Steve writes...
We entered Morocco via Ceuta, a Spanish enclave on the northern coast. This breaks down the crossing to Africa into more manageable pieces, first the ferry crossing disembarking onto Spanish soil, then get your tax free fuel and have a breather before the headache that is crossing the boarder into Morocco.

The process of getting through the boarder isn't difficult at all, though the self important buggers swarming around the whole place seem content in complicating everything to get money out of you. Simply drive straight to the two booths at the boarder, the first being immigration and the second customs. Before getting to these booths ignore all the UNOFFICIAL bodies jumping out in front of you trying to get you to stop. The information needed to get through the officialdom is laid out here; Moroccan Paperwork.

As you go through the boarder and emerge out into the hectic world that is Morocco I became overwhelmed by the unmistakable smell; a blend of dirtiness, spices, charcoal smoke, food, raw meat and God (Allah) knows what else! As we head south from the boarder towards Tetouan I'm amazed at the new developments that have sprung up along the Mediterranean coast. These are obviously developments for us rich Europeans, I've seen the advertisements in the travel pages of the UK press, and now I can see the Costa Del Sol down this Moroccan coast. After Tetouan we turn south toward Chefchaouen and up into the Rif Mountain range, the sun is shinning and the mountains are amazing. It's evident from water erosion that they have had a lot of rain over the last couple of weeks. But the sun keeps shining and we keep heading up.

Some 25km before Chefchaouen we turn up a gravel track and head up the mountain side where we find an abandoned village and decide to park there for the night. I back Mog up to the valley side and we enjoy a fantastic vista. There were a few young lads each tending their flocks of sheep, goats and cows who promptly head our direction. To their amazement we were not a figment of their imagination!

After a very windy night we spent the morning pottering around the van then after lunch made a move for Chefchaouen. Once at Chefchaouen we decided to do something that we never do, stay on the local campsite! If you didn't have to pay money to stay on campsites I'm sure we'd use them more often, and this one was very useful. It's located outside of the town but only 15 minutes walk away (bloody steep hill) and it's got its own internet access. The services are good and the staff very helpful.

We took a walk into town, explored the old Medina, got offered Hashish dozens of times and soaked up some of the atmosphere.

We ended up staying two nights in Chefchaouen because the weather was terrible, howling winds and heavy rain. Leaving Chefchaouen behind we headed up into the Rif Mountain range. I'd heard many times about the reputation that surrounds the Rif; famous for it's cannabis production. I've even heard that it produces a big percentage of Europe's cannabis. Neither Cally or myself smoke cannabis but wanted to see what all the fuss is about and know that this region is meant to have outstanding natural beauty. Heading up into the mountains we see the evidence left behind by lots of heavy rainfall, later we find out how mud/land slides effect the roads! The general road conditions are bad, lots of pot holes set in a poor quality surface. When the road surface isn't bad, there is no road! Quite literally washed away or covered in earth from the mountain side.

Shortly after leaving Chefchaouen the hassle started; the local population trying to offload there quota of Hashish onto us. When I say the local population I mean everybody we saw! That's people in towns, in the countryside, at shops, in cafes, walking their donkey, on their mobile phone and when they saw us they'd run to the road (often in front of us), whistle at us, shout at us and always making a smoking gesture. The worst hassle came from the car drivers, though less intimidating, they were bloody dangerous. If the car was overtaking us, they'd erratically cut in front of us (possibly the shock of realising we're Europeans), speed off ahead to give themselves enough time to pull up and jump out of their car waving a block of cannabis bigger than a house brick! If the car was oncoming it'd start flashing the headlights or sounding their horn about 25m ahead of us, followed immediately by sharp breaking and going in which ever direction their brakes pulled them! Then they'd spin around and do exactly the same as above. We didn't see any other Europeans along our journey through the Rif and I can only assume that's the reason why got so much attention. The fist couple of hours was entertaining to the point of being comical but as we got deeper into the Rif and the hassle grew more intense our enjoyment started to wane. By the time we were descending out of the Rif we didn't even want to stop to take pictures or buy bread and I thought at the time that this was such a shame to have our memories tainted of such a fantastic region.

