Morocco

Trip to go

I had envisaged to make the way from Trans-in-Provence to Algeciras in three days, I did it in two days. Party on Monday, October 27 around 6:00 I passed to Martigues at PSI to take a food plastic water can of the dimension of the trunks on the gallery. Then by the highways I went to Argelès-sur-Mer to make a complement of food supply and the full of diesel tank before Spain where its price is appreciably more expensive. I continued my road while passing the pass of Perthus then Spanish highways. I stopped to bivouac between two trucks at Vinaros around 19:00. Tuesday awaked by the trucks, I took again the road around 3:30 to arrive at Algeciras around 16:30. I had traversed 1726 km! On the port I had been solicited by a pickup of an agency for the purchase of the ferry ticket for Ceuta aller-et-retour, into open. On board ferry I met Marie and Jean-Luc, a charming couple, which have come to Morocco for about ten year. The arrival at Ceuta was around 19:00 after a fast unloading. On the advisde of my new friends I was going with them to take one night in a hotel with a secure parking of the vehicles. During the dinner they proposed to me to accompany them for the formalities to enter Morocco, I accepted with eagerness. On Wednesday morning before going at the Moroccan border, Marie & Jean-Luc changed a wheel which presented a slow puncture.

En route

Sierra del Sur

Change awheel at Ceuta

Enter Morocco

While arriving at the border I noted that there was no vehicle. With patience and under the patronage of Marie the formalities of immigration and customs were accomplished in approximately an hour. I had filled the forms found on Internet. Slowness is due to the Moroccan computer system and not to the effective and courteous employees. We stationed the vehicles in waiting of their control, nothing. Then finally we made sign the card of customs to leave the enclosure. At the exit an bank office changed our euros into Moroccan dirhams, MAD, at the rate of 10.67. Marie & Jean-Luc went to Rabat and meto Tetouan. We were left with overflowing.

I had always found on Internet a shopping center at the entrance of Tetouan, the Center of Marjane where there is a shop of Maroc Telecom and of Inwi Telecom. In the center I bought a basic telephone at 16€. Then at Inwi a Internet USB 3G key for three months at 30€, but Maroc Telecom did not sell a SIM card, I were to go in Martil where I went after lunching. Alas Maroc Telecom opens only at 14:30 and moreover did not sell SIM card. I due to find a Teleboutique which sold one to me for 30 MAD (+212(0)615245407). It was necessary to return to Maroc Telecom to sign a contract with a copy of my passport, but I was to also make fill a form by the Teleboutique and finally make legalize the signature of the salesman by the municipality in strike this day! Tomorrow is another day, it was 16:30. I warned a large car park in seaside, a car of the army stationed there I asked for to the soldiers the authorization to spend there the night which told me to go to the police station that I found with the assistance of a taxi driver who settled in my vehicle. The chief of station tells me that it was illegal and advised me to go to camp-site Al-Boustane where I arrived around 17:30, Ups!

Mediterranean coast

Having understood, wrongly, that the offices of the municipality open at 8:00, I was in front of the door to be waited. Alas the employees arrived after 8:30. But I was the first in front of the ad hoc counter. The procedure was dispatched in a few minutes of inscription on two registers signed by me. I introduced for the third time at Maroc Telecom, I took a ticket of order, as at Orange. After some waiting the employee took the form and the copy of my passport duly stamped and signed by two persons in charge of the municipality.

The Rif

I left Martil around 9:15. The coastal track, Aa by Gandini starts at the bridge Martil km 0. But to the junction of the track B for Chefchaouen the road is asphalted and bordered with villages. The track B at the km 20.6 is hardly visible. I attacked it around 10:30 to stop around 16:30 after the km 91.5 on a vast playing field. The track traverses the Rif mountains in dramatic landscapes. Sometimes it is very sloping, very narrow and very rocky. For a first experiment with Gandini I must say that the waypoints are judiciously placed, but that many other tracks were added returning navigation to the wet finger. Of course I made an error of navigation!

Landscape

Oued Laou

Vidéo de la piste B vers Chefchaouen

Chefchaouen

Left around 07:00 from the heights of Rif I arrived at Chefchaouen around 8:30 to install my truck at the campsite Azilan. The city is snuggled at the bottom of Rif in a majestic site. It is impossible to station in the city. To reach the Medina it is necessary to descend a staircase of which the steps from bricks are used on a very stiff slope, the return will be terrible! Houses in the Medina are blue color whose painting is more or less recent. The two central places, El-Majzen and Uta el-Hamman are bordered of gravers and restaurants as many trap doors to tourists particularly rare at that time of the year. Two attractions are the Kasbah, restored very well with a luxuriant garden. The Grande Mosquée is not worth visiting by the no-Muslims. This prohibition dates from French protectorate to avoid confusion by adventurers. In the Gallery contiguous to the Kasbah an exhibit of painting was devoted to “La Mujer”. Then I sited on curbstone of a palm tree to contemplate with leisure the scenes of street of place Uta el-Hamman. As everywhere else in the world the old ones occupy the public benches. Around 11:30 I returned to the camp-site. It was necessary for me more than 20 minutes with stops to climb terrible staircase.

My nephew Christophe big hunter and fine trigger saw me on Sunday morning October 26th, before my departure, to bring me a ragout of chamois which he had killed on Saturdays. Back to the visit and the rise I decided reward myself with a large portion of the famous ragout. In more Christophe who has a skilled of fork, kitchen divinely.

Landscape

Medina

Grande Mosquée

Kasbah

Garden

La Mujer

Street scene

En route to Al Hoceima

As of 08:00 I took the road again to the Mediterranean coast at And-Tieta-El Laou Wadi then via the port of Sebha for Al Hoceima. I didn't follow the Ab track by Gandini which slaloms around the asphalt road considering the little of interest to this slalom except having an addiction with the battered tracks and random navigation. On the map I threw my reserved on the Tala Youssef beach expecting a bivouac in seaside. I was not disappointed.

I would like to pass some factual remarks, without judgment. The culture of the plastic bag is very developed in the fields at the accesses of the villages, it is the prerogative of the countries in the process of development not-taxable people with the ecological behavior. It is about a question of education and not of any political party. Deep Morocco always lives to the rhythm of step of the donkey, ancestral means of transport. Marie transported Jesus on the back of donkey! In this Saturday of the men went on the road to go to the distant village close to several kilometers. The means of transport in Europe in the 19th century, railroad, inland waterways, launched the takeoff of the economic advancement.

Oued Laou valley

Port of ebha

Tala Youssef beach

Maroc Oriental

Oujda

On Sunday, November 2, All Souls' Day, was a stage of connection towards the tracks of Oriental Morocco. At the exit Al Hoceima I choose to take the Mediterranean by-pass towards Oujda via Nador where I entered around 11:30 I warned a Marjane center, was it open? Bingo. I made my food purchases there before the 400 km of tracks of the days come. Moreover the key Inwi 3G is operational, I could thus publish the weekly page of my website before carrying on my way towards Ain Benimathar to join the track Ra Gandini to approximately 8 km.

Mediterranean by-pass