December 20, 2011

by Stephen Jan in Tangiers, Morocco

Entering Morocco through Tangiers took several hours. The processes was obviously very different from European border crossings (at least for Americans): long queues, shuffling here and there, everything happening at the whim of some border official. It reminded me of border crossings beyond Turkey on the Mongol Rally.

The procedure:

1. Find your way to the front of the line (orderly or not orderly, just get there)
2. Get the attention of the border official
3. Fill out a green form. (Customs for the car)
4. Get the attention of the border official and he’ll scribble something on the form, stamp it, and throw it into the stack of green slips
5. Get directed to the police and they’ll enter you into some computer.
6. Wait a while.
7. Get the attention of the border official and maybe he’ll push your paperwork along.
8. Eventually paperwork is completed
9. Take the car over to the next line of cars
10. Exchange some money
11. Fight your way to the front of one of four car insurance booths. (requires extreme patience and tenacity)
12. Buy car insurance for 10 days.
13. done

Since I had the most experience dealing with borders, I dealt with the border official. Once we got past that first phase, Kunal decided to brave the insurance line.

The whole processes took a couple hours. It take a bit of patience but was relatively painless. Next stop: Rabat.