West Africa

Red Soup

Travelling through France and Spain to Morocco and on to Mauritania, Mali, Senegal and Guinea this summer.

Anyone been to West Africa? Any recommendations? We have 3 months.

CantGetNoSleep

Id recommend to be careful, read a story on someone who had done this before and encountered problems in Senegal

Red Soup

What kind of problems? We can deal with con men and beach boys, if that's what you're talking about. We've travelled in Africa before.

CantGetNoSleep

No more serious ones. It was an article in a magazine, could have been the one with the Sunday Indo but not sure, it was at least 2 years ago i'd say.

Someone bought an old Mercedes on ebay and wanted to drive it all the way to Senegal, apparently there is a big market for them there. They hoped to make a profit on the car and use that to cover their expenses throughout the trip. They were on course to do this only for times when they were stopped by armed gangs as they got further south into West Africa who demanded money.

I'm sorry I can't find you the story as I really can't remember where I read it.

Doesn't the Paris-Dakar rally often encounter problems such as this? I know it was cancelled this year for security reasons. Maybe that is something you could look up

I have never been to Africa so sorry about not having anything positive to add, don't let me put you off

Red Soup

Yeah, fair enough i've heard of that kind of thing happening out there as well, but what usually applies is the less you have, the less chance of robberies...

we'll only have ourselves and a few backpacks!