If you are planning to go Morocco,Western Sahara orMauritania you should make your life easy and carry a document with a lot of copy, which is called ‘Fiche’ papers.
In the beginning we didn’t have one. Every checkpoint was asking “FISH”. 🙂 We can’t speak French, just a few words. Therefore when they said the name sound was for us “Fish”. It was a little weird to somebody saying something like that. After a while we figure out that it is a French word “Fiche”
If you are on a motorcycle like us you don’t want to wait 15 minutes under the sun with all motorcycle gears. Almost every city center enter has three checkpoints, each 5-10 kilometers when you enter and when you exit.
Fiche paper is just your info to give them and save a lot of time. You can make it in your home and than get fifty copies with you. 🙂
We made it on the road. With handwrite and then made copies. What the paper need to write about you and your vehicle:
About you
Your name and surname
Passport number
Birth date and country
Your nationality
Your passport issue date and place
Passport expire date
Your home country address
Your mother and father name
Your job
Family situation
Extra
Date of entree (country)
Place of entrée (country)
Motif for travel
About Vehicle
Mark
Model
Plate number
Color
That’s it…. But please don’t forget it; I am writing English to explain but document has to be in French!
We don’t know when you travel by bus any checkpoint ask about the Fiche documents. If you are backpacker we can recommend that have some copies of document like that or have copy of your passport.
Enjoy your trip in North West Africa…. If you have any question you are free to ask.
Note, the visa starts the day you apply!
We made a short video for our Mauritania journey, roads, life… We hope that you like to watch :
Visa applications in West Africa countries to road trip;
Most important thing in West Africa that You need to know which countries visa where you can easily apply and get it? I will try to write up all our visa application around Africa. I will split them up in 3 parts, West Africa, South Africa and East Africa.
I will write our experiences, this is on a Dutch and a Turkish passport. I will write down as well if I have the information about other countries passports.
Our countries we visit in West Africa will be Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania, Senegal, The Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Guinea (Conakry), Mali, Burkina Faso, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon, Republic Congo, Democratic Republic Congo and Angola.
Morocco
Visa on arrival and it’s free for both of us. Also free for other European passports, also for Australian passport it’s free.
Western Sahara
The visa for Morocco is valid here as the Western Sahara is under control by Morocco you won’t even pass a real border.
Mauritania
Visa on arrival, the price is 55 euro. Make sure you have euro’s, they will give you a really bad rate if you pay in dollars or dirham. We only had dollars and ended up paying 70 dollar each. If you don’t have euro’s make sure you exchange them somewhere in the Western Sahara
Senegal
Visa on arrival, the visa is free for most of the passports. It is free for the Dutch, Turkish, English and Australia.
The Gambia
Visa on arrival, the visa is free for a lot of passports. It is free for Dutch, Turkish and English.
Guinea Bissau
Visa apply in Ziguinchor at the Guinea Bissau embassy, it takes about 5 minutes to get it. He’s just writing it in front of you. The price is 20.000 cfa (30 euro) for a Dutch, Turkish and English passport.
Guinea (Conakry)
We got our visa in Dakar, apply at the Guinea embassy. Costs 50.000 cfa (76 euro) for a single entrée valid for 30 days. If you want 2 entrees the price is 80.000 cfa (122 euro) the visa is valid for 60 days. It takes 1 working day. You need to bring in copy of your passport, 2 passport photo’s. All goes very easy. Better to do! Get it in Bissau, the costs there are 30.000 cfa (46 euro) you also need copy of your passport and 2 passport photo’s. This is all for a Dutch, Turkish and English passport. I don’t know about the multiple entrée in Bissau.
Mali
We got our Mali visa in Nouackott (Mauritania). This goes a little bit strange but easy to apply, you need to give your border crossing for us this was Kouremale as we will enter from Guinea. A single entrée visa valid for 1 month costs 6.500 um (17 euro), your entrée date needs to start within 1 month from the date you apply, otherwise you get a double entrée and visa that’s 2 months valid. The price will then be 10.000 um (26 euro). You need 2 passport photo’s and a copy of your passport. If you apply in the morning you can pick it up in the afternoon.
Burkina Faso
We got ours in Bamako (Mali). Easy to apply, costs 24.000 cfa (36 euro) for a single entrée visa that is valid for 90 days. You need 2 passport photo’s, copy passport and a copy of your vehicle papers. Apply in the morning pick up in the afternoon. This is for all passports Better to do! (see VTE Visa).
