The evening of December 24th I finally made my way from France to Senegal by - a fully charged- car! First etappe was to reach Narbonne at the French south-western coast. There we (three cars inclusive mine) were to sleep over at a friend's friend's place and join with other two cars. These approximatly 400 km felt like a warm up for the exercise to come!
As groups go, we only left the following day at around 1pm. Direction Barcelona!
(For people living close to Bordeaux the crossing down to Algeciras via Madrid is the best, and much cheaper as the major part of the motorway is free, in contrast to the southern coast motorway!!!) After Alicante there is the choice of sticking to the coastal motorway or to switch to the northern parallel via Granada. We chose the latter, as it seemed shorter. This might have been a mistake, as the mountainous road slows down the speed and left us freezing overnight in the car on a petrol station parking lot just after Granada!
Early next morning we continued our way to the port of
Algeciras via Malaga. For a
single trip to Tanger, one car with one person, I paid 120 Euro, with the slower ferry though.
Already in Algeciras (picture: waiting for the ferry) temperatures were mild and the sun shining, slowly defrosting the stiff toes I caught overnight!
And how beautiful was the ferry passage with view of Gibraltar (picture: The island of Gibraltar). Nearly felt like holiday... Once arrived in
Tanger, Marocco, we had to pass the custom control. Luckily I did not have to open anything or unload the car. Still, the procedure took its time. I also withdrew some 1000 dir for the journey, routes, and food. Getting out of Tanger and its Friday evening traffic was quite a mission, but ultimatly we made it to the motorway and a food break at a petrol station just before Rabat (where we also met the maroccan father with his son from the ferry again). Via
Casablanca we continued until
El Jadida where we stayed the night in luxury at the Ibis hotel. It is directly facing the beach and a guardian was sitting all night out there to look over my car! He made quite some impressive figure in his traditional coat and worn face (picture: Early morning at El Jadida beach).
Well, despite being a nice place (unfortunately we did not have the time to visit the old town centre, see the google map entry, it was a bit of a detour. We passed it by, because initially we planned on following the coast down to Agadir. But the hotel owner recommended us to take the road via Marrakech that would save
us some considerable amount of time! (So instead of going up to El Jadida, in Casablanca, we should have taken the motorway up to Marrakech!!) Anyway, at least this way we enjoyed a lovely country road (picture: a town before Marrakech on a very windy mountain plateau) to
Marrakech. From here the mountainous road begins that is filled by overloaded camions! Until
Agadir it is a never ending taking over operation through congested, curvous and mountainous roads! But good news,
the motorway Marrakech-Agadir is nearly finished (approx. mid 2010)!
Upon entering Agadir one follows the direction Airport and Layoone. The next bigger town is a good 400 km away, Tan Tan (3 pictures: on the road between Agadir and Tan Tan). These kilometres were rather diverse from dunes, to fields, mountains, sunshine and dark rainy clouds. Around half way between Agadir and Tan Tan we passed the town
Bouizakarne, where one car of our group was caught by the radar control (40 Euro!
Throughout all of Marocco and Mauretania one needs to be cautious at the entrance and exit of towns where there are frequent police and radar controls, speed, stop signs...). This unvolontary stop turned into a quite nice sojourn. The owner of the house in front of which we were forced-stopped asked if any of us had to sell some mp3 player or computer. He was lucky and got the installation of the PC inclusive... . And the rest of us was also invited into the house as it was prayer time. Me being the only female went upstairs into the house to wash myself a little and pray with the lady of the house. Afterwards I was treated to a glass of milk, sweet desserts and delicious dates. Was quite funny as she only spoke arabic that I do not speak, so it was an exchange of smiles and gestures. On departure I received a full bag of dates for the journey. Was a really lovely experience. Finally in Tan Tan we slept in the mosque of a petrol station and had our first Tangine!
There I picked up the 24 years old Pajero that before departure needed a bit of fixing...
This was my first time in the sweet and tranquille port town. It has a very particular bridge (Picture) crossing the port channel (Picture). If bigger boats have to pass, it slides off to the side like a crane arm.
Soon it was time to get back to the car waiting to board the ferry on which I would have to spend three nights. I shared the cabin with bulk beds with three other ladies, one elderly Moroccan, one with baby and one French travel adventurer. With the latter I visited during the last night the massive machine control room (picture) and the engine room that is unbelievable immense, hot and load. Was a very interesting time! Still happy when we were to arrive the next morning at Tanger Med, and very excited.
