Welcome to Morocco

A smart modern ferry carried us from Algeciras in Southern Spain to Ceuta (Spanish territoryi in Northern Morocco). Nothing we had read or heard really prepared us for the chaos and frustration of the border. It wasn't the length of time it took (a mere hour and a half – we had heard tales of 6 hours) but the complete lack of organisation.

There were cars and people everywhere but no directions. We were just surrounded by dozens of men clamouring to offer their services to “help” us through. The uniformed police were in evidence but mainly standing around looking important. We had completed the forms before the border to avoid having to ask for help but we needed to know who to present the forms to. Finally someone who had an official tourism badge turned up at the window and he pointed out to Martin the office where he should go with passports and forms. I stayed in the van in the queue of vehicles with the doors locked. When hooting and shouting started as others wanted to move, I pretended I couldn't drive (which was just about true!). Eventually the traffic was directed by an unoffical round a nearby building.

Martin returned after a long wait in a sort of queue surrounded by more unofficial helpers. It seemed to take forever for the police to scrutinise the immigration forms and passports but they didn't need to see me apparently. He then had to find the customs office to present the temporary import form (in triplicate) for the van. After a similar wait the customs man in a metal box of an office took one copy of the form. There were small signs on the offices but they were impossible to see as there were so many vehicles and people milling around.

Martin finally made it back to the van and we had to drive through the crowd and down an incredibly narrow lane between a parked car and a building, inching forward narrowly avoiding driving over people's belongings. We were stopped by the immaculately uniformed Customs officials and police three more times on our way through to check our vehicle import form. It was so chaotic no one would have known who had checked what.

So we were now in Morocco. We made our way to the nearest campsite on the coast at Martil. There was no one in reception so we found a space and had a look round. The facilities were fairly basic and a bit of a shock after our experience of really good campsites in Spain. There was only one sit down toilet in the disabled room of the ladies which was completely dark and the light didn't work. To flush the squat toilets you fill a bucket with water. There were plenty of showers but only 2 had shower heads. The one that worked best had no door. We set up camp.