This article is from the old blog in 2020:

Everything is ready to roll, well almost…. Visas – check, provisions – check. BUT, we still wait for the final sale authorization and local registration documentation for the RAV, a process that started in mid-December, duties paid third week of January and silence since then.

Only once final authorization is obtained can we proceed to obtain a “laissez-passer” for Guinea (a passport for the car), an international “carte grise” (“grey card” – license papers valid outside of Ivory Coast) and insurance for the West Africa region (ECOWAS insurance).  And it will hopefully also help us in finding a solution to shipping the cars back to Abidjan. In reality, it seems it is easier to get a car into another country as opposed to getting it back into its country of registration ! Strange but true … If all else fails, we may need to drive them all the way back again ☹.  But that will take us at least 2 weeks and by then our visas will no longer be valid so we will be jumping through hoops again in a foreign land.

By chance last week, Ulrich, and then Charlotte completely independently, came across a South African couple (https://africaoverland.blog/) who recently arrived in Abidjan on their overland trip from South Africa. They were waiting in Abidjan while applying for visas for pretty much the same route that we have planned until Morocco. They have now left Abidjan and about to enter Guinea. Go well Gavin and Lou, we are sure to bump into you en route, if we can get our papers soon ….