(5) The Moroccan car import business

Taking cars into Morocco is not that straightforward and requires us to complete all sorts of paperwork to allow us to ‘import’ the Audi. The main issue is that Morocco does not allow individuals to bring cars into their country and then sell them so consequently they do like to keep track of those who enter on four wheels. The fact you entered the country with a car is registered in your passport and so when you leave they not only like to check your passport but they also like to check you still have the car. The consequences of not having it vary depending on who you listen to and what you read but range from general embuggerance to huge fines and right up to being refused exit from the country.  None of these are really appealing to busy people trying to get back home.  

How therefore, you may ask, do we intend to sell the car to raise money for charity? Well that is the reason that at the end of the trip we have to head to the far south of Morocco/Western Sahara half a day’s drive south of Dakhla. Here, at the border to Mauritania, car traders gather and deals are done. Once prices are agreed the car owner and dealer ‘leave’ Morocco into the no man’s land between the two countries and thus the owner departs Morocco with their car in accordance with the law. The transaction is carried out just over the border in the minefields of no man’s land and then both parties return across to Morocco, all legal and above board and hopefully with everybody happy. That’s the theory anyway, but for every problem solved more questions arise: we plan to arrive on a Friday which is the Muslim Holy Day so just how busy is trading going to be; will we be any good at bartering to get the best price for the car given that it’s not in our culture to do deals in this manner and that the dealers know we will need to sell the car; and having sold the car just how are we to get back from the remote Mauritania border to Dakhla over 250 miles away across a deserted desert road? Tune in next time for the answers to these and other questions.