title: Other Notes on West Africa
author: John Doe
content_type: article
publication: Matt Lakeman
published: 2024-01-27T00:00:00
source_url: https://mattlakeman.org/2024/01/27/other-notes-on-west-africa/
word_count: 11429
I’ve written about Nigeria, Benin, The Gambia, Mauritania, Ghana, Guinea, and the Ivory Coast in West Africa. I also traveled to Togo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, and Mali, but I don’t think I have enough interesting things to say about each one to justify a full post. So I’m going to do a quick, bullet-point summary of notes on all these leftover countries in one essay. But first, I’ll go over some bigger West African trends that I couldn’t figure out how to fit into individual country entries.
Visas
As an American, I’m usually entitled to go wherever I want in the world with minimal visa hassle. But not West Africa; it has a reputation for being the toughest visa region on earth, which I believe is well earned. I’m going to do a quick review of my experience with every single West African country’s visa process, with a 1-10 difficulty rating (1 = easiest, 10 = most difficult). Note that my monetary cost estimates for each visa are going off memory rather than official rates, though variance between the rates I put here and the real rates may also be a function of subtle bribery or constantly shifting official policies.
Nigeria
A local friend got me a business visa in less than two weeks even though I wasn’t planning on doing any business in Nigeria. I’m told that getting a tourist visa through the official channels is far more difficult. I filled out the form online and got the visa approval form via email, but I neglected to print it out before arriving in Nigeria. The very nice visa guy at the Lagos airport told me that was a stupid thing to do, and we wandered around the airport for an hour until we found a printer, and then it took another two hours to actually process the thing.
Difficulty Rating: 3/10
Cost: ~$220
Benin
I got a visa-on-arrival after filling out an online form in 20 minutes two nights before. As described in Notes on Nigeria, it only took about 40 minutes to actually get the visa at the border, but I did have to get saved from a bribery attempt and possible theft of my Yellow Fever vaccine card.
Cost: ~$50
Togo
Another visa-on-arrival at the border. I didn’t have to do anything online beforehand, and the border was easy.
Difficulty Rating: 1/10
Cost: ~$30
Ghana
One would think that the “easy mode of West Africa” would have a simple visa process, but no. I searched everywhere online but couldn’t figure out if I could actually get a visa-on-arrival at the land border (I definitely couldn’t get it at the Accra airport). I took my chances anyway at the Togolese border, and the border guard said I could get a visa-on-arrival for $150, but it had to be in USD. Not Ghanaian money, not Togolese money (CFA), only American dollars.
Fortunately, I brought along a bunch of American money. Unfortunately, they refused to take any bills except $50 and $100 notes. Not even $20 bills were good enough, and that was most of what I had. One guard actually laughed in my face when I started counting out $5s and $1s.
So I had to find an ATM, then another because the first didn’t work, then another because the second didn’t work, then I withdrew local money with probably 5-10% fees, and then I went to a local money changer, and bought sufficient USD at a 10% mark-up. The whole ordeal took me 1.5 hours.
Difficulty Rating: 6/10
Cost: ~$180 (with mark-ups)
Ivory Coast
The Ivory Coast has a very smooth visa-on-arrival process where you just need to fill out an online form a week in advance. However, the visa-on-arrival ONLY works for flights into Abidjan. I couldn’t find any info on how to get a tourist visa for entering by land from Liberia, which was my original plan. I tried to visit the Ivory Coast embassy in Monrovia (capital of Liberia) to ask, but they wouldn’t let me in without an appointment. So I called a few days later, and asked over the phone how to get a tourist visa for land travel, and they told me that it is literally impossible to get a tourist visa for the Ivory Coast without flying to Abidjan. So that’s what I did. But it really fucked up the planned route of my trip, and sent me on my second odyssey into Guinea, and I’m still bitter about it.
Difficulty Rating: 1/10 if you fly into Abidjan; 15/10 if you don’t
Cost: ~$80
Liberia
I went to the Liberian embassy in Conakry (capital of Guinea) to get my Liberian tourist visa. I arrived at 9 AM and they told me to come back an hour later. After arriving again at 10 AM, I had to wait for 30 minutes before giving my basic info to a guy behind a desk. 15 minutes later, I went to an office and talked to another guy behind a desk. We chatted for at least thirty minutes and eventually he asked me why I was going to Liberia. I told him that I was just travelling through as a tourist for fun. He looked confused and asked, “Why?”
After convincing him that I wasn’t some sort of covert aid worker or journalist, he told me about his recent vacation to New York City and how he hoped Liberia would become the 51st state of the United States. Then he told me I had to bring 220 American dollars (and only American dollars, no other currency was allowed) to a specific branch of a specific bank on the other side of Conakry. My guess is that the Liberian government doesn’t trust its embassy personnel enough to let them collect cash. The guy wrote down the bank’s address on a piece of paper and gave it to me.
