The Spanish Gibraltar

Trucks waiting to cross the border

View more photos 

We met our Moroccan tour group yesterday near Algeciras in Spain. The company taking us across is Desert Detours and the tour leader is Ray.

We set off first thing for the port and caught the fast ferry from Algeciras to Ceuta. The ferry was modern and fast, but who the hell leaves unsecured ‘wheelie’ bins on the car deck of a ferry – bumping up against my truck!! No damage done, anyways…

Ceuta is a funny place, a bit like the Spanish version of Gibraltar, as it is a Spanish enclave in mainland Africa. We arrived in Ceuta and took a drive around trying to find some shops. We found roadworks, the hospital, the steepest hill weve driven so far and another hill that claimed some metal of the rear chassis. No shops though. This was particularly tragic as no shops = no beer :-(

Our fearless leader (Ray)

View more photos 

We then proceeded to the border and with help of Ray managed to get across into Morocco proper. Lots and lots of bureaucracy and 100 people needing to check the same piece of paperwork over and over – but actually smoother than I thought. I believe Ray made some contributions to the local economy to allow it to be so…

To bring the truck in we needed to ‘import’ it into Morocco “Don’t lose that paper or when you leave the truck will stay behind” says Ray. Right then!

We didn’t drive very far today and stopped in a restaurant carpark just outside of Tetoua - FC Barcelona Restaurant, complete with crest on the gate and team pictures on the wall. After some torrential rain and severe wind – during which I played football with Jay - we had dinner in the restaurant. Nothing to write home about frankly (even though I am…). The wind and rain continued into the night and the truck was getting blown around quite severely – thankfully by morning it had calmed down cause I didn’t fancy driving in that wind!