First things first: Apologies for the late post on my trip last year. For reasons that will become clear later I couldn't write this up any earlier. But since I have greatly benefitted from and enjoyed the several reports here, I thought it was only fair for me to contribute a bit as well.

So here we go: As so many here, I found myself at a crossroads in my life, doing a job that I didn't really like. So I decided to quit my job to go back into academia. But more importantly, I wanted leave some time in between to go travelling. Having done some backpacking in Tanzania first, "travelling" meant a 3 month trip on my bike, a Honda Africa Twin RD03 (!), from London to Morocco.

Getting there
My route led me first to Germany, my country of birth, where I visited family and met up with Jan, a friend of mine and fellow biker who would accompany me till northern Spain. In typical central European weather (that is rain) we hammered down the motorways to Lyon where we eventually got some sunshine. So we made our way through the Cévennes to traverse the Pyrenees from Perpignan to Saint Sebastian, where we both went our separate ways. I headed south to Sevilla, passing Bilbao, Zaragoza, and Salamanca and Jan rode along the French Atlantic coast back to Germany.

I kept this part of my report deliberately short, as I want to focus it on my time in Morocco. But actually, "getting there" wasn't as quickly as it reads. It took me about a month till I left Sevilla for Algericas, where I boarded the ferry to Tanger Med. All in all, I spend two weeks with Jan traversing the Pyrenees and then some 3 weeks getting to southern Spain.

Arriving in Morocco
Getting to Morocco was relatively straightforward: I booked an early ferry departing from Algericas the night before, boarded it the next day and crossed to Tanger Med, which is the new port of Tanger, situated a fair bit to the east of the city. Crossing the border at Tanger, there was no hassle to speak of. An import form was submitted online in advance and the remainder (passport stamp, V5C check, insurance - for those of us tied to the British insurance market) was dealt with quickly and professionally at the port. At the port there were also some guys from Inwi - a Moroccan telecoms provider, handing out free sim-cards along with some water. I don't know, if it was the best provider to go with, but it was cheap and the signal was good.

Leaving the port I got on my way along the mediterranean coast and then the Rif mountains to my first stop, Tetouan. The Rif is (apart from Chefchaouen) less known for its tourism then its export: Cannabis. Cannabis is grown in the Rif on an industrial scale (I saw whole valleys full of cannabis fields). The crime that comes with it is why Morocco's most northern mountain range has a bit of a bad reputation. This is quite a shame as these mountains are beautiful and so often missed.

Also, the often assumed security risk actually turns out to be massively overestimated! At this point, I'm repeating what surely everyone who travelled the area can confirm: Morocco is absolutely safe and almost nowhere in the country would I discourage anyone to travel individually! As long as one keeps some common sense (not harvesting the crops in the Rif, not buying wholesale quantities of weed and not trying to illegally cross the border to Algeria or having a sing-along with the Polisario in Western Sahara etc.) one is absolutely safe.

After stopping for some tea at a roadside cafe in the mountains, where I had a nice chat with the owner, who used to live in Frankfurt and spoke excellent German, I eventually made it to Tetouan. Tetouan (as the whole north) is heavily influenced by its Spanish colonial history, which is why Spanish remained the most widely spoken language apart from moroccan arabic in the region. It has a lovely small Medina where I found a lovely Riad to stay for the night.


Riad Dalia in Tetouan with a typical communal area

Riads are traditional Moroccan guesthouses, usually situated in the Medinas of towns. Many of the Riads became accessible to tourism fairly recently and are well worth a stay. The downside of staying at Riads is that one has to stay inside the Medinas. These medival town centres are extremely narrow, crowded and busy places and one is thus best advised to leave any vehicles (incl. bikes) in a guarded car park nearby, which obviously lifts the act of settling in to a whole new level.


Tetouan Medina. These views one only gets in the early morning before the Soukhs get busy.

After that settling in though, I was rewarded with a breathtaking view!


View of Tetouan Medina from the roof terrace