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.

Difficulty Rating: 3/10

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 51^st 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

Cost: ~$155 

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

Cost: ~$30

 

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.

Difficulty Rating: 3/10

Cost: ~$80

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.

Difficulty Rating: 2/10

Cost: ~$50

 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.

Of course, the reason the US government has these steep tourist visa barriers is over concerns that Africans will use tourist visas to get into the US and then purposefully overstay as illegal immigrants. Whereas I can’t imagine many Americans are trying to sneak into Guinea for the same purpose.

But I guess out of national pride or revenge, many African countries still slap American and European tourists with high entry fees. I’m not an expert on this and I don’t have any data, but I’m guessing this reciprocation is ultimately a net-economic loss to many African countries for scaring away some tourists. Note that pretty much every Central and South American country faces the same steep visa standards from the US for the same reason, but doesn’t have costs for American tourists looking to visit. Then again, Central and South American countries get vastly more tourism than West African states.

Talking to Random People

If you go to West Africa, prepare to answer the following questions every time you speak to another human being:

• Hello, how are you?
• What is your name?
• Where are you from?

EVERY TIME. Seriously, I answered these three questions multiple times per day for months. And while the speakers were nearly always polite and friendly, it did wear on me because there is a slowness to conversing in Africa. It’s not that people speak slowly (usually the opposite), it’s that they feel the need to have this repetitious preamble at the start of conversations, particularly the “how are you?” which needs to be asked at every single encounter with the same person. I don’t mind talking to strangers generally, but I had bad days where I got annoyed at going through the whole three questions and hearing the typical responses over the course of two minutes before anything new gets said.

If your answer to the final question is “United States,” then prepare to hear variants on these comments:

• “Oh, wow! America!”
• “Can you take me with you back to America?”
• “No, seriously, can you help me get a visa to America?”

The second comment was a running joke that I heard at least a dozen times, including in fairly inappropriate contexts, like from a Sierra Leonan border guard.

The third comment happened maybe five times. Individuals I knew for anywhere from 15 minutes to three hours would ask me to help get them to the United States. To paraphrase a fairly typical encounter during my very last day in West Africa with an Ivorian taxi driver:

Him – “Can you help get me to America?”

Me – “I don’t think I can.”

H – “You can help with the visa!”

M – “I don’t work for the American government or anything.”

H – “…do you know anyone in the visa office you can talk to about me?”

M – (*that might work if I was a Senator or a billionaire, but otherwise, random Americans can’t get random strangers moved through the visa process at-will, which is actually one of the good things about America and places like it; we don’t have that sort of personal connection-based corruption in the federal government, at least not to any significant extent; that’s one of the biggest problems in places like the Ivory Coast and the reason nothing ever gets done here without bribes*) “Ummm… sorry, I don’t know anyone at the visa office.”

Infidelity

Infidelity is rampant throughout West Africa, as reported by a few white travelers and numerous Africans who were extremely open about their infidelity, to me at least. The most memorable example was a late-20s guy in Mali who was engaged to a 21 year old woman from his home village in an arranged marriage, but he was also dating an 18 year old and a 22 year old in Bamako, the capital city where he lived. He was hoping to eventually convert the 18 year old into his second wife. Needless to say, none of the three knew about each other.

One-night-stands or hooks ups in the Western sense are extraordinarily rare for anyone who isn’t extraordinarily rich. But simultaneous girlfriends or boyfriends are far more common. This means not just going on dates and sex, but an expectation that the boyfriend is providing the girlfriend with some sort of financial flow, usually petty cash or gifts, but maybe an apartment if the man can afford it. The Malian guy with the fiancé and two girlfriends was giving petty cash to the two girlfriends with the occasional gift, and was working on getting a house for the fiancé.

Theory – the sacredness of marital fidelity is far more intense in the West than anywhere else in the world. Ask people who know about Chinese or Japanese culture how much infidelity there is (tons). Or consider the Middle East where polygamy was the norm not long ago and still is in some places. Or consider South and Central America where vast proportions of the male populations are migrant workers who spend much of the year away from their wives (ditto for much of the developing world).

Why does the West place a greater taboo on infidelity? A few guesses:

• The remnants of Judeo-Christian norms in the West place a far greater taboo on infidelity than other traditional moral systems. Judeo-Christianity seems to have a greater emphasis on honesty and chastity in general. Yes, much of Africa is Christian, and in a far more intense way than Europe or the US today, but there’s a lot of intermingling of local cultural norms with African Christianity, and I think in this case the Christian norm is weakened by it.
• In most of the world, marriage is still primarily an economic matter designed around the division of labor for child-rearing and household maintenance. Sexual fidelity is a theoretically expected component, but it isn’t an essential requirement, especially for men. I remember watching a Japanese YouTube video where married women said variations of something like, “as long as he makes money, comes home every night, and is a good man, I don’t care if he sees a prostitute every once in a while.” In contrast, the West is rich, so marriage is more about romance and personal fulfillment, even in the contexts of child-rearing and economics. Thus sexual fidelity is seen as a crucial component of trust and relationship maintenance.
• Relatedly, Westerners tend to get married when they are older and more mature, and are surer about what they want in marriage. The norm in much of the world, particularly in the developing world, is marriage at a younger age. Less maturity = more infidelity.
• As mentioned, there is much more migration for work outside the West. When husbands and wives are apart for a long time, they have more incentive and means for infidelity.
• Western countries are generally high-trust societies. Much of the developing world consists of low-trust societies. Low-trust societies surely have more infidelity.