Togo
Visa on arrival, costs 10.000 cfa (15 euro). Valid for 7 days, easy to extend it in Lome for 2.000 cfa (3 euro). This is for all passports
We got our visa in Bamako (Mali). The lady there is not very friendly, you need 2 passport photo’s, copy from the first page of your passport, copy of your passpot, copy from vehicle papers and a copy of a reservation from a hotel in Benin. Costs of the visa is 12.200 cfa (18.5 euro), it takes 2 working days to get it. This is for all passports
We got ours in Bamako (Mali). Easy to apply, costs are various. Dutch, Australian and German passport 60.000 cfa (92 euro), Turkish passport 65.000 cfa (99 euro) and English passport 90.000 cfa (137 euro). You need 2 passport photo’s, copy of your passport and a copy from your vehicle papers. First you pay 20.000 cfa (included the price I write above) to their bank account at the bank next door. This is one of the only places to get the visa for Nigeria.
Cameroon
We got ours in Calabar (Nigeria). Easy to apply takes about 45 minutes to get it. The price is 51.000 cfa (78 euro).
Gabon
We got ours in Lome (Togo). They wanted a lot of paperwork, luckily we knew everything we needed to take with us. The costs are 50.000 cfa (76 euro) for all passports. You need 2 passport photo’s, copy of your passport, copy yellow fever, copy carnet de passage, hotel reservation, copy of a credit card, copy of motorcycle papers If you have them all ready it only takes 10 minutes. Pick-up is the next day after 3 pm.
Congo (Brazzaville)
We got ours in Lome (Togo). First of all this was just in a flat building, it looked nothing like a embassy, but other overlanders got it here as well and entered Congo, so it must be ok. The price is the highest one we paid so far 90.000 cfa (137 euro) each. You need copies of 3 other West African visas and 2 passport photo’s. Visa is done in 20 minutes.
Congo (Kinshasa, DRC)
We got ours in Cotonou (Benin). Nice embassy, nice and helpful people here. The price is 50.000 cfa (76 euro) for all passports. You need 2 passport photo’s and they make the copies from your passport. It takes about 1,5 hours to get your visa ready.
Angola
We got ours in Point Noire (Congo Brazzaville). This is one of the hardest visa’s to get in West Africa. You can apply for the visa on Tuesday and Thursday between 9 and 11 am. You need to put 2000 cfa on their bank account before applying the visa at the Bank of Congo. We had a invitation letter from a friend of us who lives in Angola, copy passport, copy Congo visa, copy DRC visa, 2 passport photo’s and a big smile on our face when we applied. The woman working there only wants to speak French, not even Portuguese what they speak in Angola and she’s not helpful at all. We got a paper to fill in what only is in Portuguese, luckily there is a guard around who do helps people with their application form so we filled it all in and went to the woman at the desk, handover all papers and she straight away gave the invitation letter back, she didn’t want to have it! Instead we needed a letter why we wanted a visa for Angola in Portuguese, off course she pointed us out to where we can get it, it just costs another 2000 cfa extra per person. We got the letter and handed over all papers again and it looked she was satisfied. Now we needed to wait for a phone call, next day we got one around 2 pm. They only speak French again and the only thing I understood is they wanted a reservation, this must be a hotel reservation we thought. We made a quick booking online and printed it at a shop and run to the embassy to hand it over, they accepted and told us to wait for a phone call again. The next day we received the phone call at 2:30 pm, we run to the bank to make the deposit of 75.000 cfa each took the receipt and run to the embassy, we arrived at 3:05 and got send away, tomorrow we open again. When walking away they shout at us to come back and did give us the visa. What a relief! We had a multiple entrée visa in 48 hours.
No border crossing, No visa. Western Sahara border just 40 km far from Tarafa on the coast road. If you follow the main road you are on the good asphalt until Mauritania border. Unfortunately, It is a little boring road because nothing to see that much. Sometimes, possible to see wild camels, some sand hills and salt… Only, I can tell that Dakhla road was pretty nice. We had really nice time for camping and interesting experience. I would like to road about them.
If you like you can watch it before start to read about Western Sahara:
***We wanted to stay in Tarafaya before sunset. We saw one camping area on the road, they wanted 10 USD for nothing. Inside were fully little sand hills. It wasn’t easy to open tent, shower were bad, no Wi-Fi. Also, I am not sure electricity was working well. So, it was too much to pay. We decided to leave from main road and ride 40-50 km. on the coastline and look for wild camping. We saw everywhere has a fisherman houses and no way to find a place nobody can see you.
