Tangiers is only 35 minutes away and so we are soon standing at the queue for Moroccan customs, a process perhaps best described as being a little bit chaotic, but probably only a taster of what is ahead of us. Everybody makes it through despite some having slightly inconsistent (incoherent?) paperwork and some complicated questions of who gave what papers to whom and what they received in return and just who's got them now, but with speaking French and a lot of waving hands around in the air it all gets sorted.
We get chatting to a local chap, Mohammed Benatim, who has previously lived in Rugby and is interested in what all these quite obviously mad people are doing. Although the day started a bit grey, the sky is now blue and the sun is shining. We comment on how it's not quite like this in Rugby at the moment. "We don't usually have weather like this in January." he says.
We and The Masseykissed decide to team up with The Retford Nutty Boys (Brim and Jenks) in their Pajero and Idiotz Abroad (Steve and John) in their Mazda 626 in convoy and head down the coastal road towards Rabat. We're still on motorway, but the camels, the teams of oxen pulling ploughs in the fields, the relaxed approach to roadworks and contraflows (and road safety in general), the bright warm sunshine and overturned lorries stuffed into the central reservation, really drive home that we are now on a different continent.
Rabat is the administrative capital of Morocco and so is not usually on the tourist trail, but we need visas for Mauritania and since they have stopped issuing visas at the London and Casablanca consulates, we don't have much choice. We have been informed that this can take up to 2 days and since it is now getting late, we check into a hotel for 2 nights and plan to get to the consulate first thing in the morning for when they open at 09:00.
Our group of 9 get into three little blue dodgem cars that masquerade as taxis, and head into the centre of Rabat to soak up the sights, sounds and smells of the old medina. Although only 10 minutes, the ride there and back is best described as "interesting". On our return to the hotel Jenks leaps out wearing a massive grin and says he wants to have another go as "that was better than Alton Towers!"
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