Today was purely about travel. We were up early because we wanted to make a couple of stops on the way to the ferry. Our biggest concern was to try to knock 45 days worth of road dirt off of François. The gas stations in Morocco all feature a big bay marked Lavage. Since we had some Dirhams to spend we decided to treat François to a Lavage. The first three gas stations waved us off, so when we saw a Shell I told Ton this would be the last attempt before we headed on to the port. The fourth time was a charm and François looks much better.
The port at Tangier-Med is very new and the infrastructure is first class if a little under utilized. Since they have all of these new buildings and roads they send you on quite a circuit But in the end we were parked and waiting for the ferry an hour early.
The ride on the ferry was uneventful, but strangely full of Moroccan families traveling with school aged children. Ton and I figured it must be a school holiday this week in Morocco.
Morocco was a fun time for us. It is a beautiful country full of a wide variety of climates. The coastal areas remind you of southern California. The high mountains across the center are spectacular, and the lower but rugged mountains of the Rif make you understand why it was so hard to conquer the Berbers. The Sahara was an experience we will not forget soon. The cities didn’t knock us out with their architecture, but did have an energy to them that was new to us. Part modern and part ancient, and with a happy chaos that was charming.
We were once again one of the last vehicles off of the ferry so we took our place at the end of the line for customs and immigration. Fortunately for us they opened a couple of more lines so we were thru in less than 30 minutes.
We forgot that it was one hour later in Spain than Morocco so by the time we left the port it was after 6pm. On the drive I was worried because the campground we wanted to stay in is pretty small and it was later than I planned to arrive. I was right to be worried as they only had one spot left and they made me go look at it to make sure we would fit in it as “it is quite small.” Fortunately we did fit so our long but drama free day ended with a small bit of good fortune.