Route During Week Nine

We are in Algeciras to get our ferry tickets from the famous Carlos; from all the research we’ve done in preparation for this trip, it seems that the vast majority of motorhomes get their ferry tickets from Carlos. 

Carlos is the owner of the Viajes Normandie ticket agency and although he’s still present in the office he’s handed over the reins to the next generation.  

When we go there, he’s watching TV in his special chair with his headphones on.  He greets us warmly, however, ushers us to a seat, and offers us one of his biscuits.  He then promptly falls asleep and starts to snore loudly. 

Our photo was taken with his life-size cardboard cutout (and his daughter)!

It’s to be another glamorous night, this time in the car park of Mercadona supermarket where many motorhomes go to spend the night before catching the ferry.  

We do a big shop in Mercadona, mainly consisting of wine because we’re facing some weeks in a ‘dry’ country! We then retire to Lionel just in time before the heavens open and there's an almighty thunderstorm.

It’s still raining a bit the next morning and it’s very windy which doesn’t bode well for the ferry crossing.  We have an appointment first thing with yet another vet as we need to obtain an Official Health Certificate to enable us to take the dogs into Morocco.  We pitch up at the vet’s armed with all the documents relating to the dogs as well as our passports but we are blindsided to be asked for Lionel’s V5!  Luckily Janette has her trusty documents folder with her so disaster is averted.

From the vet’s we have to go to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food at the port to obtain an Animal Export Certificate. The process takes ages but eventually, Janette comes back to Lionel clasping the necessary paperwork.  At last, we have every piece of paper we need!

Everything has taken much longer than we anticipated. We still need to fill up our LPG gas bottles or we won’t have any heating, hot water or cooking facilities as it’s impossible to refill LPG tanks in Morocco.  Off we dash to the petrol station and make it back to the port just in time.

We needn’t have rushed as the ferry is delayed but at last, we’re off only about an hour behind schedule. 

We can see the Moroccan mountains in silhouette before we leave Spain and they gradually come into focus.  It surprises us that their outline is more jagged than the Spanish mountains we’ve left behind as they were once all part of the same range.  

The crossing to Tanger Med is really pleasant despite the wind and there are lovely views of Gibraltar and the Spanish and  Moroccan coasts.

The immigration and customs formalities at Tanger Med port take an age and of course, Lionel is selected to be x-rayed by a specialist lorry that drives down the line of vehicles. 

We are then visited by a customs official who is all set to come on board until he sees the dogs.  He settles for asking if we have any guns,  explosives, or drones and sends us on our way.

Once we’ve cleared customs, we need to get motor insurance.  It’s difficult but not impossible to get insurance for Morocco for a motorhome but it hasn’t been possible for us so third-party insurance from a booth at the port is our only option.

Darkness is falling as we leave Tanger Med.  This isn’t ideal for the obvious reasons - we are in unfamiliar territory, we’re not sure where we’re going and we’re in a big vehicle - things are further complicated by the fact that until we get a local SIM card we don’t have any data and therefore no satnav. 

Nick has had the foresight to download some detailed maps of Morocco from MAPS.ME and this works perfectly to get us to the town we are headed for - Martil.

Martil is a lively seaside town, mostly frequented, so we understand, by Moroccans.  It’s certainly buzzing this evening, there are people and cars everywhere, and it’s not somewhere to be dithering about.  We spot a couple of other motorhomes in a beachside car park and we join them there intending to stay the night.

We head into town and find a phone shop, buy our SIMs and we’re back in business.  We return to Lionel but we can’t settle, the car park fills up with various characters and we just don’t feel comfortable. The fact that we now have data means we can locate an alternative pitch and we go to a lovely campsite attached to a hotel and finally fall asleep. The campsite costs us the equivalent of £4.87 for the night! 

We embark on the Morocco leg of the journey in earnest today, bound for Chefchaouen, the 'blue town' up in the Rif Mountains. The drive is lovely, the land is much greener than we had expected, and we are surrounded by lush, rolling hills with a backdrop of silvery grey, rocky mountains. We pass through one quite large town and several small villages a lot of the time, bowling along on a super-smooth dual carriageway until it quite abruptly runs out and the road becomes a construction site as they are working on the next phase of the road.

We start to climb quite steeply up to Chefchaouen and to get to the campsite we have to go through the new part of town which is quite busy with pedestrians, mopeds, and cars being driven erratically all over the place. On the plus side, everything moves quite slowly so there is time to take evasive action!

The campsite is high up with lovely views of the mountains.  We spend the rest of the day catching up with admin. and visit the medina the next day. 

Wow!  Chefchaoeun isn’t called the 'blue town' for nothing, the vast majority of the buildings are painted a beautiful bluebell blue. 

The ancient buildings set on narrow alleyways are a delight and the town has a relaxed vibe. This being the Rif we aren’t surprised to be offered cannabis - we don’t accept the kind offer!

The next day we continue south, we are headed for Fes but break the journey and stay at Motel Rif a delightfully quirky campsite near Ouazzane.  Motorhomes park right next to the swimming pool;  warm bread is complimentary in the morning and there is a restaurant with a garden where we sit in the sunshine listening to the birdsong and feel very relaxed.

In many ways it would be nice to stay at Motel Rif and loll about for another day but Fes beckons. 

We could do with topping up with diesel and when we see a petrol station that also offers to wash Lionel we turn in.  It isn’t until the pump attendant has put a substantial amount of fuel into Lionel that Janette remembers that many petrol stations in Morocco only take cash, this turns out to be one of them and we haven’t got enough to pay, yikes! 

