After we stopped for fuel we carried on and found our way past Madrid. Just past Ocaña we stopped for some drinks and a short rest and ended up putting some more oil in the diffs, which we noticed had lost some, although nothing dramatic. We pushed on at about 05.30 and stopped an hour later for a sleep.
Tom woke everyone at 08.15 and coffee was had by all. Fuel was topped up so we could just drive, as the aim of the day was to make the crossing from Spain to Morocco and we were still many hundreds of kilometres from Algecerias. No breakfast, no lunch – a spot of shopping just west of Malaga for a few odds and ends and then back on the highway to Algecerias. We hit the ferry terminal at 20.45 and found out that there was a crossing at 21.00
After being mis-directed by a useless policeman who tried to tell us that we had bought a ticket for the wrong ferry and that we couldn't go to Tangiers, but had to go to Ceuta instead, we got a bit fed up and just joined the queue. As 21.00 rolled by and a ferry upped and left we got a bit worried that perhaps we had missed it. A quick check with the totally disorgainsed port authorities reassured us that we had not but that we weren't in the right queue. As a result we had to get several cars to move and scoot around the outside, only to talk to the ferry operators standing at the ramp, who put us on the reserve list for the ferry that we had just left the queue for. Suitably unimpressed with the lack of any organisation or information at all, we were very lucky that the shambles we had to deal with turned out to be alright and the ferry was made. We left port over an hour late and to make matters worse, the pub on board was closed. Still, tomorrow will bring us to Africa and so to the next stage.
No comments:
Post a Comment