Morocco.....The Country That Travels Within You.

The title for this blog post comes from the 2012, official slogan, for the Moroccan Tourist Board. I am really not sure what it actually means or how it relates to the experience of Morocco.

With the race on April 15 getting closer, the truckies have been asking questions and trying to make travel arrangements. Mine and the other truckies past experiences of driving in Morocco have been terrible. The old Tangiers port in the centre ville was very unorganised. From the moment that you drove off the ferry, you found yourself stuck in this port of corruption and chaos. You didn,t know who was a port official and who wasn,t. Your paperwork and passport was taken by these people and they just seemed to disappear into the melee. Not knowing where they had gone and how long you would be sat in the port, was just the beginning of your nightmare. And you experienced exactly the same when you returned to Tangier. That was on top of all the other problems that I encountered. I would like to tell you these stories but I do not think it is appropriate to write them down here. But if they happen again, my fingers will be moving, fast and furiously, on this keyboard. I am hoping that, for this years race in Marrakech, things SHOULD be better.

A lovely little map !

Tangiers now has a new port which has recently opened, called Tangier Med 2. It is situated 40km to the east of Tangier. Its actually closer to Ceuta, another Moroccan port. Ceuta has the same bad reputation as the old Tangier port. Whether the old regime of port officials has moved as well, only time will tell. It was not a good advert for Morocco. May be our trip through the port will be as smooth and as quick as a magic carpet ride.

Welcome to the new Tangier Med 2

The drive from Tangiers to Marrakech was actually quite pleasant, except for driving around the ring road of Rabat, which was very slow due to the volume of traffic. The street circuit of Marrakech will also be improved from 2010 with more cranes and better track staff. Its a long and arduous task for the teams to come here and then watch so many laps of a race behind a safety car. Again, I hope that this year will be a better experience for everyone.


I shall remind you all of the following words;

In shaa'Allah ( إن شاء الله‎) is an Arabic term to indicate hope for an event to occur in the future. The phrase translates into English as "God willing" or "If it is God's will"


Or as most of the western world say......................... FINGERS CROSSED !

Dont forget that you can move your cursor on to the pictures, and click on them. This will open up the lightbox and you will be able to view them much better.