Blogs from Ceuta, Ceuta & Melilla, Spain, Europe

No, I’m not a fugitive. But I have been running. Running through Spain, and Gibraltar, and a very short stint in Paris. Actually it’s been more like fast paced walking. But running sounds better. And it’s shorter to write. Why the rush, you might wonder? And rightly so. Well, I’m on my way somewhere, and I’m not flying. My destination is beyond Spain, and even Gibraltar. But since my road passed through the one, and near the other, I decided to at least see something along the way. Just passing through, taking one train and then the next, and the next, only ever seeing what passed by my window, isn’t for me. However, Europe is expensive, so lingering too long, comes with its drawbacks too. So a fast paced trot it was. My first stop was ... read more

There comes a time in every adventurers experience when they have the opportunity to do something out of their range. For a cruise ship aficionado for instance, this might take the form of a jungle trek when at a port of call. For me, as a usual die-hard budget backpacker, this would mean simply breaking into a higher budget class. In December of 2005, as I read my books for Spain and Morocco I noticed that the tiny port of Ceuta, a Spanish enclave on the north coast of Africa, offered a peculiar transportation option. Ceuta is particularly well serviced by ferries and acts as one of the major points of entry into Morocco for overland visitors, second only to Tangier. The ferries mostly launch from Algeciras in Spain, but I noticed for one hundred ... read more