(12) 19 March. To Africa!

The day started with an early drive in the dark to the port only some ten minutes from the hotel. As we parked up a young couple headed our way questioning us on our ferry details, trying to 'be useful' by pointing us towards the queues (which we could easily see) and generally not taking 'no' for answer when they tried to take our paperwork to 'help' us. We had found some 'fixers' (or rather they had found us) and we had an early taste of what we might expect in Morocco. We shook them off and then bided our time until embarkation.

Loading the ferry was an interesting experience. There was little control over the four queues converging into one for loading and the occasional lorry disembarking from another boat would cut across the free-for-all that was developing. Many - if not most - of the local vehicles (mostly vans) that were Tangier bound were so full you could hardly see out of them and had their roofs loaded with household items often half as high as the vehicle itself. They were weighed down so much that they sat on their axles, often quite lopsidedly. On parking our cars on board we also noticed that not all vehicles seemed to be facing the same direction on the car deck (how?). So while the crossing itself proved uneventful (save queuing to sort out immigration while on route), there was yet more confusion on disembarking as people either reversed off the boat or tried to execute three point turns amidst the other disembarking vehicles. I normally pay good money in fairgrounds to be part of that sort of thing.

Getting through Tangier itself proved a positive breeze compared with the horror stories of being inundated with fixers, four hour plus waits for unhelpful customs staff and then even more waiting to try and sort insurance and to change money. It proved modern, friendly and fairly slick with the biggest problem being that our French was not that good. Within an hour all cars were through customs with admin done: we were in Africa and on our way.

We stuck to the motorway to make good time to Azrou to the south from where it would be a short push the following day to the beginning of our off road adventure at Midelt. However, by mid afternoon we had decided that Midelt was reachable that day and so we pressed on through the torrential showers and strong winds that had dogged us from about two hours after our arrival in sunny Tangier. The last sixty miles took us through some rugged landscape reminiscent of Scottish moors and then as we rounded a corner to descend into the plain that led to Midelt, twenty five miles distant we saw the Atlas Mountains rising as if from nowhere, sunlit against blue sky, very high and covered in snow. We would hopefully be picking our way across parts of these in the next two days.

We arrived at Midelt in the dark and found a great little hotel with all our rooms off one Moroccan style 'lounge'. I am now thinking that hot water may not have been in the price we negotiated (a crippling £8 per person…) but what the hell. A local we chatted to recommended a couple of restaurants and took us round to the one we chose. A dark, front room of a place, it seemed to open especially for us. We reckon it belonged to some relation and that, whichever of the two recommendations we chose, we would have ended up there. But we were served up with a true feast: plates of superb fresh vegetables, salads and meats and they even managed to find us some beers. And the price? Another £8.

We are now hoping that £8 is a standard price for everything here in Morocco and that the team who nursed their Mercedes here with the blown head gasket will manage to get that fixed tomorrow (a mechanic was lined up this evening) for only another £8.