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Had to get up early 🥱😖as our ferry from Algeciras to Tanger Med was booked for midday. We never in a million years thought that it would actually leave anywhere near the given time. But after surviving the windiest drive ever and two big traffic jams, we were waved almost straight through! 

Only just had time to throw together a couple of sandwiches with still frozen bread. Guy had to reverse onto the ferry with two men waving him in different directions and a non-functioning reversing camera. Nightmare.

Once on board, you have to join a long queue immediately to fill in a scrap of paper with 20 questions in order to get your passport stamped in to Morocco. At the Spanish passport control we’d already had to have a retina scan and do fingerprinting for the new EES thing that they’re gradually bringing in. (This after we’d stupidly paid for extra pages in our passports 🙄)

Anyway, we tried to find a hidden corner to surreptitiously scoff our lunch, it being Ramadan, we didn’t want to cause offence. Unfortunately, the only quiet corner was outside in a force nine gale! 

We were so relieved to get across in daylight hours this time and even the utterly chaotic customs didn’t take too long. I think we’ve sussed now that you just go and find anyone in uniform and give them your passports and vehicle documents 🙄The uniformed man did come in for a look around and just stood grinning from ear to ear. 

“No Guns?” …er no!

“No drones?” Definitely not.

“You sure?”

Bizarre. I wouldn’t have thought there are many people who say “oh yes, I’ve got my Kalashnikov in the boot”.

We couldn’t believe our luck when we actually got out onto the road. Straight away, even on a good fast road, there are just people every where. We think they must be hanging around waiting for buses or taxis, although some are just sitting about or herding goats. The driving is quite erratic but not as bad as Turkey. Came through about four police checks – they’ve got more police here than they know what to do with. Nottingham could do with a few extra! 

Got to our cheap carpark in Martil – a vast seaside resort near Tetouan on the Mediterranean coast. Decided to go for a walk and try and sort the SIM card out. Two streets back from the sea, it was absolute bedlam. Packed with people, shops, stalls, bikes, cars and animals. 

Inwe could do a good deal on an unlimited SIM card (well, it was a good deal once the woman realised she’d put an extra zero on by mistake!). Cash only – of course. 

So, off we went to the cash machine which had at least twenty people, not exactly queueing up, more crowding round. Once it got to our turn it refused to give us any money. I thought it had run out but it dished it out to others so we tried again. Nope. We used these cash machines lots of times on our last visit as they were free withdrawals but upon further research, it seems they now charge anyway, so we’ll try somewhere else tomorrow – had enough for one day!