Africa for Beginners

06-08/06/2019: Fnideq
Km travelled today/sum: 48km / 5560km
Sun shine, 25 degrees, country road

We booked a ferry at 10AM so we would not have to start too early or too late. The morning passed efficiently, so we were at the port a bit before our scheduled time and had to wait. I preferred to have time instead of rushing though!

 

The ferry was nearly on time and we boarded without any problems. We didn’t need any tie downs, they were provided and the ship worker guy even said he will fasten them for us.  Definitely a weight of our shoulders 🙂

 

So we went up to do the paper work. The official police desk was only open after the ferry has left, meaning we had to get a visa for our bikes (a sort of bike passport) and then we got a visa with a unique number stamped into our passport. This unique number will be required when checking into hotels. We spent the rest of the short journey on the upper deck taking pictures.

 

We got out of the habour without any problems. At the customs booth we had to wait for 15 min, but apart from that short delay it worked like a charm. We drove off slowly, since we’d heard a couple of times that in Morocco there is a policeman with a speed gun behind each palm tree. We think that is exaggerated, most likely they are hiding behind every 5th … 😂

The landscape was nice, mountain roads were meandering along and the roads were good at the maximum allowed speed too. So everything was fine. At the first petrol station we stopped to fill the bikes up, since the petrol in Morocco is much cheaper than in Spain.

When we arrived at our destination we didn’t had any means to call our host, since our Vodafone connection wouldn’t work in Morocco. We didn’t have Moroccan currency either, so our next stop was an ATM. To our surprise it worked! Of course, we had to pay a bank fee, which we didn’t mind at this stage. Then off we went to a nearby shop to buy one prepaid SIM card. With the help of the very friendly shop owner got the SIM card into the phone and working.

So now we went to a restaurant, ordered a mint tea and called our host. We were not too far away, so our host walked to the restaurant and showed us the way. There was only one small hiccup, the ramp to the safe parking space had been removed…. Our host offered a self made ramp with metal rods. At the beginning I was very reluctant to get up there, but in the end I did and both bikes ended up in a luxury garage. Check out those nice mosaic tiles in the picture!  We settled in our room and went for a stroll around the block organising a prepaid card for Sigrid as well.

 

 

Our host we recommended an authentic local restaurant, so we went there. Sigrid ordered a Tajin and I ordered something I didn’t recognise. Turns out I got meat balls – could be worse! 😁

Since we’re now setup with money and mobile phone, we’ll continue to Chefchaouen (the blue town) as planned tomorrow.

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