Safe Return Doubtful

I left Laou on Sunday morning after 9 days there. It was a good place to stop, wandering its beach and promenade in the mornings, walking into town and the market in the late afternoon, and enjoying the laidback atmosphere of the place compared to many of the other towns I have been to in Morocco. 

The weather has been unseasonably wet and windy, and that looks to continue this week around this part of the African coast and in southern Europe. There are lots of floods, though the temperature has been close to average for the time of year, mid teens in the afternoon, down to around 10C at night. The wind led me to tying down the outside blinds though, the first time since the Faroe Islands, so it must have been strong. 

The border at Ceuta is notoriously slow to cross, generally expected to take 2 to 3 hours, so I left on Sunday morning with my ferry booked for the following day. The Moroccan customs, who hadn’t bothered to look in the van on the way over, undertake a thorough search in the way out; I had been warned another this. I guess they are looking for drugs, but to search each vehicle takes about 15 minutes each, and does seem over the top. On the Spanish side things are a lot more laidback. 

The weather was at its most wild in Ceuta, this was the tail end of Cyclone Harry. I think Laou was much more sheltered from the wind and rain by the mountains. The city has a good vibe to it, with a lot packed into a small space. It’s got a lot of history dating back to the ninth century, and has been Portuguese, Arabic, Phoenician, and Spanish during the years. These days tourism is the main industry. It gets a lot of Spanish travelling the hour by ferry for its seafood restaurants, designer shops and duty free, though the latter seems to be a bit of a con these days. It’s been a while since I’ve walked around a city, but this, despite the heavy rain, was very pleasant. There’s a campervan aire on the marina also. Though it costs 10 euros, it has a superb setting and is well worth it. This morning, again in heavy rain, I walked its streets again, discovering some of the cafe culture it is renowned for. 

My crossing was in the early afternoon, over to Algericas, a journey I last took in the Land Rover in 1992, something I have very little memory of. I don’t think I kept any written record, nor do I have any photographs that remain.. I don’t think anyway, maybe I’ll come across them one day. The ferry was very quiet, six other cars and one campervan. The van was a Chinese couple, about my age, travelling in a Spanish van they have bought for five years of travel. I chatted with them for most of the crossing. They had travelled widely, and I found my memory did stretch to my own courses in China, back in 1987 when I came off the Siberian train in Beijing, travelled south to Szechuan, and then all the way across the country to Kashgar and the Pakistan border.. and my other, far more recent and far less interesting trip, with work to International schools in 2017.

From Algericas I only drove on to just past Estepona, mainly because having been away for 125 days now, I fancied some Indian food, and had located one (of many) restaurant that had good reviews, close by, is a good place to stay right on the beach. There are a few other motorhomes at the park-up, but with the weather the way it is, not many, and it’s quiet. 

My plan is to head up through Spain along the coast for a couple of days, before heading inland, where it is cold and wet, with snow in some places, currently. I’m aiming for Andorra in a couple of weeks, though if there’s snow, I’ll cross the Pyrenees a bit further east, at Puigcerdà, and then travel though France a hundred kilometres or so further east than I did last year, and then into Normandy. I’ve a double engagement with friends for the last two weekends of the Six Nations, split by a week in Dorset, the Mendips and the Cotswolds, and after that, three weeks on the Welsh Coast, before another social engagement in Llyn at the start of April. The season at New Ing starts soon after that. Only in pencil at the moment..