Currency, Cash, and ATMs

Money, in general and in all forms and uses, is a huge pain in the ass in West Africa. There isn’t enough of it, it’s hard to get, and both the written and unwritten rules are confusing.

Most of West Africa uses the West African Franc, which confusingly goes by the acronym, CFA (or as the locals call it, see-fa), for Communauté Financière Africaine, or African Financial Community. But it also sometimes goes by XOF for some reason.

The CFA is the best currency in the region both macroeconomically and on-the-ground; it’s pegged to the Euro at a rate of 1 Euro = 655.957 CFA, so it keeps a dramatically lower inflation rate than almost any other African currency. CFA countries also tend to have far more ATMs, more functioning ATMs, and allow withdrawals at higher currency quantities than the non-CFA countries in West Africa, which overall makes travelling through CFA countries a lot easier.

I won’t claim to be a currency expert, but I can claim that the CFA is better managed than whatever the hell the rest of West Africa is doing with its motley array of currencies. I already talked about the Nigerian naira and the Ghanaian cedi; the currencies of Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Mauritania, and The Gambia were scarcely better. Some observations:

• Functional ATMs are hard to find even in major cities, and rare-to-non-existent outside of major cities. It was not uncommon to try 3-5 ATMs before finding a working one.
• ATMs generally capped withdrawals at $100-$120. In The Gambia and Sierra Leone, I never found ATMs that allowed withdrawals above $80, and some were as low as $50.
• Even without factoring in the fees from my American bank, ATMs regularly charged me 8-10% on withdrawals, sometimes reaching 12-15%.
• Money trading was no better. I could not find a way to sell Sierra Leonean leones for better than a 10% discount, regardless of which currency I was getting in return.
• For regular purchases, credit and debit cards were useless except at Western and/or extremely expensive restaurants and hotels.
• As mentioned in the Ghana visa process, sometimes borders, embassies, and money changers only took USD. And sometimes they only took USD in denominations of $50 or above. I’m still not sure why the high denominations were so important.
• Cash is nearly always filthy, frequently torn, and due to inflation, often of extremely high denominations. Guinea was the worst in this regard, with an exchange rate of 1 USD = ~8,600 Guinean francs. So you always have to carry around giant piles of not very valuable cash.

Safety and Corruption

One of the most common questions I’m asked about West Africa is, “did you ever feel unsafe?” Especially in light of being a white guy solo backpacking for three months.

Answer: rarely. I walked through large cities, small cities, small towns, and wilderness, and rarely felt like I was in physical danger of being mugged, assaulted, or otherwise harmed by random people.

This is partly because I stand out. Being a white guy tends to drag a lot of eyes in my direction, and given how crowded most places are, I very rarely felt like I was isolated enough to be attacked without drawing bystanders to my defense. Likewise, I can’t imagine being mugged by one of the thirty people who live in a small village where I’m spending the night.

A lack of tourism also helps. Spain and Italy are generally safe places, but Barcelona and Rome are notorious for pickpockets who target the hordes of tourists that carry a lot of cash and don’t stick around long enough to pursue justice over their stolen wallets. Most of West Africa doesn’t get enough tourists to cultivate a special tourist-targeting criminal class.

Also, West African people are really, really, super-duper nice. I’m not saying there are no West African criminals, but I’ve already documented a few instances of locals going to heroic lengths to protect me. I genuinely felt a bit safer because if anything bad did happen to me, I’m confident that locals would stand up for me and help me out.

With all that said, there were a few instances where I didn’t feel safe, or I was told not to feel safe. In Lagos, people shouted at me when I walked through a marketplace and two guys angrily banged on a van window as I looked out at them. In Monrovia, I was told not to go out at night due to gang activity. In Abidjan, an insanely awesome Airbnb host picked me up from a bus station at 3:30 AM because he said it wasn’t safe. In Dakar, I took some long walks home at night through slums with absolutely no street lighting.

But most of my unsafe interactions were with the military/police: I was shaken down for $150 in Guinea, arrested for taking photos in Liberia, questioned by police in Mali, and I was forced to pay small bribes maybe a dozen other times throughout West Africa. Most of these minor bribes were for amounts between $1-5, and many weren’t even unpleasant. A border guard in Guinea-Bissau took $1.50 from me, then gave me a shot of whatever moonshine he was chugging and we took selfies together.

