We paused our journey in Jerez de La Frontera at a motorhome repair facility where we hoped to get a minor repair done to our steps . . . . but we arrived at the start of the Epiphany holiday and the workshops were closed for the next three days.
After the long weekend we drove to Algeciras to catch the ferry to Morocco – €270 for an open return ticket, a voyage of two hours. When loading onto the ferry one of the crewmen – let’s call him Joe Pánico – began to lose his rag trying to get our truck parked on the car deck. Rather than indicating where he wanted us to go, he began gesturing wildly, screaming out instructions: “Stop, stop, stop! Go, go go! Foreword! Reverse! Left! Right, Stop, stop, stop!” He became so agitated Tony feared he would have a heart attack or, worse still, bump us into another vehicle. Before long his colleagues had gathered round to watch, finding his antics very amusing. Eventually one of them took pity and explained to us that JP was trying to line us up in order for us to reverse into the gap behind us. Armed with this new information Tony did as he was asked and reversed into the gap without further “assistance” from Joe Pánico”. The show was over. Everyone was grinning except Joe Pánico – and us!
We finally cleared immigration at Tanger Med an hour and a half after disembarking. Security included vehicles having to go through an x-ray procedure (to detect stowaways?
into Morocco?).
Customs wanted to search the inside of our truck with a sniffer dog. We always resisted putting up the steps in order to discourage officials coming inside – Tony (age 78) demonstrated to a plump, middle aged officer how he could climb in without using the steps but the dog handler insisted her dog needed to get in for a sniff. You would be foolish to refuse their commands as they have the power to rip your vehicle apart, so Tony laboriously attached the steps, taking as long as he could and the uniform popped his head inside. The dog refused to climb the steps so the handler eventually had to give up and we remained un-sniffed.
We were just leaving the port area when we heard loud shouting behind us, several port officials were chasing after us! Fearing someone was hanging off the back, we (stupidly) stopped and reversed back. They asked for our passports and told us to return to the Customs area. Turned out the problem was the map of the world logo applied to the sides of the truck. Apparently the map showed a line of division between the countries of Morocco and Western Sahara, something fiercely disputed by the Moroccans. They asked us to remove the offending area – one official even tried to scratching it off with his car keys. After ten minutes of arguing they gave us back our passports and sent us on our way. Our impression of Morocco was not off to the best start.
