September 5th, 2011
Up and have a proper breakfast for a change, followed by a few quick emails and telephone calls to tie up loose ends, and also write up Day 3 for the blog. Then heading to the Ferry at Tarifa. This blog writing does eat into the morning a bit though, but nevertheless it’s fun to do.
Another beautiful September day, just the perfect temperature for riding, not too hot and not too cold, this is important stuff when you’re sitting in a ferry line underneath the burning sun for half an hour … while wearing black!. Get some spare euros for as a hard currency reserve and head for Algeciras 75km down the road. The countryside is very similar to the Ligurian highway between Nice and Genoa, one minute you’re in a tunnel under a mountain and the next minute you leave the tunnel and are instantly on a bridge 1000ft above a valley, just for a moment, and then you plunge back into another tunnel. The last stretch up to Tarifa is great sweeping curves and has stunning vistas over the straits of Gibraltar looking across to the mountains of Morocco.
Am about 10km out from Tarifa and suddenly the bike chugging, damn, I was so busy enjoying the road I’d forgotten to fill her up. Reserve tank gets me to Tarifa with no problems although the ferry terminal was a little difficult to find. Get a ticket on the fast ferry which crosses the straits in just under an hour and head on board. Finally feel like I’m getting going on the journey. Ferry takes off under beautiful skies and we head out. The straits are very busy with shipping but I need to join the slow moving queue onboard where the Moroccan immigration guy is stamping passports.
We arrive at the terminal in downtown Tangiers and manage to be 1st in the queue to process the paperwork for the bike. I fill in my green form with the details of the bike and try to give it to the guy behind the window and am told that I should wait by my car. A helpful “fixer” or agent type guy shows up and I give my paperwork to him and after about 15 minutes and €10 of waiting around he comes back with a 6 month permit for the bike in Morocco. And with that I depart and head south from Tangiers to Rabat. It’s a bit blowy en route as the wind is coming off the Atlantic but by 7.30pm I’m in Rabat and have hooked up with old friend from Maersk Canada in downtown Rabat. Nice dinner and chat as per usual.
