Goodbye Europe – Hello Africa

The journey begins………………………………

Ferry from Algeciras to Ceuta

on 8th November, 2012 we woke up bright and early and got to the port at 8am to meet with Sheelah and Oyvind, whom we met in Gibraltar. They are also driving to South Africa (but taking a lot longer then we are) they were already in the queue, we were 5 mins behind, but paid for this, were told that we could not get on the 9 o’clock sailing. Noel was about to do  battle with the officials but they were not having this, and promptly got in their car and drove off, leaving a whole queue of trucks, cars and our van in the port area.

At 12md, were told that we could possibly sail at 2, maybe 3pm, at 2.30, it was possibly going to be boarding at 4pm and sailing at 5.30, when nothing happened at 6.30, I decided to make dinner where promptly a woman came along and said were moving. We drove a 100metres up the road and came to a stop and waited a further hour. We were told that the rear ferry gates were not working, so all the vehicles had to reverse into the ferry.

The boat finally left at 7.30pm exactly 11½ hours after we arrive. It all seems like such a long time ago, all in all very good training for what’s to come. Finally arrived in Ceuta at 10pm, don’t know why as it is supposed to be a 50 minute crossing!

Drove out of the port and immediately got lost and what do you do when you get lost? Ask a policeman of course! The local police were very helpful, they stopped the traffic, so that we could do a U turn in order to follow them, they took us to a posh marina and told us to park overnight there where we fell into a hard earned but great night sleep.

Ceuta is another strange place it is part of Morocco but is actually Spanish. Rather like Gibraltar is British territory.  Very odd.  So we had a half hour drive the next morning to cross the border into Morocco.  At the border there are ‘helpers who just come up and take over the paper work and tell you exactly what to do. They give you very little option but to use their services but in fact they do a very useful service working for ‘tips’ no coins please. Our helper used a very strange method to introduce himself. He established that we speak English and to show his proficiency He said  ‘Oh yes English how’s it going,lubbly jubbly,Manchester United !’

Once through customs we entered Morocco and it all changed we quickly came to realise that we were most definitely out of Europe.

So here we are in (Morocco)Africa. Has it stopped raining ? Oh no It bloody hasn’t!

 Our vans electrical problems became progressively worse with our spotlights permanently on and the windscreen wipers behaving very badly when ever it rained. I came to the conclusion that these faults might be cured by getting dried out.

 We shall see!

 

The worry of the electrics and the oppressive weather is making it all quite heavy going. We are travelling with Oyvind aand Sheelah,  for a short while, we are off  tomorrow to explore the mountains and more remote  parts of this country.  

                                         Don't you just love the mountains!

Oyvin has promised that after we cross the mountains it will become warmer and dry. We will see. 

 

 I have spent the day working through some of the faults on the van and we intend to move out tomorrow.

                                                         Doing mending!