Abidjan & Bassam – le retour

Oh, the returns. The smells, the vibes, the familiarity. E-visa took a couple of minutes, a photo and fingerprints were taken, then I had to queue up for the very passport control, another several minutes, yellow fever vaccination checked (I got myself re-vaccinated this year, my previous vaccination expired 2021 and even though all the […]

Visa to Ivory Coast – the red tape never comes last

For some time I was thinking those West African countries that allow visas on the border or online are the best. Benin, Gambia, Togo and Ivory Coast are the ones I know about. Special kudos to Senegal and now Sierra Leone, as they abolished visas altogether. So the thought of going to either Togo or […]

Visa to Nigeria – not soon, friend

Having chatted with my Nigerian friendly spirit Amyn about getting to Nigeria – Amyn agreed to give me invitation to the country, I tried to start the process. Officially – if I follow the website rules – I have to do the application online, pay, and then follow with an appointment at the embassy. But […]

Visa to Ghana – how many journeys do you see?

Where to go in West Africa in 2022, right after or still during Covid? Ghana seems OK. Enough tourist-friendly, though not so easy to reach for a Polish passport, due to the strict and inflexible visa rules. Polish passport must apply in Berlin and in Berlin only. Reports on iOverlander seem to be saying that […]

Coming back 2022 – you really have to want to

It was in Aix-en-Provence in May this year, when a thought hit me. I was looking for an “African” restaurant and I found one online, right in the centre of the town. Chances are that if it’s France, it will be a West African restaurant, so – a Senegalese or, even better, a Cameroonian one. […]

Three days in Brazzaville

The plan was to stay in Brazzaville till Friday and then take the ferry across the river to Kinshasa, stay there till Monday and go back home. I even had bought ticket a few days before. I’m using my points from the travels I had done with work, it’s so much easier this way, as […]

Pointe-Noire to Brazzaville

I showed up at the Ocean du Nord bus station around 5:45am, just like I was told. Apparently there are two Ocean du Nord stations in town but somehow the taxi managed to take me to the right one (the taxi driver asked if I would be travelling from that station and he knew which […]

Three days in Pointe-Noire

The mornings in town were rather lazy. I was going out across the street to have a baguette with an avocado salad and a cup of nescafe. Sueco where I stayed also did food but it was expensive. I once took a seafish bullion with vegetables, it was nice but if was also 3500cfa. Oops. […]

Gabon to Congo, Ndendé to Dolisie to Pointe-Noire

There will be no more photos in this space at the moment. I ran out of the 3GB space allowance on this site and I am not willing to upgrade. Running a blog on a mobile phone on WordPress is a joke. Anytime I try editing posts that have photos all formatting goes bust, all […]

Lambaréné and Ndendé

The initial plan of seeing Albert Schweitzer Hospital in the morning and catching afternoon transport to Ndendé, the last town in Gabon before Congo, of course failed. There are men in town around where the transport North (Libreville etc.) and South (Mouila & Ndendé) leaves who somehow match passengers to vehicles. One of them gave […]