December 18th, 2025
My reservation for the 1½ hour ferry from Spain to Morocco was
due to leave at 10 am. In my research, I
knew that it might take over an hour for customs, immigration and buying
vehicle insurance, plus I’d need to find an ATM but hey, I should arrive at 11:30
am so I’d have plenty of time to do all of that. Little did I know…
I had purchased my ferry ticket online a few days earlier
and the instructions in the email I received were to arrive at least 2 hours
prior to the boarding time. Okay, seems
excessive, but I’ll do as I’m told.
I woke up just before 7 am, got ready and drove 30 minute to
the ferry terminal in the industrial city of Algeciras, arriving just before
8 am. I followed the signs for ferries
to Tanger Med, the port
on the Moroccan side. Rolling up to a booth
with a gate, I passed my phone open to my email from the ferry company to the
woman inside. The lady, who doesn't
speak any English (I kind of thought that some rudimentary English would be
helpful for her job), talks to me in Spanish and I comprehend that I needed a
boarding pass and I had to go to passenger terminal.
I drive back a couple of kilometres and find that building. Inside there is a ticket counter for Balerias,
the ferry company I had chosen. It’s not
clear if this is a place to just buy tickets, or I can also get my boarding
pass. So I wait in the short lineup as I
gaze up at the electronic board with the departures. Strangely I don’t see my 10 am sailing.
The gentleman behind the counter is friendly and helpful and
provides me with my boarding pass. Just
as I’m about to leave, I ask him why I don’t see my sailing on the monitor. “Oh, your ferry might not leave until after
12.” Oh, okay, don’t you think you should
have mentioned that to me?
I return to the lady at the gate, show her my boarding pass
and get directed to a car park with a multitude of lanes where there are
already about twenty vehicles. Okay, it
was time to sit and wait. No worries, I
had some blogging to catch up on plus eat some breakfast.
I looked at my phone, and I saw that the ferry company sent
me a boarding pass in WhatsApp at 8:13 am, which would have eliminated the need
to go to the passenger terminal. Well,
that was a bit late Balerias…you were the ones who told me to be here at 8! That being said, had I not gone to the terminal,
I would have had no idea about the delay as no one else told me about it, and there
were no electronic signs in the vehicle area.
The hours of the morning ticked away as I watched numerous
vehicles head on their merry way with other ferry companies. Balerias seemed to be the only one with a
delay. I was thankful that I was in a
campervan as I at least had a toilet as I couldn’t see any amenities in this
area. I wondered how families with young
children faired.
At 12:15 we finally passed through another gate to another
waiting area with other high roofed vans and motorhomes, but at least we were close
to the ferry…progress! But that was a
bit of a teaser as it was another hour of waiting as I watched tractor trailer
trucks getting slowly loaded onto the boat.
The trucks getting loaded.
Finally, I was instructed to drive on and then pointed to drive down a ramp on the ferry into the bowels of the ferry, on the bottom level, right near the pointy end of the bow. I could instantly tell that Octi was going to be one of the last vehicles to disembark on the other side…oh well, what to do?
As I usually do, I wandered around the ferry checking it
out. I wanted to be out on the deck for
the first part of the sailing as it was a sunny, yet windy day. Strangely I kept running into locked doors
and wondered whether they even allowed passengers outside. Eventually I found a door that wasn’t locked,
but it just seemed like a weird boat.
I found this lounge on a deck that was mostly private cabins. It seemed like no one knew it was here as I came back later on the sailing and still there was no one here.
We finally started to set sail at 2 pm, four hours late. Announcements came on the intercom, first in
Arabic, then Spanish, French and occasionally finished with English. The main message was that passengers had to
go to customs on the boat.
I waited a while before going to the area for that, figuring
that there would be a big lineup. I had
seen signs that the customs was on the 4th floor, but I saw a sign for
"Douane" (customs in French) on the 5th floor. When I had checked out the 4th
floor, the customs counters were all closed so I figured they had moved it
upstairs to finish off the stragglers like me.
I stood in a line for 10-15 minutes before it was my turn. The customs guy asked if I had my
registration papers for my van. No, I had
left those in the van…nobody told me I needed them on the ferry.
I was granted access to the vehicle level by a maintenance
guy (I was not the only one with this problem by the way). He had to unlock this watertight door that
had a nasty, loud alarm bell. I grabbed
my registration and came back to the customs desk and waited again in a queue. The guy scanned my passport, entered my
vehicle details and then gave me a little card for the van. Okay, job done…or at least I thought.
Reaching the Moroccan shores.
We arrived at the port around 3:45 pm. In the bottom level where I was, after ten
minutes some drivers started honking their horns, stupidly thinking that would
speed things up. There was only the one
way out, up the ramp we came down on loading and that was currently closed
until the upper level was emptied…so chill everyone. Finally, it opened. But on our level, there were cars parked in
both directions with the ramp in the middle of the deck. This meant we had to back up towards each
other...and of course there is not a staff member to be seen so that turned
into a shit show!
Octi is hiding behind that white van on the right.
The unloading chaos.
Finally, being one of the last vehicles off the boat, I disembarked
and stopped at a customs officer standing on land, just after the ramp. He looked through my passport and asked where
my stamp was. Uh oh, I didn't have
one. I was told to park off to the side
and go back on the ferry to obtain a stamp.
I was escorted back in, up to the 5th floor, in the lobby outside
of the room that had the customs desk. I
waited for 40 minutes by myself, unsure if there was anyone coming, or if I’d
been forgotten about. Finally, a man
shows up with a big briefcase and I get my stamp.
Before leaving the port, there was a 20-minute wait to have
the vehicle x-rayed. Next was customs,
and they were nice and quick at least with the official wishing me a good
holiday in French
While I was waiting for my stamp and the x-ray, I had been
trying, in vain, to get my eSim that I bought in Spain to connect. Damn, that sucks. There were some buildings just after the customs
booth where I could buy car insurance.
As I parked, a woman came up to me selling sim cards. I decided to buy one since the eSim wasn’t
working so I forked out another 30 Euros on top of the 40 or 50 I’d paid for
the eSim but oh well, that’s the cost of travelling sometimes.
The car insurance seemed a bit crazy. The only question the guy asked, perhaps because
he was slightly preoccupied with watching the Arab Cup Finals with Morocco
battling Jordan, was my licence plate number.
He scanned my passport, took my 97 Euros for one month’s worth of
insurance, gave me some papers and I was on my way.
I finally left the ferry terminal close to 6 pm. I drove half an hour and pulled into a gas station
truck stop where I decided to stay for the night as it was dark already. By chance, the soccer finals were still going
on as Morocco had tied it up right near the end of regulation. I was able to watch the overtime with about
15 locals in a little cafeteria area in the gas station…and Morocco won!
I couldn't understand what any of the men were saying, but it was obvious that there were a lot of armchair critics.
Morocco wins the Arab Cup!
That was a good finish to a long day. I joke that I have a PhD in Patience from my experience in India…and I think it came in handy today! What an introduction to a new country...
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