Will, 101% with you on not paying & just to warn you as you seem to be heading in that direction ... or others might.

The road from Natitingou, Benin to Kara, Togo goes through the Tata Somba region, it's stunning & very interesting. However, there are 'tourist police' just before you get to the end of that road where it re-joins the main road. As a lot of buses come up to show Togo based tourists the sights, they demand a tax. There's a chain across the road.

I was hauled out of the taxi (being the only white one on board but with my 12yr old goddaughter) and taken into their office & demands started at 5,000CFA. I protested saying we were using the road to come from Natitingou to Kande (have i got Kande & Kara muddled up?) and we didn't see much as the taxi didn't stop & I was sleeping anyway. They came down to 1,000CFA each and I still refused. The taxi driver was beeping away in the background & eventually I got away with it. Really didn't expect it & the worry was that we'd not yet been stamped into Togo which we had to do in Kara (the town at the end of the road!)

On the other hand, the police at Porga, Benin as you enter from Burkina must be the nicest I've met in W.Africa, very friendly - took my goddaughter into their box & had photos taken!!!

Kira

Ohh yes! Cross the border on the road from Kifa to Kayes!
Nobody ask you nothing!
One policeman in Aurou ask us whay we don't have the entry stamps in our passports... we explaine him (of corse in romanian language! :() and he stamp our passports and we are free to go in 5 min!

August we will be crossing Diama or Rosso, depends on the road (piste to Diama) we are with a mercedes 200d. I was wondering- when you're stopoed by the police what kind of fake or documents of no value should I give them, so there is less change of getting in trouble?
I can only think about my international driver license.

Thanks in advance!
Markus-Jan

hello
thanks for all the information. now we know a little bit what we can expect this summer. we enter senegal from mali so that will be not a real big problem. but we want to leave senegal at diama. my question is: is it possible to get a visum for mauritanie at the border or do we need to buy one in dakar?

brend

Hi Brend
Back in 2008 it wasn't possible to get a visa at Diamma to get into Mauri. It may have changed now but unless anyone says to the contrary, I would get a visa in Dakar.
Q

hee
back home now. we did maroc, mauritanie, mali, senegal, gambia this summer in july/august. here is some information, maybe someone can use it.
At the maroccan border we had to pay nothing.
for mauritanie we get the visa in rabat because we entered exactly on the election day. 4 visa for double entry were 180 euro. '
at the border we bought assurance for 6 days, 13 euro. and for the passavant we had to pay 20 euro (I said him it was 10euro but he said because it was after 6 oclock we had to pay more, after sitting there 10 minutes we paid).
for mali we paid 100euro for 4 visa. You could pay in CFA also. Then it was 15000 for each visa. we paid 10 euro for the passavant. for the assurance for west-africa countries we paid for one month 37 euro (it is too much a bit). it was not possible to buy that assurance at the border of nioro but we had to go to the town nioro it self.
ferry djenne 3000cfa return ticket. road between sevare and douentza bad. also the piste between bandiagara and sangha takes us nearly 3 houres (45km). the bridge in kayes is repaired and closed. so we had to wait for the ferry. 4 hours wait.
senegal entering at the main crossing coming from kayes was no problem at all. only paid 2500 cfa for passavant (assurance was the westafrican which we already had for mali).
entering gambia from the north near banjul. it is a good crossing. paid 5000 cfa for passavant. and 1,50 euro (50 gambian money) for the stamp on it(this is not right i think but we had no choise.)
senegal entering at same point again 2500 cfa for passavant. no one asked for more money! great!
then we drove north to rosso. stlouis (police) gaves no problems. drive 50km/h on the long empty road into the town and out the town!! the border was not that good but when you leave not horrible. first senegal out 1000cfa community tax for the man at the gate. 3000cfa for the man who writes your name and passport stuff in the big book. we got also our assurance for mauritanie at the senegal site because we had to wait a long time for the ferry. 15 euro for a few days (just outside the gate).
then we took the ferry and paid for that 5000 ouguija at the mauritanien site(bigger car, more money). then the passavant cost us 2000 ouguija. 500 ouguija for the police who stamp your passport. and then just before you leave the guys from the gate wanted 1000ouguija community tax. no ticket or anything. so first i kept friendly and after that angry. but it doesn't help, we had to pay. but in total the border was not that hard when you leave. only the not uniformed guys who says they have to help you are annoying.
when you have questions you can always ask. brend

Senegalese police hassles
 

Fake docs... quality photocopies may pass as originals - laminate them to make them look more important. I collected International Licenses which are only valid for a year but at least prior to 2004 the Senegalese didn't know that. I drove away on two occasions leaving the polis man holding my expired license. If you get caught out you can always pretend it was a mistake.