French Colonialism

Most of West Africa was colonized by France and subjected to France’s unique colonial policy known as the “civilizing mission.” Unlike the largely laissez faire British, the French sought to “uplift” African natives to what they perceived to be a higher level of civilization through education, religion, and economic development, with an overlay of Frenchification, like implementing French city planning, constructing French-style buildings, and generally promoting Frenchness as the ultimate form of humanity. As a result, the French colonial administration was far more heavily involved in local African affairs than other colonial powers.

How successful was France’s civilizing mission? Did it help develop French Africa? Has it left French Africa with a love, or at least appreciation, of French culture?

On the first question, I’d say that at the very least, French Africa seems more French than British Africa seems British. There are a hell of a lot of streets and stadiums named after Charles de Gaulle, French businesses and government involvement remain prominent, and my understanding is that many French African legal systems are still influenced by the Napoleonic Code. In contrast, there seems to be little mention or concern about the British in Nigeria, The Gambia, or Ghana.

On the second question, I don’t know, but I’d love to study up more about it. Conventional wisdom is that former French colonies haven’t ended up as successful (economically and politically) as former British colonies, but I’m not sure that’s true in Africa. The most successful French African nations are probably the Ivory Coast and Senegal, which, IMO, are roughly equal to Ghana, Kenya, and Botswana (leave South Africa aside as a special case). On the other side, I’d say France and Britain have roughly the same number of relative post-colonial failures: France has the Sahel region, the Central African Republic, and Guinea, while Britain has Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Uganda, and Sudan.

I’m secure in stating that both the French and British were better colonial masters than the other African colonizers: Portugal, Germany, Belgium, Italy, and Spain, whose progeny include Angola (super corrupt petrol state), Equatorial Guinea (the most super corrupt petrol state), Guinea-Bissau (<$800 GDP per capita), Mozambique (<$500 GDP per capita), Somalia (borderline anarchy), and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (contender for “worst-run-country-on-earth” over the last 50 years).

Regardless of macroeconomic outcomes, the prevailing sentiment toward France in French West Africa is that France is a sneaky, treacherous nation that continues to wage imperialist ambitions through economic exploitation and buying political influence from corrupt African leaders. Yeah, France talks a big game about being a benevolent partner and helping former colonies, but really it just wants to maintain informal control over its colonies and is willing to screw over the local African populations to do so. Allegedly.

I can’t speak to how nefarious the French government is, but France definitely continues to have a massive influence in its former colonies. For instance, the West African Franc (CFA), the currency used by most of French West Africa, was set up by France, has regulations put on it by France (like requiring African states to deposit their reserves in French banks), is still manufactured in France, and was pegged to the French Franc, but is now pegged to the Euro. Likewise, France is the largest economic partner and/or aid provider for most of West Africa still, and French military forces are stationed throughout the region. Supposedly, many West African leaders are in constant communication with French advisors to manage their regimes.

I heard grumbling about France throughout West Africa. Even in the Ivory Coast, the long-standing most Francophile country in the region, I heard plenty of complaints about the French government and companies. In comparison, Ghanaians and Nigerians tend to have far less to say about British rule, though they are still largely negative on it. I didn’t ask anyone in Guinea-Bissau about Portugal, but considering that every Portuguese African colony waged a bloody insurgency for independence, I’m guessing relations still aren’t great.

China

I’m reluctant to say too much about China’s activity in Africa because I think it’s a vast and complex topic that can’t be summarized off of random stories and sentiments I’ve heard from within Africa and a few news articles on the subject.

But my very basic take is that China has purposefully undercut Western powers in Africa for economic, geopolitical, and prestige gains. It has done this by positioning itself as having a far more mercenary attitude than the West, whose companies, governments, and IMF/World Bank have traditionally attached strings to their grants, loans, and economic deals. These strings have ranged from “keep inflation under 5%” to “don’t commit any more human rights violations.” However, many Africans have come to the conclusion that these seemingly benevolent demands are merely facades to disguise naked self-interest and neo-imperialism, and that the West truly doesn’t care about Africa beyond what resources it can extract.

Enter the Chinese government and its closely aligned corporations who don’t even pretend to care about Africa beyond self-interest. China will work with any African leader, regardless of his democratic status or human rights record. China will generously dump money into national budgets and send construction crews to build roads, telecoms, mines, oil wells, and all manner of industry, and won’t ask for anything in return besides raw resources and maybe the occasional vote at the U.N.

Is China good for Africa? In China’s favor, Chinese money has massively accelerated national development across the continent due to the sheer scale of its activity: about $300 billion in investments that have stimulated $200 billion worth of trade annually. And a lot of this money has gone to places that have traditionally been stiffed by the West, like Niger, Mali, and Guinea. On the ground, locals often expressed to me an admiration for China’s tremendous success over the past century, and gratitude for the cheap cell phones, telecoms, motorbikes, roads, and everything else Chinese that has raised African living standards over the past decade. The Chinese, as a people, have a reputation in Africa for being smart and good businessmen.