No one seems unduly concerned and a member of staff gives us a lift back to the small town we have just passed so we can visit the ATM.  We leave Lionel being given a shampoo.  The diesel is £1.46 per litre and the wash costs the princely sum of £2.37

We head off as directed by the satnav and unexpectedly after a while it directs us to turn off the main Fes road and takes us through the mountains on a road to which the term tarmacked only applies loosely. 

Driving is difficult for Nick as the road is full of massive potholes (just like being at home then!) and it crumbles away at the edges sometimes with a drop of a foot or so and with only space for one car on the carriageway at a time.

The rewards are immense though.  The landscape on this drive is so varied, going from green rolling hills to huge areas of intensive agriculture, to barren pale yellow hills. 

The children come rushing from their homes to wave to us and adults also smile broadly and wave as we go past. Some of the settlements look as if they're from biblical times.

The road spits us out into the outskirts of Fes and the driving takes on a whole new challenge, the roads are mayhem with numerous roundabouts and every man for himself but we make it in one piece to the campsite.

We enjoy our first Tagine in the campsite restaurant. Nick is not surprisingly exhausted and so we turn in early.

It’s a big day today, we are visiting the old medina in Fes. Last night we decided to try the trip on our own without a guide and we set off to find a petite taxi (a taxi that takes individual fares short distances as opposed to grand taxis that are communal and go further) but we were intercepted by Elouafi Hanaf, better known as Wafi.

guide-elouafi@hotmail.com  +21 2672040156. 

We explain to him that we don’t want a tour that involves being shepherded into various shops for a hard-sell experience and that we want to see the non-touristy side of the medina as well as the big sights.   

Wafi’s price is reasonable, he listens to what we want and promises to deliver so we put our trust in him and hope for the best but if we’re honest we are a bit cynical based on previous experience. Our trust was not misplaced, he was a brilliant guide, we highly recommend him and that's why we've included his contact details above.

More than anything else we’ve written about in this blog, we’ve struggled to find words to describe our experience of the ancient medina of Fes - Fes el Bali. The experience was so intense and so varied that we came away overwhelmed. 

Fes is the most ancient of the Moroccan imperial cities and the most complete medieval city in the whole Arab world.  Fes developed in the 9th century when it was established as the capital of Morocco and the medina is essentially the same now as it was then.  There are tourist shops of course but it is so much more than a tourist attraction, its labyrinth of over 9,400 alleyways is still a hive of ancient industries such as tanneries, butchers, bakeries, tailors, and metal workers.

It has 300 mosques within its walls; the oldest university in the world - the Kairaouine - and it is also home to about a quarter of Fes’s population.

It is the largest car-free urban area in the world and it was classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1981, it’s easy to see why.

Nothing can prepare you for passing through the Blue Gate - Bab Bou Jeloud - into the medina.  It truly is like stepping back in time, the alleyways are narrow and dark, people are busily going about their business, and deliveries are being made either using laden donkeys or hand carts.

We are expertly guided by Wafi through this intricate maze, we’re not sure if it is the route he takes us on but the tourist aspect of the medina seems to be a relatively minor part of its character.  

We visited one of the medersas (otherwise known as madrasas) which has truly beautiful architecture, some of it similar to the intricate plasterwork of the Alhambra that we visited earlier on in our trip, not surprising as Fes was a sanctuary for those fleeing Andalusia during the Christian Reconquista.   As non-Muslims, we aren’t able to go inside any of the mosques but it is permissible to hover in the doorway and take photos.

We visit various interesting craftsmen, a charming metal worker who is a real master; a stone mason; Berber herbalists, and tailors where Janette is given the opportunity of trying on a djellaba which doesn’t do her any favours! 

We also visit a communal oven.  This is a wood-fired oven to which members of the community deliver their dough to be baked; the oven we visited was below ground level and the baker was standing in the sunken hearth feeding bread into the oven on wooden paddles - an extraordinary sight for those of us used to picking up a loaf at the supermarket.

The tanneries are a highlight; they don’t smell as grim as we had expected although we are provided with a bunch of mint each to hold to our noses as we enter. 

To view the tanneries it’s necessary to do so via one of the leather shops which have viewing terraces.  What a sight to behold!  The working methods in the tanneries haven’t altered for centuries. 

The leather hides start in massive vats full of lime, water, and pigeon droppings to remove the hair, these vats are so large that men are standing in them above waist height in the liquid. 

The next stage is that the hides are washed and then they are dyed, there is a different color range each week; last week was yellow and we see these hides drying, and this week is browns, reds, and blues.  All the dyes are natural and the yellow hides we see are coloured with saffron.  

Of course, the leather shop hopes we will make a purchase and as Janette’s birthday is on the horizon she is in luck....

Nick digs deep into his wallet and buys her a glorious red, fringed, camel suede wrap and a pair of jeweled slippers known as babouche.  Nice one Nick! 

We try some unusual food during the day - couscous bread and cactus fruit which turns our tongues bright pink!

Our day ends with a very late lunch on the roof terrace of the restaurant overlooking the medina. 

Fes isn’t quite finished with us yet, the following morning we are booked into one of the public hammams.  There’s zero chance of finding our way there and so we are met at one of the medina gates and whisked once again into the maze of alleyways.  The hammam is very calm and peaceful, we are oiled and then scrubbed, very vigorously indeed, and doused liberally in hot water, it is more enjoyable than it sounds.  We are then washed and dispatched for our massages which are very good indeed.

We’d like to preserve every memory of Fes for all time. It's been hard to explain what a profound experience this has been but we hope we’ve given you a flavor of the place, if you get the chance to visit, you won’t be disappointed. 

NEWS UPDATE: Lots of you have been asking after Millie. She's doing fine and is having her stitches out today. We heard from the vet yesterday with the lab results of the biopsy and they've said that the tumors' he removed were benign and there's no need for any further surgery... a relief all-round - especially for Millie!