me confused between this & your next statement, where did you get a VTE? In Barcelona? Bamako was definitely fine in late December for Nigeria, see Phil at the Camel & say hello from me!
Ghana- We are still not sure if we will make it to Ghana as we dont want to void our VTE visa for BF, Togo and Benin. VTE allows us to go to Ivory Coast so considering that. A Moroccan at the Ghana embassy in Rabat said it is no problem to get the Ghana visa at the border as you enter, but we haven't got a solid idea if that is the case. Which is to say we will update with our experiences as they unfold.
By going to Ghana your VTE won't be annulled, you can re-join the VTE countries by crossing Ghana, I've done this numerous times with both a single and multiple entry VTE & I'm Irish too. However, the Moroccan is very far wrong about the border. You MIGHT be lucky and pay US$150 at the CI-Ghana border for a maximum of 10 days entry into Ghana. The Ghanaian Embassy in Abidjan rarely issues visas these days and only for CI residents normally. So don't count your luck there! Try Bamako possibly???
Plan is to head to Kidira-Kayes border crossing into Mali. If anyone has any good route recommendations from St Louis to Bamako let us know. Looking for some mix of interesting landscapes and offroad without grinding to a halt. Hoping to get across Senegal in 3 days or so.
St Louis to Bamako, the best route (a Russian biker was about 12h ahead of me and did the same route, I was in a van) is via Dakar - Tambacounda - Kedougou (30km of roadworks + 90km of sheer nightmare elephant holes) then to Saraya crossing at Moussala. The road then takes you to Kenieba, Kita and then Kati on the edge of Bamako. The first part of this road near the border doesn't even show up on google maps but it's fantastic tarmac with speedbumps on the edge of villages
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