But of course, Chinese people also have a reputation for treachery and callousness in Africa. Chinese money is often being used to prop up terrible dictators and military regimes. And a lot of these cheap imported goods are destroying local industries, especially textiles which could have been a solid early economic base for Ghana, Nigeria, etc. And Chinese ruthlessness has a habit of causing environmental destruction, like depleting fishing stocks, as mentioned in Notes on The Gambia (and I heard an identical complaint in Sierra Leone). And there are reasonable questions about how China is going to use its new quasi-thralldom it’s setting up in Africa.

I guess time will tell, but my sense is that Chinese investment is probably a net-positive for Africa. The sheer amount of wealth being dumped into the continent is probably worth a few bad UN votes, and it’s not like the West was doing a good job restraining African dictators anyway.

African Tourism is a Hassle

I touched on the difficulty of platonic African tourism in Notes on Benin, but I have a better sense of my point now, and a good example to illustrate it.

When I was in Liberia, I decided to hike Mount Nimba, one of the tallest mountains in West Africa, which is located in Nimba National Park. To get there from Monrovia, I had to take three separate cars for a total of about 12 hours of driving and waiting until I arrived at Yekepa, a small town near the border of Guinea. Once I arrived, I asked three random locals how to climb Mount Nimba, one of whom told me that I had to talk to a park ranger to get permission. The friendly local arranged for me to take a motorbike taxi to the park ranger’s office. The ride took 15 minutes, but we found the building was closed. The taxi guy then drove me to an even smaller town nearby where he asked around until he was told where the park ranger lives. We went to his home and waited 30 minutes until he arrived.

I talked to the ranger and he explained that to go on this hike, I would need to hire a different park ranger to drive me about 15 minutes from Yekepa into the national park, where I would pay a separate fee to enter, and then the ranger would drive me to the start of the trail. Then I would need to pay this ranger to take me up and down the mountain, and then pay him again to take me home. The total fee would be $30 for everything.

I asked if I could climb Mount Nimba alone. The ranger told me I couldn’t, it would be too difficult. I tried to assure him that I was an experienced hiker who had hiked all over the world. He considered it, but ultimately turned me down. The next day, I left Yekapa at 7 AM, went through the whole process, climbed Mount Nimba, came down, and returned to my guesthouse.

The hike was absolutely beautiful, one of the best things I did in West Africa, but… I paid $30 to go on a three hour hike. Or you could also say that I spent 12 hours and two days of travel to pay $30 to go on a three hour hike. And 2/3rds of that cost was to pay for a completely unnecessary guide since the hike was short and not difficult. Or rather… the guide would be completely unnecessary if they bothered to send someone up there to shove a stick into the ground in one particular spot where the path is vague, because otherwise the guide did no actual guiding and I could have easily followed the set path.

This is what most of West African tourism is like. It’s a lot of time, energy, and hassle (and sometimes a lot of money) to do something interesting but fairly insubstantial. In the vast majority of the world, three hour hikes are free, or at most, require a small entry fee; they don’t require asking multiple people permission and hiring an unnecessary guide. Likewise, I spent two entire separate days travelling to two national parks in Sierra Leone, both of which were very cool, but both of which only had about two hours worth of stuff to do.

I am not blaming West Africa (entirely) for this, nor am I saying you shouldn’t travel to West Africa. I am just saying that if you do go, prepare to put a lot of effort in for little traditional reward. This place requires a strong “the journey is more valuable than the destination” attitude.

Things Are Getting Better…

I’ve written a lot of negative things about West Africa, particularly about its politics and economics. But I also think that there have been significant improvements in the quality of life in West Africa over the last decade, even in some of the most impoverished countries. And a lot of these improvements probably aren’t picked up by official statistics, like GDP.

For instance, phone ownership is shockingly high:

As far as I could tell from being there, most of these phones are smartphones, albeit extremely cheap Chinese-made ones. And of course, these smartphones have internet access, which could be quickly and cheaply purchased from omnipresent street vendors.

I was consistently surprised by the quality of Africa’s internet. Not its wifi, which was rare and weak, but Africa’s phone internet data. It pretty much always worked in big cities, and mostly worked outside of them. While vanning around Mauritania, I usually didn’t have data on the road, but I got internet whenever we stopped in some tiny oasis town in the middle of nowhere. Likewise, while hiking in Mali, I called a friend in America via WhatsApp. Note in the above graphic that Guinea, one of the poorer West African states, has 92% phone ownership; I guess that’s what happens when a country has literally no telephone wires.

Speaking of extremely cheap things made in China, there are roughly 800 trillion motorbikes in West Africa. They constantly break down and need repairs, but that has created a thriving second-hand motorbike market to supply the urban and rural poor alike. In some countries, virtually all taxis are motorbikes, and even a lot of the long-distance taxi road travel is done by motorbike, which I personally enjoyed on some grueling 4+ hour journeys.

Nigeria has a new train line. The Ivory Coast has a surprisingly good national bus network. Dakar has brand-new high-rise apartments going up. A part of Accra looks like Miami. There are tons of pharmacies everywhere throughout Africa, even in tiny villages, and they at least looked reasonably well-stocked. Major highways in the wealthier countries usually don’t have potholes. Capital cities have a lot of advertisements to buy new apartments, houses, and land.