Our fisherman house
We ride to the beach and saw some families were living. We asked them to open tent next to the their house for a night. They said ok. We opened to the tent and got ready to cook before dark. A soldier came and said that we can’t camp here. We must turn back Tarafaya and stay in a camping area. Almost dark! It could take time to collect everything L We told him to allow us to stay one night, we don’t want to ride in the dark. He was telling us but we couldn’t understand with our French. Only we understood that he was going to call his commander and ask. He came back and said that no camping here but we would like to help us. But how? He took our passport and said to Ferry that Ferry needs to walk with him. They got disappear in the dark. I didn’t have any idea what I need to do. After 15 minutes later a car came next to me and started to speak Spanish directly which is great I can speak. Somebody told him that we want to stay here. I explained to him why we wanted to stay here. He said no problem wait here and he also went where Ferry went. 30 minutes later Ferry came finally… We were tourist there and they don’t want to something happing us. Who came with a car next house, which we open the tent, called him. And he came to talk the soldier for gave a fisherman house key which is empty next to the soldier place. So, we collect everything and went to the fisherman house. We put motorcycles next to the soldiers. Soldiers were really so helpful. They carried us clean water to drink also for shower. They wanted to give mattress and blanket. We were surprise. When they told us ‘Tourist cant camping here’ we really scare where we can go in the dark. In the morning, the soldier invited us their place for breakfast including the lovely Moroccan tea, he is big fan of that. When we hit the road again he gave us nice Moroccan olives oil to eat on the road.
***Where we stayed it was so closed to capital city, Laayoune, of Western Sahara. We just passed and went to Boujdour. It is nice city to see Western Sahara life. After Morrocco I can say that a lot of thing is different especially for women. When you go there you can see what I mean. 🙂 We stayed in Boujdour 2 nights after that we followed to our road.
***175 km. before Dakhla, we saw a place which says ‘Bivouac Libre’ (GPS: 24.698337,-14.884035) We went to there to see. It is really nice place. We stayed there two days.
It is really amazing spot. Sunset, sunrise, moon, view…etc.You can eat fresh fish, which you can buy from fisherman. We didn’t buy eat because they gave us a lot when we were trying to take photo from them. They came to us said that they are for us.The place is 5 km far from the main road. Therefore, you can easily go to a market to buy bread and water. Also some basic food.
(Click a photo to slide show)
[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”4″ gal_title=”Camping Side in Western Sahara”]
***Our next stop was Dakhla. First we went to the camping place. But we stayed one night. You need to pay for shower extra, no Wi-Fi and electricity comes in the night only. Why do I need pay a camping side just for open a tent if I am not in a dangerous place?
30 km. before Dakhla it has sign which writes Camper side and free. Go there to camp a couple of days. Before leave to camping side we went to shopping. I was sitting Ferry’s back and we had a little accident: Maybe the taxi suddenly stopped middle of the road to take customer but it was our fault because we crashed the taxi from back. Anyway, they were really friendly. They wanted to be sure first we are ok after that motorcycle. The driver asked we need a police to the report because he wants to go. I was surprise because we crashed him and he had a little damage on his taxi but he was thinking about us.
Ferry said his chest was hurting a little. So we went to the camper side to camp. It was good idea to wait 4-5 days to Ferry ok or not. If something happened we could go to a big hospital in Dakhla. He felt better in a week but we stayed the camper side 3 weeks. J We learned Mauritania visa price, which was 120 Euro and would be 55 Euro, would have changed in New Year. We were staying free next to the beach and we had water to shower or wash stuff. Also, Tito was there, who came from Luxemburg and has a lot of solar on his car to help us, to free electricity. It was good opportunity for us to stay longer a place in the tent to get use to it more and more tent life. Also, learn how we can work together with less trouble. We have learned really a lot there.
(Click a photo to slide show)
[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”5″ gal_title=”Dakhla, Western Sahara”]
***3 week later on 5th of January we leaved from Dakhla to go to Mauritania. I wanted to be on the border on my birthday. The border is 380 km far from Dakhla. We went to wild camping just before the border. He made nice breakfast in the morning to say happy birthday. 🙂 We were on the border 11.30 am in the morning.
***175 km. before Dakhla, we saw a place which says ‘Bivouac Libre’ (GPS: 24.698337,-14.884035) We went to there to see. It is really nice place. We stayed there two days.
It is really amazing spot. Sunset, sunrise, moon, view…etc.You can eat fresh fish, which you can buy from fisherman. We didn’t buy eat because they gave us a lot when we were trying to take photo from them. They came to us said that they are for us.The place is 5 km far from the main road. Therefore, you can easily go to a market to buy bread and water. Also some basic food.
30 km. before Dakhla it has sign which writes Camper side and free. Go there to camp a couple of days. Before leave to camping side we went to shopping. I was sitting Ferry’s back and we had a little accident: Maybe the taxi suddenly stopped middle of the road to take customer but it was our fault because we crashed the taxi from back. Anyway, they were really friendly. They wanted to be sure first we are ok after that motorcycle. The driver asked we need a police to the report because he wants to go. I was surprise because we crashed him and he had a little damage on his taxi but he was thinking about us.
GS