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| Los Palmones to Asilah - 61 miles |
A very early start as
we needed to be leaving at 8.30 and it was still dark when Terry took
Jamie out for his constitutional. But we managed and all five crews
were ready on time so we headed out in our little convoy for the 10
minute drive to the ferry port where we were directed to join the
check-in queue and visit the office to get our boarding cards.
Check-in opened promptly at 9.00 – Balearic is probably the better
of the five different ferry operators – and we made our way onto
the dock through the police post, delayed only by the drivers of a
few motorhomes from a certain Gallic country who thought that walking
over to check-in wasn't necessary for them.......
But after a short wait
we were loaded onto the ship, settled Jamie then went up to the
accomodation deck to find the police post to organise immigration.
Wasn't really hard to find as everybody else was doing the same and
there was a substantial queue but the police officer was efficient
and, just after we sailed, we met up with the group again for coffee
and a chat.
The crossing was very
smooth in fine weather and before we realised it we had arrived at
Tanger-Med, the modern large seaport on the north Moroccan coast,
about 25 miles east of Tangier itself. Disembarked quickly we drove
round to the Customs area where we were required to temporarily
import the motorhome; we'd been told the procedure had been changed
again but this time it was fairly clear. A customs man came to each
van, took passports and vehicle registration whilst the crew stayed
put, eventually returning to “clear” us and hand over a small
printed ticket which was the official import document. We noticed
some vehicles, mainly Moroccan cars, were pulled out of the line to a
search area but today they appeared not to be bothering motorhomes so
after a total time since unloading from the ship of 40 minutes we
were at the line of Bureaux de Change getting dirhams. This was
probably the fastest we've done this, but in fairness the ship was
almost empty and there were fewer than 40 motorhomes and cars.
So with a plan to stop
off at the service station the convoy moved off onto the nearby
motorway for the transfer to Asilah where we planned to overnight, as
we've done on every previous visit. However this time we'd decided to
use the campsite rather than the guardian parking as we felt last
year we were ripped off, the campsite with full facilities including
electricity only being Dh20 more than the GP. Fortunately there was
enough room to park all five vans together so we can thus report that
“the objective was achieved” and three more new crews had been
introduced to Morocco.
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| All safely gathered in! |
As expected the local
restaurant owner came round to invite us to eat in his establishment
but he had no takers and we all settled down for a quiet evening. We
did mount an expedition to the local Maroc Telecom office to get
internet etc but there was a long queue and as we knew it would take
hours to clear we left it. Some of the group returned later but we
left it overnight, not planning to be in any rush tomorrow.
* * *
Incidentally, we're
sorry the route map is pretty simple but until/if we can work
something else out Autoroute doesn't have much detail for Morocco.
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