In other words, there are improvements, isolated pockets of real development and enrichment. I wish I could explain it better or come up with comprehensive statistics, but my sense is that raw data simply can’t capture a lot of this stuff. Though I am pessimistic about Africa converging with the West in terms of wealth, I am optimistic about a slow but steady rise in living standards over the next 10+ years.

 

A Brief Overview of Every Other West African Country

Niger and Burkina Faso

I didn’t go to Niger or Burkina Faso. Maybe next trip.

Togo

• I don’t have a ton to say about Togo because I didn’t spend much time there, but my general sense is that it’s a lot like neighboring Benin.
• Togo is the only former German colony in West Africa, though it was ceded to France and Britain after World War I. Germany has a bad colonial reputation due to its harsh treatment of the natives elsewhere (Cameroon, Namibia, etc.), but Togo was its “model colony” that the Kaiser used to showcase his benevolence, so it was well-run. Togolese people tend to have a positive view of Germans to this day.
• Besides the fetish market, my Togolese highlight was Viale Castle, a beautiful chateau in the middle of the jungle built by a rich German guy that he handed over to the state after independence. Unfortunately, it has completely fallen into ruin and now has post-apocalypse vibes. Also unfortunately, I lost my pictures of it, but here’s an external shot:

• At independence, the state of Togo was based on the borders of the French colony of Togo. But the older German colony of Togo had territory that had been absorbed into the British Gold Coast (modern Ghana) after World War I. The newly independent Togolese government asked for the land back from Ghana but Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah told them to fuck off.
• Brief interesting Togolese history:

At independence, Togo was a democracy run by Sylvanus Olympio, a Nkrumah-esque figure who had a lot of international respect as one of the early vanguards of African independence. In 1963, three years after independence, Olympio was assassinated by a group of Togolese former French colonial military officers who were pissed off about not being put into the new Togolese army. Under international pressure, the military balked at taking power and put in another civilian government. But four years later, the civilian government was overthrown by Gnassingbe Eyadema, one of the original coup leaders, who suddenly claimed to be the guy who personally mowed down Olympio with an assault rifle, but that may have been a piece of propaganda to make him look like a tough guy.

Eyadema was a classic weird African dictator with absolutely no experience in government, almost no support even among his military compatriots, and a tenuous grasp of the French language. Yet he somehow clung to power for 38 years until his natural death in 2005, making him one of the longest-ruling leaders in post-independence Africa.

Eyadema stayed in power with standard strongman tactics (violent suppression, arresting political opponents, election rigging, etc.), sharing spoils with key military allies, and by literally having an open phone line in his office for contacting the French foreign ministry whenever he needed advice or money; in return, France got occasional diplomatic support from Togo in the region and all the phosphate it wanted. Eyadema also built a little tin-pot personality cult complete with mobs of women singing songs about him and a comic book that depicted him with superpowers.

In 1974, Eyadema survived a plane crash. Official news sources claimed that it was an assassination attempt by imperialists rather than a simple mechanical malfunction on a shitty Togolese airline. The official story was also that Eyadema was the only survivor even though most of the other passengers actually survived. Eyadema also put out rumors that the plane crash proved that he was literally invincible.

The plane crash may not have killed Eyadema, but he still died on a plane in 2005 of a heart attack. The vice president had the misfortune of being out of the country at the time, so Eyadema’s son, Faure Gnassingbe Eyadema, made a clever play for power. He called up his father’s military buddies, told them to declare a state of emergency, and then shut down all travel in and out of Togo. The vice president tried to fly back immediately but was locked out of the country. With this maneuver buying a few days, the younger Eyadema made a beeline for the rubber-stamping legislature and pushed through a new bill changing the line-of-succession to make him the new president. Thoroughly outplayed, the vice president accepted the ruling and let the younger Eyadema take power peacefully. Faure Eyadema rules Togo to this day, and only Equatorial Guinea has a longer lasting African post-independence political dynasty.

Interestingly, the Togo National Museum lists the thwarted vice president as Togo’s official fourth president before younger Eyadema as the fifth. Must be a legitimizing maneuver.