I took a 30 minute motorcycle taxi to the bank and eventually decoded a security guard’s African French to figure out that the bank was closed for an hour in the middle of this Tuesday for some reason. I got lunch nearby and came back an hour later. Then I talked to the security guard and two different tellers for thirty minutes before they figured out that I was at the wrong branch for depositing money into the Liberian government’s bank account. I showed the tellers the piece of paper with the address and confirmed that I had indeed gone to where I was supposed to, but the Liberian embassy guy got the address wrong.
The bank tellers directed me to another bank branch that was a 15 minute walk away. I got there, talked to another teller for 15 minutes, and she explained that this was also the wrong bank branch. Yet again, I confirmed that I had correctly followed the directions given to me, but that this branch also did not hold the Liberian government’s bank account. The teller directed me to a third bank 20 minutes away by motorcycle taxi.
I made the trip, then waited for thirty minutes in the lobby until I was directed into an upstairs office where one of the five workers spoke a little English. She asked me why I was here, and I explained that I was buying a tourist visa to Liberia. She gave me a confused look and asked, “Why?”
Once I got her to believe me, she said that this branch did indeed hold the Liberian government’s bank account. I told her that I had $146 but I would need to exchange about 640,000 Guinean francs for the rest of the American dollars. She gave me a pitying look and told me that this bank doesn’t do money exchanges.
I begged her for any way out of this nightmare and she told me she could call a friend who (illegally) bought and sold money on the street. I accepted and waited 45 minutes for him to show up. I paid about an 8% mark-up to buy the USD, and then deposited the money successfully.
I had planned to deposit the USD and go back to the Liberian embassy to drop off my passport on the same day. But when I arrived back at the embassy at 4:05 PM, I found it was closed. It was, after all, a Tuesday.
I returned the next morning, dropped off my passport, and they told me it would take four days to process the visa. I begged them to get it to me in two days when I was scheduled to leave. Miraculously, when I showed up at 8 AM two days later, the guard at the embasFsy gate handed me my passport with the tourist visa without a word.
Difficulty Rating: 10/10
Cost: ~$240
Sierra Leone
Another embassy visit in Conakry. Yet again, I could only pay the $110 visa fee in USD, necessitating a stroll around Conakry looking for money traders, and then I had to pay an extra $30 to get the visa expedited so I could get it that day. From entering the embassy to getting the visa, it took about six hours, but I didn’t have to wait in the embassy itself. One of the staff members was super nice and we chatted awhile, one was quite rude and seemed to hate his job. But at least everyone spoke English.
Difficulty Rating: 5/10
Guinea
I got my Guinea visa at the embassy in Dakar (capital of Senegal). At the embassy gate, two guards sat with a box of surgical masks and informed me in surprisingly decent English that a mask was required for entry, allegedly due to COVID precautions. Fortunately, they could supply me with a mask for a measly $0.50 worth of West African francs (CFA, local currency). I’m going to say there is a 99% chance that this was a scheme cooked up by the gate guards rather than Guinea being some sort of zero-COVID obsessed state.
Once inside the surprisingly crowded embassy, I saw literally none of the embassy workers wearing masks, though a few of the people in the waiting room had them around their chins, so I followed suit. I waited for about thirty minutes as embassy workers walked in and out of the waiting room grabbing visitors until one of the workers pointed at me and led me into an extremely cluttered office. The guy behind the desk spoke no English so I employed my elite African French consisting of my shitty Spanish mixed with a handful of French words I had picked up over the previous 1.5 months to tell him I wanted a tourist visa, which I quickly inferred was not a common occurrence here. As he asked me more questions, I gave up and took out my phone for some Google Translating.
Once the guy was satisfied that I wasn’t a threat to Guinea’s new military dictatorship, he gave me a multi-page form to fill out. I did so and then handed him the required $150 worth of CFA which he threw into a cardboard box that he kept in the bottom of a filing cabinet, leading me to doubt that all of that money was finding its way to the state coffers.
Through Google Translate, he told me that I would get the visa in five days. I told him I needed it ASAP since I was leaving Dakar in two days. He pondered my concern and then told me that he could do it today for another $20. I paid up, and I have even less trust that this money ended up with the legitimate authorities. An hour later, I had a piece of paper that could be exchanged for the visa at any Guinean land border. A few weeks later, this piece of paper may have nearly gotten me thrown in jail.
Difficulty Rating: 4/10
Cost: $170
Guinea-Bissau
Another embassy stop in Dakar. The guard at the front gate, who didn’t speak any English, seemed very surprised to see a white guy. He went inside, leaving me all alone, and came back five minutes later with a guy who sort of spoke English. He brought me inside to a small office where a woman sat behind a desk. I was immediately given a simple one-sheet form that I filled out in five minutes and handed back to the guy. He told me that I would get the visa in four days. I told him that I was leaving Dakar in two days and asked if I could get the visa sooner. He turned to the woman behind the desk, said one sentence in Portuguese, she replied with one word, he turned back to me and said “Ok.”
