Togo - West Africa - page 980

In addition to your main travel funds, carry an additional stash of cash with you, preferably kept separate from the rest
of your cash and travellers cheques. This will serve as a contingency fund for emergencies.
Unless you're relying on ATMs, try to anticipate your needs and change enough in advance to cover yourself on
weekends and during non-banking hours. If you do get stuck outside banking hours, you can try changing money at top-
end hotels or tour companies, although rates are likely to be poor. Another option, and much better than changing on the
street, is to ask discreetly at a shop selling imported items. 'The banks are closed, do you know anyone who can help
me…?' is a better approach than 'Do you want to change money?'.
Credit Cards
You can rarely use a credit card to pay for items, and such occasions are limited to top-end hotels and restaurants, car-
rental companies and air tickets; an extra commission is often attached, usually ranging from 3% to 15%. Visa is the
most widely accepted card, followed a distant second by MasterCard; credit cards are useless in Sierra Leone, Guinea-
Bissau and Liberia, and we advise against using them in Nigeria. Cape Verde and Morocco probably offer the widest
choice of paying by credit card.
Watching a person put your card through the electronic credit-card machine (as opposed to letting them do it out of
sight) is a good idea to ensure you don't receive unwanted bills back home.
International Transfers
Western Union Money Transfer has representatives in just about every West African country, usually as part of local
banks or post offices.
International bank-to-bank money transfers may save you from carrying large amounts of money but are best used
only as a last resort. Transfers can take three to four days, and sometimes several weeks, to clear. If you do need to
transfer money, ask your forwarding bank to send you separate confirmation with full details, including the routing or
transfer number, account and branch numbers, and address and telephone contacts. With this, you can then go to the re-
cipient bank with proof that your money has been sent. Most countries will only give you cash in local currency.
Money Changers
The main places to change money are banks and forex bureaus. Where they exist, forex bureaus are often more efficient
than banks, usually offer slightly higher rates and are open longer hours, though many don't accept travellers cheques.
Charges and commissions vary, with some banks and forex bureaus charging a flat fee, and others a percentage commis-
sion; some charge both a fee and a commission. The bank or forex bureau with the higher commission may also offer a
higher exchange rate, though, so you could still be better off.
Apart from export restrictions, exchanging CFA francs in countries outside the region is nearly impossible, except in
France. In most countries in the CFA zone, it's relatively easy to change remaining CFA francs into euros but difficult to
change CFA francs to dollars. On leaving non-CFA countries, it's usually not possible to reconvert local currency into
foreign currency; you can usually change back to CFA francs in The Gambia and Guinea, where it's relatively straight-
forward, although rates are low. Try come to an arrangement with other travellers if you think you're going to be caught
with a surfeit of local cash.
Also, note that if you're travelling between the West African and Central African CFA zones (eg from Niger to
Cameroon), it's easy to change CFA notes of one zone for those of the other at banks, but more difficult to change coins.
Tipping
There are few clear rules on tipping in West Africa. In general, only the wealthy (ie well-to-do locals and nearly all for-
eign visitors) are expected to tip. Anyone staying in a fancy hotel would be expected to tip porters and other staff, but
there would not be the same expectation from a backpacker in a cheap hotel.