Besides the constant hassle to buy copious amounts of cannabis, I loved the Rif for its raw beauty. The mountains were some of the most dramatic I'd ever seen. At the highest points of our route we were above the snow line. In and around Ketama the snow was about two foot deep and made for some good driving in the Unimog.

From the Rif we took the road from Taza eastwards to Plateau du Rekkam. I hoped to get some Piste experience and this is a part of Morocco that's well of the tourist trail. Our first attempt to ascend to the Plateau was stopped with only a couple of kilometers to go. A landslide had completely blocked our path. After traveling further south we made it onto the piste on the west side of the plateau. It started out as a well marked piste then only after a couple of kilometers started to split up. Following the tracks that looked most established and the route on our GPS that corresponded with the map, we realized after a couple of hours that we had no idea if we of the correct piste or not. It would dwindle off to almost nothing then turn clear as day. After a few hours we decided to call it a night, the light was starting to wane, Cally's nerves had taken all they could handle and I was tired from concentrating on the bloody difficult driving conditions. Waking up the next morning, re-energised, I'd calculated from our route that there should be a road within a couple of kilometers south of our location and the track we were taking was leading more or less south. We'd parked at the bottom of a scary hill that may have toppled the Unimog if we'd just driven straight up it (one of the reasons we'd stopped the night before) so I'd decided to set off on foot and if I could find the road it'd be worth making an effort to get up the hill. An hour and a half later I returned to the Unimog without seeing an inch of road! Reassessing the GPS logged route from the previous day and referring that the the map it was obvious that there was a road a short distance south. We decided that south was our route and set about building the road up the hill so that the Unimog wouldn't fall over. Within two hours we were up it and back to our average speed of 8kph! We kept heading south until we were about 5 kilometers beyond where the road should have been, what had gone wrong? Where was this road? Was our GPS working properly? I was buggered if I could work it out. Then we came to a fork in the piste (again) One direction East and the other West. We needed to go West to eventually get back on a main road south to the High Atlas; so opted for that one and thought we might stumble across this phantom road. Our mini adventure was staring to get tiring, the Unimog was impressing the hell out of me. These tracks were something else, rivers had cut straight through the piste but Mog climbed these impossible river banks. If I hadn't done it for myself I'd never believed it. If we'd had a smaller vehicle like a Landrover it would have been the same as driving into a solid wall. So we kept pressing on, asking some of the nomads along the way the directions just to give us peace of mind and eventually came out to the village of Tissaf. This is where the road would have lead us to and once there I looked for the road. Could I find it? Could I F###!

Our next point of interest was the High Atlas mountains and the Ziz Valley. We could see the outline of the mountain range from the Middle Atlas and as we got closer we could see the peaks covered in snow. The journey over the High Atlas was as I expected, up one side and down the other! It was a beautiful drive with yet more fantastic scenery. This marks the point in Morocco where we start to see the first white tourists in their flashy air conditioned coaches.

As we traveled westwards along the Atlas we decided to make a detour into the Todra Gorge. The road surface was rough but the rewards were great. The gorge itself was breath taking. To comprehend it you really need to take a trip there for yourself. We climbed the Todra valley from the south with the intention of taking a high piste west across to the Dades Gorge. Yet again the piste was impassable so that meant turning around and backtracking. Still, it was beautiful.

The journey to Ouarzazate was really nice. It seemed that everywhere you looked there was an old Kasbah or a Palmarie, images most associated with Morocco. On arriving to the town of Ouarzazate I was rather disappointed, it seemed the town was trying too hard for the tourist. As it was getting late in the day we'd decided to use the towns campsite maybe after having a walk around town in the evening we would discover some of its charm. The campsite was shocking. We managed to pull in but it became apparent that the campervans had been shoe-horned in and there was no way we could fit the Unimog inside. These people were set up up for weeks in this environment, not my idea of good camping! We ended up shooting through Ouarzazate and finding a really quiet spot with an amazing view.

