Day 11 - Tuesday

Time to leave Tarifa! First job for the day was to pack everything which was a mission in itself. At midday we handed over the room key an legged it so we could not be collared for the broken shower! We ate at the same Café Central in the old town, which yet again, was a mistake… this time my food never arrived! I think I must have picked up a curse or something…

We were aiming to get to Morocco for 8pm so we could get the overnight train to Marrakesh, which didn’t seem like a problem at all given the fact the time was only 1pm.

The ferry from Tarifa was meant to only take 35 minutes to make the crossing, but we turned up at the ferry port and all ferries had been cancelled to ‘rough sea’ – we could see the sea and it was not rough at all! Very confusing! Not to be outdone, we headed to Algeciras as more ferries departed from there. We arrived in time for a 5pm ferry which was due to arrive in Tangier at 7.30pm – perfect timing for the overnight train.

After a lot of hanging about, 5pm passed. As did 6pm. We were not aboard the ferry until 7pm, and it did not set off until gone 8pm. This delay had put our plan of getting the overnight ferry in doubt, but if the crossing was quick enough we could still make it. In the ferry port we met a quality lad called Sim who was from Singapore – he was travelling alone and was good company for the journey!

The crossing started off okay, and we were still confused as to why the quick crossing from Tarifa was cancelled. It was not until two hours in to the journey that the sea got rough… very rough. I had never seen so many green faces. The ferry took 3 and a half hour to make the crossing, so we had to find accommodation in Tangier for the night and get the train early Wednesday morning.

We met another traveller called Daniel who spoke fluent French which was very handy as that is what they speak in Morocco. We all checked into a hotel which was 100Dh (about £7). We grabbed some food which was really nice and headed back to the hotel as we wanted to catch a train to Marrakesh at 7am.