Traversing West Africa - carnet, visas, etc.

[pulaku]

As I mentioned a couple months ago, I'm preparing to traverse West Africa to do a photo-documentary on Fulani culture.

Well we're about to depart, and we ran into some troubles with the Nigerian embassy. I won't get into details here, but we've put the story on our website:

PULAKU | the fulani photo-documentary project

In any case, I'm soliciting advice about the remaining countries in our itinerary: Burkina, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mali, Guinea, Senegal, Gambia, and Mauritania.

I've done my research on all the countries, but I'm mostly interested in finding out if you know of any recent experiences and unexpected surprises.

As for Ivory Coast, we're only planning on touching the north of the country, far far away from potential conflict areas.

I've heard it's difficult getting a vehicle into senegal. Does the same apply for motorcycles? What can we expect?

Also, we plan on selling our 2 Yamaha Serows in Senegal in April. Should we anticipate a beurocratic mess, or should it be somewhat straightforward?

We don't have carnets because I've been led to believe all these countries allow you to pay the laissez-passer at the border. Am I mistaken?

I have the 5-country visa for Benin/Togo/Burkina/Niger/Ivory Coast. I'm planning on getting visas for Ghana, Mali, Guinea, Senegal, Gambia, and Mauritania at the borders or in neighboring capitals.

Thanks for your advice! Please follow along as we hit the road!

Christoph