The wind that blew through the night was the kind that slammed shutters against the wall and rattled doors to the extent that sleep was reduced to sequential naps interrupted by a series of banging noises. As I ate breakfast across from the reception desk of the Moroccan hostel, the doorbell rang. It was a neighbor returning some of the things that had blown off the rooftop clothes line that night.
Once she left, a couple approached the desk with looks of concern and asked the receptionist if she could call the ferry company to ask in Spanish whether the ferries had really been canceled for the next three days. The question got my attention because I had chosen this town as it was within easy driving distance of the ferry I planned to catch the following day.
Her call confirmed that the port authority of Morocco had canceled the ferries. I still had a chance as my ferry was booked from Spain. You see, while I was looking at ferry crossings from Africa to Europe, I discovered that Spain had retained a piece of Africa called Ceuta. Always up for an unusual border crossing, I decided that rather than doing the traditional crossing from Tangiers in Morocco to Algeciras in Spain, I would opt to cross into the Europe before leaving Africa.
Miraculously, the winds subsided in the evening, and I was able to enjoy a good night’s sleep. I awoke thinking I had no need to worry about getting across the strait of Gibraltar. While the town I was staying in was charming, I had no desire to make a week of it and getting a last minute flight from Morocco to Spain would have cost a bit more than the ferry.
As I casually enjoyed my breakfast, the proprietor reminded me that today was a holy day so I probably shouldn’t dally too long given that most people would be going to the mosque and not traveling. That meant the wait for the shared taxi I intended to catch would be a bit longer. I also considered that, while there was no wind at the moment, it could pick up later. I figured it better to leave early so I packed up my things, paid my bill and scuttled out the door.
It was a beautiful day for a walk, and when I arrived at the taxi stand for northbound shared taxis, there were already 3 women in the car. The driver told me we were short two but that after that we would leave. It only took about 10 minutes and we headed off to Tetouan. The driver was characteristic of most of the men I’d met in Morocco, kind and aggressive. He exhibited his kindness when encouraging me to use his cab, and his aggressiveness came out as he raced along the winding two lane road to get to Tetouan before any of the other drivers on the road.
Relief came when he’d get stuck behind a line of slow moving vehicles, but it was short lived as he darted around them. Though there was no need for it, he’d turn sharply to the left, speed past the slower vehicles, then sharply turn right back into our lane. I say it was unnecessarily as there was plenty of visibility when we passed, despite there being a solid line on both sides, but he’d cut back in anyway as if facing an oncoming truck only he could see.
I wondered whether I was less comfortable with the current driver’s desire to turn our trip into the Monaco grand prix or my previous trip’s driver falling asleep at the wheel. I decided to make peace with destiny and attempted to read my book while being tossed about the back seat. I knew better than to threaten this gentleman’s ego by telling him we would all be fine with it if we got to our destination five minutes later and alive.
I was also distracted from my concern about our safety as I noticed that the trees and grasses to the side of the highway were beginning to bend, and it wasn’t because we were driving past them. The wind, that was forecast for the afternoon, had begun its push south. As I looked ahead, dark storm clouds were beginning to engulf the hills ahead.
When we got to Tetouan, the wind was back to its strength of the previous day, and it was an effort to push open the door for the cab. I asked the driver how to get to the taxi stand for collective taxis to Ceuta, and he pointed to the local taxi stand across the street. I am not sure why all the collective taxis don’t meet in the same location as opposed to spreading to the perimeter quadrants of the city. While it make sense from the taxi’s point of view, it’s not very convenient for the client.
So, I caught the local taxi up the hill, and he was helpful enough to point out exactly where I would find the taxi I was looking for. When I stepped up to the stand, one of the drivers asked, “la frontera?”, which means border in Spanish, so I figured I’d found the correct departure spot. Smaller than the first, it filled up more quickly, and we were off to the border.
When the proprietor of my hostel heard about my plan to cross the border at Ceuta, she declared, “that’s a bad idea”. She went on to compare it to the US border with Mexico, with people from all of Africa trying to cross into Europe at the only land crossing between the two continents. On the plus side, she said, I would likely be plucked out of line, as a foreigner, and pulled to the front. She didn’t say by whom, but I’d taken the added precaution of shaving the beard I’d grown to fit into Morocco in order to now look like I was not a Moroccan.
I needn’t have worried since when I arrived at the border, the clouds had given up holding their moisture, and rain was blowing horizontally as I exited the cab in front of a series of concrete barricades. Instead of heading straight for the border, I crossed back towards Morocco to see if I could spend the last of my small change before leaving the country. I’d hoped for better offering than the plastic snack packs of chips and cookies laid across a blanket and covered by a piece of rain soaked plastic.
I turned away and walked towards the barricade. One of the other things my proprietor warned about is that on occasion, there would be a rush for the border. As I approached, a fight broke out, and several Moroccan border police came to break it up. I could feel the push of the people behind me to move forward, but it was to no avail as the way was blocked by the guards. I thought it odd that there were guards on the Moroccan side to keep you from leaving.
