My first week in Morocco – by van

I got to Morocco on Christmas day. Also a full moon…

See my other post on How to get from Spain to Morocco by campervan – in 4 steps

My first wild camping experience

I found a place by the coast. Police knocked on the van asking me for 35 euros and, from what I could work out, to spend a night in the station – ‘venir avec moi’ and ‘la station’. Whilst they discussed something between them I started the engine and said I’m leaving. They drove in front of me with their blue lights flashing for 3 miles and then waved me on. I’m totally confused but I’m glad I drove away.

Since then I’ve asked every police officer, local person and traveller if it’s OK to sleep in my van and they say it’s no problem at all. So I think If Police do this, driving away is the right thing to do. No worries.

But I forgot… I don’t have a map of Morocco

My plan was to go through the Rif Mountains via Chefchaouen and to Fez but I’ll just do this on the way back up – with the map that I now have. I had 3 days to get to Marrakech to meet my family so I took the coastal road south – a bit easier to navigate without a map.

I took this route

Morocco. It takes at least a week to settle in

Most of Europe is the same. You don’t really need much time to settle in and you don’t really need much time to work out ‘how things work round here’.

But the difference going from Spain to Morocco is big. That was what always attracted me to Morocco – a completely different experience to Europe for a 90 minute ferry ride. I’ve been spending the past week just taking it in, observing and getting completely distracted by all this stuff I’ve never ever seen before.

So enjoy the journey through Morocco with me… and maybe I’ll meet some of you here.

Please feel free to share tips and places to go in the comments below.

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