• Random favorite Togo pictures:

 

Liberia

• For a quick Liberian history rundown, see my Shadow of the Sun review.
• Monrovia, Liberia’s capital named after American President James Monroe, was featured in some great scenes in the Nicholas Cage classic, Lord of War.
• Monrovia is ugly as hell, but at least has a fairly different look compared to other African cities, which tend to be very same-y. Part of Monrovia’s charm is the Americana aesthetic, lots of stars and stripes as decorations (based on Liberia’s flag, which is very similar to America’s).
• Monrovia has really fun propaganda. My favorite is either the “Virgin handshake deal vs. the Chad contract”:

Or the “Virgin uncreative pirate vs. the Chad legal intellectual property enjoyer”:

Or this subtle suggestion that Covid-19 is real:

• Monrovia was the only city in Africa where I was warned by numerous locals not to walk around at night for fear of crime.
• I saw more white people in Monrovia than in any other African city. Must be a lot of aid workers.
• Some poor countries “dollarize” or adopt the American dollar as their official currency. Liberia uses its own Liberian dollar and the American dollar simultaneously, which is confusing because they have the same “$” logo. ATMs spit out absolutely filthy American dollars that look 30+ years old. The Liberian dollar looks cool:

• I was briefly arrested in Monrovia for (accidentally) taking pictures of the wall of the American Embassy (specifically an anti-COVID-19 mural). A cop saw me do it, told me the crime I had committed, and marched me to the local police station. I was brought to an office where a cop was sleeping behind a desk. He woke up, was informed of my crime, asked me a bunch of questions, looked at the offending photo, and made me fill out a bunch of forms.

He was quite rude and seemed to enjoy the interaction. I said that it was an accident. He said that there were signs saying “no pictures.” I told him that there were no signs in the area I took the photos and that I didn’t even know the mural was on the American Embassy wall. Portending my upcoming experience in Guinea, he opined that as an American I must understand the rule of law, and therefore I had no valid excuse. He also said that I better fill out the forms accurately, or else I “won’t leave Liberia for a long time.”

The ordeal lasted about two hours and then they let me go.

• I met a local woman with a Norwegian passport. She had fled the country during the civil war and lived in Norway as a refugee for long enough to get citizenship as well as learn Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish. Now she runs a bar in rural Liberia.
• On the Mount Nimba hike, my guide spotted a poacher and ran after him on foot. He didn’t catch up, and I’m not sure what he would do even if he did; I didn’t get a good enough look to see if the poacher had a gun, but my guide certainly didn’t.
• Random favorite Liberia pictures:

 

Sierra Leone

• Sierra Leonese people talk REALLY LOUDLY and ARGUE A LOT ABOUT EVERYTHING.
• When I entered Sierra Leone at one of the Guinean borders, a heavy, very serious border guard with a beret stopped me. Rough reconstruction of our conversation:

Guard – “Hello, how are you today?”

Me – “Fine, thank you.”

G – “Where are you from?”

M – “America”

G – “Ahhhh, an American… do you like Biden or Trump?

M – “Uhhhh… I don’t really like either.”

G – “Who did you vote for?”

M – “I didn’t vote.”

G – “But if you had to vote for one of them, who would you have voted for?”

M – “Ummm… I guess if I had to, I would have voted for Biden.”

G – “Come on, Man! Biden!? Biden is bad! Trump is good! Trump looks out for America! Trump wouldn’t be sending your money to Ukraine! You need Trump.”

M – “Uhhhh… yeah, I guess so…”

G (breaking into a huge smile) – “You are a good man. I like Americans.” *offers me his hand*

M (shaking his hand) – “Thanks!”

• Freetown, Sierra Leon’s capital, is my second favorite city in West Africa, and IMO the most beautiful. City planning pro-tip – if you want to make a city pretty, just add hills. Sierra Leone looks like a generic large African city except it’s built on a series of hills which gives it a Brazilian favela vibe. And it’s beautiful. Really, truly stunning, especially from the hilltops. Best city to explore on foot in West Africa, by far.

• Like The Gambia, Freetown also has a big ship sitting offshore that supplies much of the country’s electricity.
• The Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary takes in abused privately owned chimpanzees and rehabilitates them for reintroduction to the wild. The process takes over seven years and is surprisingly dangerous. The chimps are so emotionally disturbed that they will attack (and potentially kill) any human who steps into their enclosures. When I visited, I had to stand behind multiple fences because the chimps loved chucking rocks at bystanders.
  In 2006, an extremely intelligent chimpanzee named Bruno led his shrewdness of 30 other chimps in a mass escape. Shortly after, they murdered a taxi driver and bit off three of a passenger’s fingers. Eventually, nearly all the chimps voluntarily returned to the sanctuary because they couldn’t feed themselves, but Bruno and some top lieutenants are still at large.
• The closest I came to dying in Africa was riding on the back of a motorcycle taxi in Freetown driven by a man with a death wish. I thought I was used to that shit by then but it was legitimately terrifying how fast we went and how narrowly we avoided other cars. He gave me his number afterward and offered to drive me around the city any time.
• During one travel-stretch in rural Sierra Leone, the car I was riding in broke down in the middle of nowhere. I hitched a ride with a random motorcyclist, and then his bike broke down an hour later, so I had to walk an hour to the next small town.
• I saw more bribes in Sierra Leone than in any other country in West Africa, nearly always at police/military checkpoints.
• At one checkpoint, I was on the back of a motorcycle, and the cop told me to “put my eyes over there” (*look away*) while he took a bribe from my driver.
• A cop at another checkpoint asked if I had any bug spray. I thought it was some sort of security concern, so I spent five minutes fetching my super expensive high-end American bug spray from the bottom of my main backpack, and handed it to her. She said “thanks,” put it in her own bag, and told me I could leave.
• Another road incident: I was on a windy, narrow, dirt road in the jungle on the back of a motorcycle. We came across a crowd of maybe eight people blocking the path, one guy was on the ground holding his leg and screaming next to a fallen motorcycle. Another guy was standing next to his own motorcycle getting yelled out. My driver asked, “is everything ok?” A random bystander yelled, “No! Not everything is ok! This man…” and he proceeded to explain about an accident and alleged injury. We stood around for 15 minutes while two or three other motorists joined us. My driver entered into the shouting too.

