Rosso or Diama: choosing the border into Senegal

There are two ways to drive from Mauritania into Senegal. Rosso, the main
crossing, has a reputation bad enough that every overlander forum tells you
to avoid it. Diama, out west along a gravel track by the river, is supposed
to be the easy one.

We took the easy one. It took four hours.

We arrived in the middle of the day, at the end of May, in a Subaru with no
carnet de passage – and not another car at the barrier. The Mauritanian side
was the smooth half: about €20 in exit fees and we were through. Then
Senegal. Without a carnet, the car needed a temporary import paper, and the
border guards' answer to that was to hand us a phone number. The man on the
other end wanted €250 to make the paper appear.

We argued for an hour. We pulled up the official fees, quoted the rules,
appealed to the guards. They could not have cared less. So we paid, sent our
passports and insurance card over WhatsApp, and waited another hour and a
half for the paper to arrive. Add €10 to a man whose role I never worked
out, and €15 for insurance sold from a plastic chair – no kiosk, no receipt.

Then came the lesson. Friends of ours crossed a day behind us. They had sent
their documents ahead the evening before, and the same man was waiting at
the barrier with the papers already made out. Their insurance came free.

Same border, same paperwork, same man. The difference was an evening of
preparation. Diama is still the right choice – but it is not a queue you
join, it is a negotiation you start the night before.