Once the fracas subsided, the guards began checking passports again. I displayed the cover of my passport prominently so it could be seen that I was not Moroccan. The guard looked at me hesitantly, and I quickly removed my rain hood so that he could see my clean shaven face, and he waved me through. Then began a long corridor barricaded on one side by a tall steel wall and the other by a 12 foot chain link fence stopped with razor wire. It did indeed remind me of the US border with Mexico, and I imagined it could take quite a while to pass through the border if I was waiting in line for the half mile I walked.
At the next checkpoint, a guard flipped through my passport, and asked me where my exit stamp was. Apparently the concrete bunker that looked like a bathroom, and had no signs to indicate otherwise, was the border control office for Morocco. I had to walk back 20 minutes to get my passport stamped in order to leave Morocco but thankfully there was no line at the time. On my walk, I noticed another hollow bunker with a luggage scanner inside, though the security guard made no effort to wave me in any of the times I passed by. Apparently, the Moroccan side was very self service.
With my exit stamp in place, on the back page of my passport since Moroccans read Arabic right to left, I was quickly waved through on my return to the final checkpoint of my departure from Morocco. I walked passed empty serpentine turnstile controlled lanes relieved that I wasn’t waiting in line like a cow headed to the milking platform and, before I knew it, I was in front of a bus stop with service to central Ceuta. I couldn’t believe it; somehow I’d managed to walk into Europe without getting my passport stamped.
I returned to the last gate I’d walked through unchallenged and asked the guard if I needed to get my passport stamped. He indicated the office I’d walked past earlier while delighting in my good fortune of a slow border crossing day. I presented my passport and received my 90 day Schengen stamp. Schengen is a collection of 26 European countries that have abolished passport and border controls at their mutual borders to operate as a single jurisdiction for travel purposes. This means once you’re inside, you don’t need to get your passport checked when you cross a border as long as you don’t leave a Schengen country.
As I returned to Spain, I laughed that it was a greater task to get out of Morocco than it was to enter Spain. Perhaps the EU customs knew the vanguard that the Moroccans guards put people through and that relieved them of their duty to do so.
With a single Euro I had bought from the proprietor of the hostel, I boarded the bus to central Ceuta. Though I had six hours before my scheduled ferry departure, I decided to get off the bus at the terminal to find out if it had been cancelled. On the way to Ceuta, I’d been going over the various options I could take should the ferry be cancelled, and I’d decided if I had to spend a night or two waiting for the storm to blow through, it would be cheaper to return to Morocco to save money on food and lodging since Ceuta charged European prices. My trip across the border, mixed with acknowledgement about how long the wait could be, convinced me otherwise.
As it turned out, it was not necessary. My ferry was cancelled, but they were able to book me on a ferry later that evening. When I inquired as to the difference between the two, I was told the later one was larger. With three more hours to wait, I decided to head into town and explore Spanish Africa. It was as people had told me. The buildings were in the style of Europe with tall gothic churches and long pedestrian boulevards. What set this city apart, however, was that it was on a narrow peninsula, surrounded on three sides by the Mediterranean sea. In that way, it reminded me of a town along the Italian coast. As I looked beyond the palm tree studded beach, I could see across the way to Morocco and the rest of Africa. It seemed that it would be an easy swim to avoid the border and land in Europe.
I enjoyed wine and tapas at a sidewalk cafe before heading to the ferry terminal for my evening departure. I was a little disappointed as my original choice in timing was to enjoy crossing the strait of Gibraltar at sunset but now I would be crossing in the dark. I lined up to go through passport control before boarding the ship. I guess this was why they were so lax at the border. This was the true border control.
Border management seemed a little consistent however since during my first visit to the terminal that afternoon, I had seen old ladies burdened with packages sneaking among the cars waiting to board the ferry. One of the ladies had been sent back by the port police, but I watched how one sat on the side of the road and then ran alongside a truck that blocked her from view of the police as she slipped onto the ship. It occurred to me earlier to try this method as well in order to cross onto the fully booked earlier ferry.
The crossing of the straight was a tumultuous one, as expected. I reduced my motion sickness by sitting in the center of the ferry on the lowest deck I could find. This was unfortunate since the ferry was more like a cruise ship with a bar and lounge area as well as an outdoor sun deck, neither of which were desirable given their exposure to the weather or motion of the ship.
The crossing, only 18 miles in length, was a quick one, and I was surprised to see the lights of the port just over an hour after we’d left Africa. I probably could have swum across when I’d arrived in the morning and made it earlier than it was when I arrived that evening. Fortunately, I’d chosen a hostel that was just across the street from the port entrance, and it took just a few minutes once I’d disembarked before I was heading up the stairs to my warm waiting bunk bed in European Spain.