I left the embassy with the visa 20 minutes later.
Difficulty Rating: 2/10
The Gambia
Another embassy stop in Dakar. The gate guard was chatty and talked to me for five minutes before letting me in. I sat in the waiting room with a woman and a guy sleeping on a row of seats. I waited for a full 45 minutes before a woman came out to wake up the sleeping guy, who apparently worked there, and ask what I wanted. I told her I wanted a tourist visa. She seemed a little confused but said she could talk to her boss, and then she walked away. The Gambian woman waiting in the room told me to get comfortable because things move very slowly in The Gambia and its embassies.
30 minutes later, the embassy woman came back and told me to follow her to her boss’s office. The boss asked me some basic questions for a minute and then gave me a two-page form to fill out in the waiting area. I filled it out and then gave it to the embassy worker woman. She asked for passport photos, and when I said I didn’t have any, she kindly directed me to a nearby photo store.
15 minutes later, I was back in the embassy with the photos. The woman thanked me and said they could get the visa to me soon. I thanked her and sat down in the waiting room.
Over two hours passed.
The woman came out with a smile and the visa. On my way out, the gate guard asked for my WhatsApp number.
Senegal
The only country in West Africa that doesn’t require a tourist visa for Americans. I entered once at the Dakar airport and once by land (or rather, by boat across a river) at Rosso, and didn’t have a problem either time. Fast and efficient.
Difficulty Rating: 0/10
Cost: $0
Mauritania
Mauritania surprisingly has visa-on-arrival, but that is not at all clear from its embassy websites. I tried to go to the Mauritanian embassy in Dakar to confirm, but Google Maps didn’t have the right location, so I had to wander around for forty minutes asking random people for the “embasi du More-i-tane-y.” Eventually, a very nice Senegalese guy walked me two blocks to the embassy, which was a concrete wall in front of what looked like an abandoned concrete building. I knocked on the outer gate door and a guy answered. He told me in very broken English that visas-on-arrival are a real thing in Mauritania.
The visa-on-arrival process itself was easy, except that no one spoke English. Took about thirty minutes to get the visa at the Nouakchott airport. I later talked to a pair of Spaniards who told me they had to bribe a security guard at the airport to get their drone through.
Mali
A guide I had contacted in Mali explained to me that Mali recently had a coup, and the new military leadership evicted all the French people, including the French military forces that had been sitting in Mali for a decade. Thus, the new government was paranoid about accidentally letting in French spies or Western reporters who might make the new government look bad, for like, hosting Wagner or something.
I tried going to the Mali embassies in both Dakar and Conakry and ran into a lot of trouble. Both were closed for random days. Neither had anybody who spoke any English. In Dakar, I found out that I needed an invitation letter, and after getting one from a guide in Mali, I was told that I would have to go through a background check of indeterminant length. I explained that I was leaving Dakar in a few days, and the embassy guy shrugged. On the advice of the guide, I tried the Conakry embassy and ran into the same issue.
Finally, I paid the guide $220 to go to the Immigration Ministry in Mali to get my visa. This took three weeks and numerous visits, but he eventually got it. The guide told me that I was insanely lucky and that foreigners were constantly getting rejected. Once I got to Mali, I gave him a $10 tip, for which he was ecstatic.
When I brought the visa to the Guinea-Mali border, I realized, while in line, that there was a mistake on the form. The Malian Immigration Ministry had reversed the day and month on my visa expiration. I freaked out and prayed the border guide wouldn’t notice. He did notice, he pointed it out to me, I shrugged, he laughed, he stamped the visa, and he let me in.
Difficulty Rating: 9/10
Cost: $220
Addendum – Why Are African Tourist Visas so Expensive?
Most West African countries have surprisingly high tourist visa costs, sometimes reaching over $200 before you even have to worry about currency types and exchange rates. One would think that these very poor countries that get very few tourists would set their prices low to incentivize more tourists. Most Westerners wouldn’t mind paying a perfunctory $20-50 fee to enter a new country, but not many tourists are willing to pay $150+ to visit Guinea.
My understanding is that the high tourist visa costs are due to the (IMO misguided) reciprocation policies of African countries toward the United States. The US makes getting tourist visas *extremely* difficult for the vast majority of Africans. The process often involves months or years of waiting to get interviewed at American embassies, providing extensive information for background checks, and costs hundreds of dollars. These processes have a high rate of rejection, and the costs are non-refundable, which is a massive potential loss for most Africans given their income levels.