Heading west from Ouarzazate we started to see greenery. So far on our journey through Eastern and Southern Morocco we'd kept very dry but every weather forecast we saw predicted rain, rain and more rain. Now, as we head westward down the Souss valley and past Taroudant I started to see a Morocco I never thought I'd see, a Morocco in bloom. It was amazing, grass and flowers everywhere and it smelled great. After a couple of days we passed Agadir and went into Inezgane hunting solar panels. I knew of a small shop owned by an honest old Moroccan man so we'd put of buying our panels until here and hoped he was still trading. After four years I remembered where to go, the old boy was still there and ended up buying 330W of solar panels! Each panel of 165W cost £220, so 330W for £440! That's bloody cheap compared to prices at home. We had a wander around the souk, ate some fried fish and made our way south and settled for a couple of nights at a small fishing village of Tifnite. After installing the solar panels they didn't work properly. After an investigation I found that the panels were 24v, not 12v panels! This was bad news. To cut a long story short, we took the panels back (something that isn't done in Morocco) and the old boy in the shop swapped them for two 180W panels. He had no idea that any of his panels were 24v and was really sorry, that's why he gave us some better panels in return. Any other shop owner in Morocco would have told me to bugger off! If anyone's ever in Morocco after solar panels let me know and I'll point you in the direction of this shop.

We'd been talking about the days gone by when we'd spent time in Morocco and wandered what had happened to our friends Nigel and Ilham. I met Nigel over eight years ago on my very first camper trip and made my first visit to Morocco with Nigel. The last time we were here was four years ago and that was the last time we'd seen the two of them. The telephone number we had from back them was out of use so I suggested to Cally that, as he'd purchased a property back then in Taghazoute, he may still own it. So we saddled up and plodded north through Agadir to Taghazoute beach and walked up into the village. Luckily I recognised Nigel's house and after knocking on the door a couple of times Ilham's brother poked his head over the roof top. So we managed to get Ilham's telephone number and after a few attempts got hold of her. She went hysterical (I sometimes have that effect on people) and put me on the phone to Nigel. It turns out that Nigel, the legend, has bought a piece of land south of Aglou Plage for people to go Paragliding from. Needless to say we hauled ass all the way down there...

So it's south all the way a now. We left Nigel's destined for the next town, Mirleft. We had to make a stop at the Abertih Hotel as we'd offered to take some baby clothes down to Mauritania for the owner, Damien. Damien's a great guy and his hotel is really nice, we used his internet and had a Tajine before heading of. The journey down the coast to Sidi Ifni and inland to Goulmine was really pretty. After all the rains we'd had the whole landscape was really lush with vegetation. Even when we stopped to have a walk we could find streams with frogs, tadpoles and lizards to mention just a few. I felt it was such a shame to be leaving these landscapes behind for what is the vast, barren Sahara desert.
Not a great start to the desert at Tan Tan. As we drove though I got a 400dh fine for not stopping at a Stop sign! Only slowing to 5kph and being able to see clearly in both directions for a couple of kilometers didn't win any arguments here! So I handed over the money in return for my drivers license and we were back on our merry way.
We cracked on down through the desert. We knew that the seasons were against us, March is the month when the temperatures of the interior Sub-Sahara starts to get stupidly hot. With this on our minds we hot-foot it to Dakhla and settle for a couple of days in preparation for what lays ahead.

In Dakhla I stocked up on engine and gear oil, changed the engine oil and filter and got in a good frame of mind to cross the remainder of the desert. It was good to stop off for a couple of days in Dakhla as it bought back a lot of memories. My first visit here was over seven years ago in my first campervan, though my memories are fond I did become very ill for a couple of weeks with dysentery!
The road south from Dakhla if anything, became more monotonous. A few hundred kilometers of desert road that finally ended at the border.
The border formalities this end were the same as exiting from the northern ports. The police office is first to get your passport stamped out, after this you fill out the customs paper and get this stamped. The customs officers and all their friends want to have a look in the back of the Unimog and have a nose in all the cupboards! I'm not sure why but the customs officer asked several time in we had any alcohol with us. It's legal to by and take alcohol out of Morocco so I can only guess that they ask this so that if you have any they can take it off your hands before entering Mauritania, where it is illegal.
There's a third point you need to go to before you can exit Morocco. A small window with a military official who writes down information from your passport and vehicle registration document. I can't see why this is needed but it makes another job for someone. As there's only one man doing this we had to wait in a queue for ages for our turn, then we were free to leave. Enter "No Mans Land" and a mine field...

...Spain

Mauritania...