We needed an early start to get the ferry at 7 am to Tangiers so we all managed drag ourselves down to breakfast before dawn in search of coffee. As I had learned previously greeks require coffee in the morning to function properly.
Driving down into Tarifa was quite beautiful looking over the Straits of Gibraltar with the sun coming up behind the hills, getting through the ferry port security checks and onto the ferry is pretty quick taking about 15 minutes.
The ferry over the Straits took about an hour or so, most of which is taken up by queuing up and getting your Moroccan entry visa lined up – the bulk of this can be done on the boat, saving you the time at Tangiers itself.
When you’ve arrived at Tangiers, you drive off the ferry and join a queue to get through security, there you will meet some ‘fixers’ who will pester you for 20-30 euros to smooth things over with the border guards – I’m sure you could manage without them if you didn’t mind waiting, but they do speak the language, which is handy.
It should normally take about 30-45 minutes to get through the border, however I made the mistake of taking my old Parrot AR Drone with me in the vague hopes of getting some aerial shots of driving through the desert. Unfortunately one of the border guards took a liking to it and confiscated it, claiming it was was a ‘national security risk’ or somesuch rubbish – despite arguing with the guards for over an hour they refused to let me have it. So the lesson is, if you want to take a drone in, hide it very well!
Once you’re through the gates and if you are driving a car, you need to purchase vehicle insurance, this is available about 20 metres through the gate on the right at a couple of little cabins – we paid about 60 euros for insurance for several weeks (there’s a minimal period) even though we weren’t going to be in the country that long.
We then got massively lost in Tangiers itself, hit a bunch of traffic and lost everyone apart from Brad and Sagen in the Ka. Thankfully we’d all agreed that we’d be heading for Fes at the end of the day so we knew we were headed in the same direction. There’d been discussions of heading via Chefchaouen, the famous blue town in the hills to the south of Tangiers.
Chefchaouen is about 2 and a half hours south of Tangiers and the roads are pretty good once you get out of Tangiers, almost no dual carriageways (very rare in morocco!) but sealed at least. It’s known for it’s blue architecture and the high quality of it’s cannabis, as well as it’s availability. Over all it’s a worthwhile stop as it’s very pretty and a nicer introduction to Morocco than Tangier which could be a bit overwhelming.
We left Chefchaouen about 2pm having had some lunch and got some local currency. Get it at a bank, you may get a slightly better deal with a money changer bloke in the street, but you are just as likely to get shafted so I think we considered it better to take a potentially worse rate and know what you are dealing with.
Heading south along the N13 we knew we’d have a bit of a long drive to get to Fes and some of the roads were quite entertaining, with no lights and big trucks.
One warning to be said about driving in Morocco is that you need to pay attention to the solid white lines, especially on blind corners. We got caught overtaking a slow moving lorry on a steep hill by a hidden police checkpoint, they stopped us (and the guys we were travelling with), just be nice, say you are from england or wherever and play a bit dumb, they’ll generally let you off with a small bribe as opposed to the full fine.
We finally caught up with everyone else around 11pm a the Hotel Splendid which is pretty central, not too expensive and has secure parking outside.
Then we went to sleep – long day!
Notes and Points
- Hide anything cool/interesting at the Tangier port security checks
- Beware of getting caught overtaking in naughty ways
- If you do get caught, be nice and play dumb, you might well get away with it
- Go to Chefchaouen, it’s lovely!
- If you are driving through a town and see a butchers next to a cloud of smoke, stop for food. You pick what you want, they cut/mince the beast of your choice there and then, hand it to their mate who cooks it and you sit down and have a good feed.
- Have Moroccan tea, very very sweet though.
Route
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