My takeaway from listening to as much of the arguing as I could – the guy on the ground claimed to be the victim of a motorcycle accident caused by the guy standing next to his bike. The arguing was a prolonged negotiation tactic to demand compensation for the accident. The random bystanders, including my driver, were sucked into the arguing as a means of bolstering the victim’s claims by forming an impromptu mob.

Eventually my driver got bored and we drove away, so I never saw the conclusion.

• Later that day, I visited Outamba Kilimi National Park in the northwest of the country. The website and a local who had visited both told me that the park had accommodations, but when I arrived, they said their rooms were under renovation. The sun was going down and the final leg of my day-long journey to get there consisted of an hour-long ride on the back of a motorcycle on a narrow dirt road through the jungle, so there was absolutely nowhere nearby to stay. After some negotiating, the park ranger agreed to let me stay in the accommodations anyway.

What followed was the most uncomfortable night of my life. I slept in a concrete box on a filthy mattress on the ground in 90+ degree heat and 90%+ humidity with no air conditioning or fan. I woke up with about two dozen bites along both legs (despite being under a mosquito net) that didn’t fade for a month. After extensive Googling, my best guess was that I had fleas, though they fortunately don’t stay on humans for long. Regardless, it sure would have been nice to have bug spray…

• I also stayed in the Tiwai Island Wildlife Sanctuary. The night safari walk was a cool concept, but sadly we didn’t see anything. The canoe ride around the island was also a cool concept, but my canoe had a big hole in it with a terrible patch-job. Every 20-30 feet, the guide, who stood at the back of the canoe and paddled, had to stop and scoop water out with a little bucket. At one point, we hit a rock and nearly capsized, which would have destroyed my camera.
• During one of many rides across the country on the back of a motorcycle, my driver hit a dog. I felt terrible, especially hearing the dog yelp, but it was totally the dog’s fault. Little guy just jumped in front of the bike.
• One of my motorcycle taxi drivers was the chief of the local village. Seemed like a regular dude.
• Random favorite Sierra Leone pictures:

 

Guinea-Bissau

• I don’t have much to say about Guinea-Bissau because it was the boringest country I visited in West Africa. There’s almost nothing notable about it besides being the sole former Portuguese colony in the region.
• Bissau, the capital, is tiny and pleasant, but uninteresting. Its most famous monument is a weird, abstract sculpture that somehow commemorates a bunch of dockworkers who went on strike.
• I did a lot of writing in Bissau at a Chinese bar. As in, the owner was Chinese, the bar mostly served Tsingtao and baijiu, Chinese movies played on the tv, all of the patrons besides me were Chinese, and literally every single person in the bar besides me was smoking. Super nice people though, they loved me.
• I was bothered by strangers the least in Guinea-Bissau of any other country in West Africa. No hassles, no beggars, nothing but a charming couple that wanted me to take some photos of them. Special shout out to the Airbnb owner who walked me through the surprising complications of land travel from Guinea-Bissau to Guinea.
• Speaking of which, there are about 5 hours of non-paved roads between Bissau and Conakry.
• Also speaking of which, if you are ever feeling unwanted and unloved in life, I recommend going to the Guinea-Bissau-to-Guinea border to hire a motorcycle taxi. You will feel like the most sought after individual on earth. You will be surrounded by up to a dozen people SHOUTING AT THE TOP OF THEIR LUNGS AT YOU AND EACH OTHER TO GET YOUR PATRONAGE. And then you’ll pay $15 for a 4 hour motorcycle ride through some quite beautiful jungle dirt roads.
• Guinea-Bissau has very attractive women, more liberal clothing than most other West African countries too.
• Random favorite Guinea-Bissau pictures:

 

Senegal

• Dakar, the capital of Senegal, is my favorite city in West Africa. It has just the right balance of modernism and African authenticity, a perfect by-the-sea climate, beautiful views, beautiful beaches, bustling centers and quiet neighborhoods, etc. If I had to live in West Africa, I’d live in Dakar.
• I talked about North Korean-made African statues in Benin, but nothing tops Dakar’s African Renaissance Monument. I doubt there are better North Korean statues in North Korea.

