Duration: 30 min either side

Costs involvd: none

General impression: easy

This border crossing is easy

  1. About 25 km before the border, in the town of Kiri: get your passports stamped by the Mali police then move on to the customs office and get the carnets done. I had to explain how it worked and what should have been filled out, but they filled it all out as I asked them to.
  2. Ride until the actual border and get impressed by the former Mali police checkpoint that is now full of gunshots :-). The road is completely deserted.
  3. Cross the border and see the eyes of the Burkina policemen behind their sandbags grow as they are absolutely not used to tourists here.
  4. There was a bit of grumpy athmosphere at first and we had to empty all our panniers and bags, but then they were just laughing and joking and put that stamp in our passport asking if they could join us on our trip.
  5. The customs office is about 5 kms away on the left hand side. Again: explain what they should fill out where and it will be fine. Super friendly people there!

That’s all!

 

For African visa application on the road, check this post!