Duration Moroccon side: 45m

Duration Mauritanian side: 1h 15m

General impression: easy

Costs/person involved: 5€ for the fixer, 120 € fort he VISA (from 01/01/2017 on 50€)

 

People had warned us that this border crossing would be hard, frustrating and expensive. We heard stories about corruption, unofficial money, a lot of unofficial money! But I can assure you, none of that was true in our case. We never felt any pressure whatsoever. People were friendly all the time.

 

Step 1: At the Moroccan side of the border, just queue up at the immigration office to get your passport stamped. Just show your face and smile gently. Easy peazy!

 

Step 2: The guys from customs were just as friendly but fors ome unknown reason they required a little more time. We had to wait for a while but when after half an hour we checked for the status of our inquiry, our paperwork appeared to be all done since a while. There might have been been a little  misunderstanding between customs and the police so it seems

 

Step 3: The final step before entering Mauritania is a stop at the police office for manual registration in the big logbook.

 

Step 4: You work yourself through the nomansland between Morocco and Mauritania, which is not too bad a piste and it seems less than the 4 kms everyone it is. The first section is tar road. We meet a fixer who is prepared to assist us at the border crossing fort he price of 5 € per person. This time I have to admit that the fixer worked for his money. He knows the process, knows his way around the border post, queues up for us and doesn’t leave us alone for a single minute.

 

Step 5: A Mauritanian police officer checks your passport and writes your details in a logbook.

 

Step 6: You pay 120 € to immigration for a visa (official cost!), they take your fingerprints and stamp the passport and VISA.

 

Step 7: Customs deliver a passavant and ask for an unofficial 10€. After a bit of friendly chatting with the guys, they didn’t even ask for the 10 € anymore. Customs stamped our Carnet de Passages but the import voucher was left untouched. They don’t really seem to realize how a CDP really works.

 

Step 8: Pay the fixer and get yourself an insurance of 5 days in the office just behind the border at the lefthand side. We paid 11€ per person. We were never asked for our insurance after that and we didn’t extend it either.