Morocco – here we come!

It rained nearly none stop last night and most of today, but that hasn’t dampened our excitement for heading to North Africa tomorrow – yay!  We sat and watched a lovely sunset last night from our motorhome spot on the marina, so it's hard to believe how quickly the weather has changed.

The weather over the last 4 days has gone from 30°c down to 24°c, down again to 18°c and today it hasn’t got above 15°c and rain, rain, rain!  Fingers crossed it will be better in Morocco and especially for the ferry crossing, as I don’t travel well on water!

Once we had sorted ourselves out, filled up with water, and done all Sonny’s ablutions we headed to Algeciras.  En-route we topped up our 2 gas bottles with LPG, as there are no LPG filling stations in Morocco and although we will be staying mostly on campsites and Aires that will have electric, we need gas for our cooker and heating of water.

That done we headed to the industrial/retail district of Algeciras to buy our ticket from Viajes Normandie (N36°10’45” W5°26’28”).  We had read a lot about Carlos who ran the business for many years, but has now retired and it’s run by his 2 daughters) and learnt this was the best place to go to buy a ferry ticket and get all your paperwork for importing the motorhome (and us!) into morocco, rather than down at the ferry port.  We have left the scooter in a friend’s garage in Gibraltar as we figured (1) we wouldn’t use it much and (2) you have to pay insurance for each vehicle you import.

As we drove on to the retail area we spotted a Carrefour and lots of motorhomes parked up, just around the corner from Carlos’ place!  So, parked up and armed with all our vehicle docs and money we headed to Viajes Normandie.  The 2 women in there were lovely, we presumed they were Carlos’ daughters.  We had a choice of ferry times for tomorrow ranging from 4am – 4pm but opted for the 10am.  Ticket purchased we were then handed a plastic bag – “a present from us” she said, which turned out to be a bottle of red wine and cake from Lidl.  We will enjoy both of those later!

Outside Viajes Normandie, with ticket and goodies - morocco bound!

As morocco is an Islamic nation it gives drinking alcohol a low profile and it’s not possible to buy in the Medinas.  We’ve heard that you can buy in some small shops and bars/restaurants but it is very expensive.  Needless to say, we needed to stock up on wine/beer before going across to Morocco.  We plan to stop 6 weeks (that’s how long our Green Card is valid for) and as bottles are heavy we opted for cartons - the most expensive one we bought was €1.18 (£1), the cheapest €0.60 (about 55p). I’ll not tell you how may cartons of wine or beer we bought; but will say the wheels on the trolley were buckling and the springs on the motorhome don’t look too clever when we have loaded it all up!  We have hidden it all under the bed as it’s illegal to import it into the country but we have read that they turn ‘a blind eye’ if you slip them a few beers.  Will let you know the quality of the wine once opened!

So, we are parked up in the car park used by all waiting to go and fetch the ferry to North Africa, alongside numerous nationalities.  We have spotted motorhomes from

France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Norway, Spain and of course other Brits!  When we arrived there were only a few of us:

looking out now to the car park it is chock-a-block– there must be about 70 motorhomes!  Mel is really excited and keeps saying “we’re off to North Africa tomorrow’ with a  big grin on his face!  Plus he is tucking in to a lovely dish of Patatas Brava and Pork (cooked by his own fair hands, cookery lessons courtesy of Melissa when we were in Punta Umbria)- pork is something he won't get in Morocco!

So, tickets at the ready it's an early night for us!

Not sure when we will get internet again when we get across to Morocco, but will hopefully speak to you soon!

Sally x