Advertisement
Published: December 9th 2013
Edit Blog Post
2 migrant birds
Leaving Europe for Africa. We follow Leaving Cartagena behind we continued along the coast to Almeria. We stopped together with more than 50 other motorhomes in a parking along the sea. Beautiful scenery, and temperature still ok. The south of Spain is Europe,s vegetable garden, it seemed that all of the landscape was covered with plastic as an enormous greenhouse, we drove along the coast for approx 100km and all was covered in plastic. Further onto Torremolinos, and picked up a friend that stayed with us for 4 days in Marbella, before leaving for Norway again. We visited Puerto Banus had a agreat lunch, the orange square in Marbella with coffea and sweets.
Then we set off for Algeciras but stopped in Estepona where we managed to fill our german and french propane bottles. I cant see the point when the EU manage to have standard and rules for how the bananas should be bent, that the gas companies in europe operate with 7 different gas bottle connection. Hi Brussel wake up.
A nice lunch in Estepona made us stay a night in the harbour.
We reached Algeciras on 5 december. Quite exited to finally leave the safe Europe. On the parking spot close
to the ticket office we where talking to a dutch/french couple parked beside us. We talked about the crime in Africa, and the Dutch lady said that she never had experienced any bad situations in Morocco for the last 22 years. At the same moment somebody crept up alongside their car, opened the door and stole her purse. They set of in a black car and we managed to take the registration number Spanish 8834 CFC. The police came and they went with the police to report the crime and stop creditcards etc. She lost her passport, credit cards, cash and whatever are inside a womans purse. We parked overnight in the parking by the ticket office. Next morning up 0645, and heading for the ferry. The eight o´clock ferry left Algeciras 0855. The passport control took place on the ferry and we got our Morrocan id number. On the ferry a car is a car, being a small personal car or a 10 meter Motorhome 4 m high we all pay the same for the ferry. The small cars are therefore built very high with all the luggage they can store inside and on top of the car. I
don't know how they manage to drive them, but safety is obviously not an issue.
The customs clearance was done in half an hour. The custom controller asked if we had anything to declare. I said I didn't think so. We opened all the hatches, and he looked inside at our stock of water, wine (aprox 70 liters), bicycles and camping gear. And said ok you can go. (the import regulations to Morocco says 1 l of wine and 1 l of spirit).
He didn't need to tell me twice to go.
The main roads in Morocco is just fantastic. Compared to Norwegian standards. However the driving skills is lacking. So we adopted a very defensive driving style.
After approx 160 km on the motorway we took a left and drove into:
MOULAY BOUSSELHAM, 55km from Ksar el Kebir, is a very low-key resort, popular almost exclusively with Moroccans. It comprises little more than a single street, crowded with grill-cafés and sloping down to the sea at the side of a broad lagoon and wetland area, known as <strong style="color: font-family: Arial,
Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">Merja Zerga. This is one of northern Morocco’s prime birdwatching locations (see Wetland wildlife), and avid bird watchers from all over the world come here to see the lagoon’s flamingo and other bird colonies.
The
beach itself is sheltered by cliffs – rare along the Atlantic – and has an abrupt drop-off, which creates a continual crash of breaking waves. While a lot of fun for swimming as well as beginner surfers, the currents can at times be quite strong and only the most confident of swimmers should venture out past the breakers. In summer, a section of the beach is patrolled by lifeguards.
For Moroccans, the village is part summer resort, part pilgrimage centre. The saint from whom the village takes its name, the
Marabout Moulay Bousselham, was a tenth-century Egyptian, whose remains are housed in a
koubba prominently positioned above the settlement. In July this sees one of the largest
moussems in the region.
Read more:
http://www.roughguides.com/destinations/africa/morocco/tangier-tetouan-northwest/moulay-bousselham/#ixzz2msI7cd32 This was a culture shock. The city was set back at least 30 years from what we are
Morocco
First we met after diverting from the motorway used to, but in a positive way. We really appreciate more and more our way of traveling. We are able to visit places and meet people away from the tourist industry. And we learn to appreciate the possibility we have to do so.
We stayed there three days just to adjust and try to learn the Morrocan lifestyle and people. They are friendly, helpsome and modest.
The Morrocan gowerment have established a tourist police who have reduced the begging, the people look also after each other and the tourists. So upto now we have not experienced any problems.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.108s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 13; qc: 56; dbt: 0.0465s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Jasmina & Dušan
non-member comment
You are genius, both of you! Congratulations for everything you do. Hope you got finely your coushines..:))