The ferry docked early on Sunday morning without hitch and we drove off and upto customs and immigration. The usual fanfare erupted and before we knew it customs were crawling all over us like lice, eager to get their hands on what looked like a treasure trove, owing to the size of the trailer and truck that we had rocked up in. From the off there was to be no reasoning, so better just to sit back, watch and wait for them to decide what they were after. No amount of paperwork thrust in their faces could prevent them from eyeing up their potential gains and so they ordered us to completely unpack the trailer at about 1.30am. Not best pleased but having to do it, we set about helping them unload everything and open every box. With each box opened, the look of disappointment on their faces grew until they finally realised that they weren't going to find anything that was either illegal or that they wanted. Bad times for them was good times for us, as once they had left us to re-pack the trailer and swindled about 120 euros off us for the pleasure we were back on the road again.
Leaving Tangiers is never easy in the light. In the dark it was impossible and it seemed an age before we managed to find the right road. Eventually we did and we drove off in the direction of Rabat. We pulled up at a service station at about 4am, bought some food and hit our beds. We awoke at about 8am and filled with fuel, took in our first sights of Africa in the light and cracked on. With better roads than Spain, northern Morocco is great to drive through and you can just eat up the miles. We made Rabat at around lunchtime and stopped in what could have been a brand new European shopping mall, this place was vast and filled with Morocco's fashionista. We found what we were looking for though which was much less glamourous – a grease gun and an ATM!
After re-greasing all sorts of mechanical compomnents on the truck and trailer we were ready to continue on our way towards Casablanca which we did tout suite. It was pretty boring driving really with not much to look at. Bets had been on since leaving Tangiers as to when we would see our first road traffic accident, so common are they in this part of the world, however, in all 400km odd of road we witnessed not one. Not one camel either, perhaps they'll have to wait until we're further south... We scooted past Casablanca and onto Marrakech where upon the Atlas mountains loomed into view and gave us something to aim for.
We rolled into our campsite in Marrakech at about 8pm, having stopped for supper on the motorway at one of the many Oasis cafés – Morocco's versions of motorway service stations. These are so much better than those back home, you can get proper food served fresh from a clay oven and choose between tagine's, grills and various other tasty Moroccan morsels. After a long time driving and having reached Marrakech in the time we set out to achieve the distance despite all the previous difficulties, we collapsed into our various sleeping positions. Too tired even to make tents and camp beds and in need of a recharge before spending tomorrow finishing off the truck.
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