Morocco

Martil and Chefchaouen Morocco - April 15th - 19th

Arriving in Morocco is an interesting process. Once the ferry is underway you must get your passport stamped by Moroccan immigration. As you drive off the ferry in Morocco, a policeman verifies your passport has been stamped and it is legible. Then you follow the rest of the vehicles thru the port to customs. When arriving at customs, they direct you to where they want you to park. At that point we got out of the van and waited with everyone else, wondering what happens next. At customs you temporarily import your vehicle to Morocco. The process was weird. Finally an officer came over and told us to go to the police booth and verify the reference number stamped in Bill's passport was valid. When we came back he asked if it was, then asked us to open the back doors of the van. He said, "Oh, it is a caravan. Is this your first time in Morocco? Have a good trip." handed us our paper work and waved us on our way.

Next we had to get to Martil where we were going to spend a couple of days. Our problem was because we are now in Africa our phones no longer work and our GPS decided it needed updating and would not work. All we had was a paper map and GPS coordinates to the campground. We managed to get to Martil and with the help of a local find the campground.

We spent several days in Martil trying to get the GPS to work, but could not. I guess we will deal with it when we get back to Europe. In the mean time I have a local sim card in my phone to navigate with Google Maps. We also bought a dongle (a USB Mifi) so we can use data on the laptops. They are working fairly well.

Martil is located on the coast with beautiful beaches. It was a nice town to get use to Moroccan culture. Next we drove to Chefchaouen. The town is known as the blue town. The medina is full of narrow streets painted blue. It is a wonderful town in the Rif Mountains.

Our campground in Martil. Every night the place would fill up with people arriving or leaving Morocco.

Buildings along the beach near our campground.

The walkway along the beach. During the day it was empty. In the evening this sidewalk was packed.

The beach. It was about a 2 minute walk from our campground.

 Camping Azilan, our campground in Chefchaouen.

 Our parking spot. Campgrounds in Morocco are very reasonable. So far we are paying 7 to 10 dollars a night including electric hook up.

 A view of Chefchaouen.

 Streets in the medina of Chefchaouen.

 More streets in Chefchaouen.

 There are lots of views thru arch ways.

 Love those blue walls on all the buildings.

 The doors of Chefchaouen are fabulous.

A mural on the wall of one of the streets.

 A cafe along the river that runs thru the city.

 The town square in the center of the city. This was very touristy.

 There are small shops spilling into most of the streets.

 More shops in the medina.