• The Supreme Court of Senegal is located right next to Magic Land, an amusement park. I wish I had a picture, but imagine these two things 50 feet away from each other:

• Senegal has the best looking men and women in West Africa by a significant margin. Their looks are amplified by surprisingly liberal clothing for a 97% Muslim country.
• The Senegalese people may be beautiful, but I swear, the country has the ugliest goats:

• Above average amount of harassment from beggars and random people. But I want to give a shout out to the cop who politely asked me to put my camera away when I was taking pictures of government buildings (instead of arresting me).
• Random favorite Senegal pictures:

 

 

Mali

• Very brief summary of recent Malian politics:

Since independence in 1960, the government of Mali has been weirdly secular for an otherwise very Islamic country. This is partly because the government is based out of Bamako, a massive commercial center and trading nexus in the south. Meanwhile, the north of Mali has a far smaller, more rural, more dispersed, and way way more religious population that has always resented the dominance and secularism of the south.

Mali’s post-independence history is typical for West Africa. A brief democracy was quickly overthrown and stifling military dictatorship settled in for decades. Democracy returned under a series of very corrupt leaders starting in 1991.

The chronically simmering north-south tensions sporadically broke out in violence. The northern populations are dominated by the Tuareg ethnic group that stretches across the Sahel region (a band of arid land just south of the Saharan Desert). In the 2010s, Tuareg separatist grievances merged with radical Islamic grievances and the Tuaregs found themselves in bed with a faction of Al Qaeda. Slowly the northern political strategy shifted from “breakaway state” to “conquer Bamako and install a new radical Islamic government over Mali.”

In early 2012, the long-awaited mass rebellion finally erupted, and within months, all of northern Mali (more than half of the country’s landmass) was under de facto control of rebel forces. The civilian government bungled its response and the rebels held territory for an entire year, during which they descended into a civil war within the civil war with the radical Islamists coming out on top and taking firm control over the rebellion. In 2013, the Malian military seized power in a coup and vowed to drive out the rebels.

Which they did by picking up the phone and calling France. French military units from the mainland and across West Africa flooded into Mali and retook 100% of lost territory within a month, with Malian and other West African troops following to occupy territory.

But as with seemingly every conflict in Islamic countries, driving the regular forces off is the easy part. The rebels melted into the wilderness to form an insurgency to harass allied forces and move troops into anywhere the French weren’t. Northern Mali is a big place, and a lot of it is giant stretches of desert, so the allied troops have embarked on a roaming anti-insurgency campaign for 10 years and counting.

Throughout this insurgency decade, sometimes peace treaties were signed, and just as often they fell apart. Sometimes the entire north was closed off to non-military foreigners, and sometimes tourist hot-spots like Timbuktu and Dogon country were opened up. The rebels developed a penchant for kidnapping locals and foreigners to get ransoms and fund their operations.

Meanwhile, back in Bamako, the military government ruled with French support until elections were held in 2018. But by 2020, the military determined that the new government was too corrupt and ineffective, so they launched another coup and held elections again… which was then couped again by the military in 2021, with long-time multi-coup leader Assimi Goita emerging as the president of Mali.

In 2022, rising tensions in Bamako erupted in a major policy change. The long-standing alliance between Mali and France was unilaterally dissolved by the former, the French Embassy was closed, and all French nationals were thrown out of the country. The Malian military accused the French of not providing sufficient aid and of using its influence to hinder Mali’s military efforts. One Malian told me that supposedly the Malians couldn’t move a single soldier without getting approval from France first. (The recent coup in Niger seems to have a similar basis.)

Since then, the war has gone back and forth, with victories for both the Malian government and the rebels. Without French military support, Mali turned to a new foreign ally at the worst possible time… Russia a few months before the start of the Ukraine War. Military equipment, advisors, and Wagner mercenaries have flowed into Mali since 2022.

• For what it’s worth, all of the Malians and foreigners I talked to in Mali strongly supported the new military government. They believed the old civilian government was terribly corrupt and completely beholden to France while the military is now getting shit done. Supposedly there is now significantly less military and police corruption on the streets of Bamako.
• I was repeatedly warned by a guide not to say anything negative about the government in public. On two separate occasions, random soldiers asked if I was French. They don’t get a ton of tourists in Mali anymore.
• Malians I talked to seem to love former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi since he gave a ton of money to the Malian government and built some of their major government buildings. One Malian was very surprised when I told him Gaddafi was regarded as a terrorist in the West.
• Bamako is indeed weirdly secular. It’s super Muslim and has a billion mosques, but it also has lots of bars, liquor stores, and nightclubs.
• I visited a sand harvesting center. There were hundreds of long boats on a river where crews would row out and dredge up sand, bring it back to shore, and then shovel it scoop-by-scoop into a giant truck to be shipped abroad for concrete mixing:

• I hiked around a rural region just to the south of Bamako, near the Guinean border. It was not only beautiful, but quite unique looking. I haven’t seen rock formations like this outside of the Western United States:

• I wanted to go to Timbuktu, but I could only get there by taking the one flight per week from Bamako, and I would need a guide to walk around with me constantly so I wouldn’t be arrested. It didn’t seem worth it, so I didn’t go.
• Random favorite Mali pictures: