Well, our Moroccan adventure has come to an end. We’ve been in Morocco for the last two weeks and its been a wonderful adventure! We’ve gotten to see and do so many things on our trip, but there’s still a bit left of the story to tell: the journey home from Morocco to London.
You can read about our journey there, the trip from Tanger to Marrakech, exploring Marrakech and heading to Tafraoute, and our final days from Tafraoute to Chefchauoen.
Friday morning, we all woke up bright and early at our hotel above the blue city of Cefchauoen and hit the road through the early morning fog and the Rif mountains. It was about a two hour drive to Tanger Med and a relatively easy drive. As we neared the port, we started to see people from other parts of Africa lining the road, hoping to get picked up by a tourist so they could make it to Europe.
Before checking in with our ferry company (we had bought flexible return tickets in Algeciras on the way over), we made one last fuel stop. After filling up our fuel tanks with cheap Moroccan fuel for the last time, we headed into the port. There was a lot of security! When we entered the port, we had to show our booking reservation before we could enter and head to the area to get our tickets. From there, we headed to check in and border control. There was a passport check, then we had to export our vehicle from Morocco (this was way easier than importing it, they just had to stamp the paper from when we imported it!), then our vehicle was x-rayed before we could go get in line for the ferry.
We had a wait a little while to board the ferry and go through one last passport and vehicle check before boarding. We had arrived at the port around 10:30 and boarded the 11 o’clock ferry. But with it being Morocco, we boarded around 11:30 and set sail around 12:15! We weren’t really on a schedule, so we didn’t really mind the loose schedule. The ferry crossing was pretty uneventful and we arrived in Spain about an hour and a half later. The Spanish border checks seemed much easier after all of the Moroccan ones!
Disembarking in Algeciras
After entering Spain, we separated from the group and made a bee-line for Madrid to meet some friends. We had a wonderful home-cooked meal of fresh mussels, clams, crab, and other delicious seafood along with great conversation and wine! In the morning we enjoyed a nice breakfast of churros and coffee and hot chocolate before hitting the road to Santander.
Breakfast of Churros and Coffee in Madrid
On the suggestion of our friends, we stopped in Burgos on the way to Santander for a break. Burgos had a very different feel to other Spanish cities we’ve visited, but we really enjoyed it. We had just enough time for a stroll along the tree-lined river and a visit to the beautiful UNESCO world-heritage cathedral in Burgos.
Burgos Cathedral
After visiting Burgos, we made the rest of the drive to Santander. In Santander, we stopped for some last minute shopping for Spanish wine and Iberian ham! We pulled into the Santander ferry terminal with about an hour and a half until our ferry was scheduled to depart. At check in, we discovered there was some sort of technical problem with the ramp and they had to swap it for another, causing about a 2 hour delay in boarding. We were actually grateful for the delay because it gave us extra time to swap our headlights back to our UK right-hand drive headlights. It also gave us a bit more time to chat with our group from the trip before boarding.
Changing the Headlights at the Ferry
Luckily, through a combination of speeding up and taking a shortcut, the ferry was still expected to make an on-time arrival in Portsmouth. Once we boarded, we quickly found our cabin and enjoyed one of our first proper showers since the trip began (even though it was in a teeny, tiny ferry shower). The ferry took 24 hours, so we had lots of time to kill. We spent the time chatting with our new friends from our Morocco trip, swapping photos and videos, playing cards, and napping. We were sad to say goodbye to everyone, but I’m sure we’ll be seeing them again soon!
Boarding the ferry in Santander
We were one of the last decks to disembark from the ferry and were through the UK border and on the road home by 8:20 in the evening. We were lucky to have only a 2 hour drive home with no traffic and to find a parking spot just a block from our flat in London!
We had so much fun on our trip to Morocco and made some great new friends! We saw and experienced so many things we never expected. Keep an eye out over the next week or so for some videos and more photos from our trip!
Check out my other posts about our Morocco trip:
- Heading to Morocco
- First Days in Morocco: Tanger to Marrakech
- Morocco: Marrakech to Tafraoute
- Morocco: Tafraoute to Chefchauoen
We went on this trip with Russ, Mark, and Libby from Yorkshire Overland Tours and they were absolutely amazing!
