We made it to Morocco. It has been a long journey from Amsterdam to get here, but the first impression is that it was worth it.
We had one important chore to complete before we boarded the ferry in Algeciras. I wanted to replenish the propane, as we cannot fill our tanks in Morocco. So we left a little early to go to a fuel station next to an Oil refinery. The attendant showed me how to connect the LP using my Spanish adapter, so this important chore taken care of we headed to the ferry terminal.
We picked the least expensive ferry available for the trip and were rewarded with an old and slow ferry. We were the first one on, but as anyone that has been in the Navy or Marines knows the first one on a boat is the last one off. But this meant we were at the front of the line to clear Moroccan immigration. But immigration was the fast part.
As we drove off a guy in uniform checked our passports and vehicle documents and waived us on. In front of us was a three lane road that led to the freeway. Just as we were thinking we had escaped, we came around the last corner and there was a customs checkpoint. We were routed to the line to have François go thru a giant x-ray machine. The machine was impressive, but it took us about 40 minutes to get our x-ray.
After the x-ray we hoped we were done with customs, but when we went back to the customs check point they were manually inspecting all of the vehicles. While we were waiting our turn Ton noticed some vans that the customs guys had had the owners remove everything on the inside. Ton said if we have to do that we will be here hours. Fortunately, for us they only did a quick visual check, and had a drug dog do a pass around François. After another 15 minutes we were released to Morocco.
By the time we cleared the port it was about 4pm so we headed down the toll road to our overnight stop at a well reviewed campground. It is part of a large hotel complex. We are the only camper on site, and I believe we may be the only guests in both the hotel and campground, but the service has been impeccable.
What a day! I can only imagine how long it would take to remove all of our belongings from the van for an inspection. So glad you got lucky and didn’t have to do that. Whew! I am looking forward to reading about your Moroccan adventures.
Hey good to hear from you guys. I hope you are doing well. Are you at the Hymer dealer now? The story gets better, Ton took a picture of the vans that had been pulled apart, I saw her taking the pictures and my military training told me this was a no photo zone, so I yelled across to her not to take pictures, just as I did that a Moroccan police man came around the corner to tell her the same thing, but when he heard me yelling at her he just smiled and walked over and politely asked her to delete the picture, but he let her keep the pictures of the x-ray machine when she asked.