Banks and Cheese
Ceuta 2
23rd July 2023
I feel like I may have said this before, but every trip seems to have its own misadventures. Another visa run to Ceuta, Spain, on the north eastern tip of Morocco. A routine trip, surely. But somehow they always end up as misadventures.
The Plan – 7 tasks:
· Leave at 9am. 15 dhs (€1.50) to the Ceuta taxi near the old CTM station behind the main Tangier station
· Ceuta by 10:30, 40 dhs (€4) for the taxi to Fnideq on the border, 5-10 dhs (€0.50 - €1) for the last bit
· Cross the border and bus into town
· Check out all the banks and try to get an account
· Collect some supplies at a pharmacy
· Collect some Asian food supplies
· Collect a couple of bottles of whisky and cheese and pork cold meats from a supermarket
Sounds easy? So how did it go?
Leave at 9am. 15 dhs to the Ceuta taxi near the old CTM station behind the station
Task 1:
Easy! I’ve done it once before, just 3 months ago. I know the drill.
But I should know by now, life here just never works that way – in fact, one of the things I love about living here – every day is an adventure.
First thing to go wrong is that I stay up till 6am. This is a regular thing for me. Tangier is a city where it’s busier after dark than before, and rush hour is from 9pm till around 11 or so. Up on the Boulevard it is still solid with traffic and people well after after midnight. I’m actually not sure how I’d manage a lifestyle again where everyone goes to bed at 9. This is the Mediterranean lifestyle.
So here I am with my early morning departure plans of 8 am, expecting to arrive in Ceuta soon after 9am.
But after the 6am bed time, and by the time I’m awake and organized and out of the house it is 10am. Not too bad, I think. The taxi will get me to the Ceuta taxi station in 10 minutes. I’ll be in Ceuta/Sebta soon after 11.
I’m happily riding along in the taxi when I realise we have gone past the area of the taxis.
“La, la, la. No, no, no.” I want the old CTM bus station near the train station. Not the new one all the way down near the airport and a 35 dhs fare (€3.50/USD)”.
My language by now is a seriously disastrous mix of Darija (Moroccan Arabic), French and Spanish, depending what word I know.
So he turns around and takes me to the required taxi stand near the station. I jump into a taxi and he takes off.
Wait. Again. They usually go with 6 people, not one. Another bad conversation in mixed languages and it turns out that when I say 40dhs (€4), he’s thinking I’m talking euros and wants 440dhs!
Another taxi fare, a total of 35dhs (€3.50) instead of the anticipated 15 (€1.50), and a whole hour instead of the anticipated 10 minutes, but I am finally in the right place. All this may seem like nitpicking over small amounts of money, but I am on Moroccan money myself. If only my earnings were in USD or euros!
Ceuta by 10:30, 40 dhs (€4) for the taxi to Fnideq on the border, 5-10 dhs for the last bit
Yes, Fnideq. No typos involved.
Task 2:
East-West across the top of Morocco the best way to get about is by Grand Taxi. They’re like a mini-bus. They have fixed routes and fixed fares. They go as soon as they fill up – 6 passengers: 1 in the front seat, 3 in the middle, 2 in the back. They run all over Tangier, as well as to other places. It’s just a mind-boggle working out where the one you want leaves from!
The man collecting the fare wants not 40dhs but 100dhs (€10, and way outside my budget) and talks about a return ticket. I’ve never heard of any such thing for these taxis. The driver collects the fare on departure.
Nah! This guy is trying to take me for a ride – figuratively and literally.
We argue. I insist. He finally gives in and I pay 40. (Good trick with these arguments – suggest talking to the nearest police about it. Suddenly they are happy with the fare. Another solution, take a photo of their ID and report them - or at least threaten to.)
The grand taxi quickly fills up with its 6 passengers and we’re on our way – not arriving in the border town Fnideq at 10:30, but departing at 11.
Near enough, I think. I’ve still got plenty of time to do everything.
Cross the border and bus into town – Easy Peasy!!!
Task 3:
Of course, getting to the border must first have another little drama. The taxi asks if I want to go to the border. I say yes thinking it was part of the trip. But once we arrive he wants another 30 dhs for that bit.
40dhs the 1 hour 70km trip from Tangier to Fnideq. Then 30dhs for the last 5 minutes and 4 km to the border!
Another argument ensues with me saying many times “Ana skna hna”. I live here.
Finally sorted with that one, and I begin the walk through the border.
While waiting for emigration from Morocco I check my passport visa stamp. I have remembered that I have until the 20th of the month. Today is the 11th, so I’ve got over a week up my sleeve – a full 9 days of leeway. I was last here on the 20th, 3 months ago. I had been tossing up whether to come today or leave it a few more days – on 3 hours of sleep with time up my sleeve, it was an option.
To my alarm, I have remembered the wrong date. I’ve remembered the date from my return from Egypt and Jordan – the previous border trip. The date of my last visit was the 16th…
In considerable alarm, juggling passport, phone with charger, hoping I’ve still got Moroccan net connection, and dealing with already sweating a lot, I to and fro on my phone counting up days on the calendar.
90 days is the 15th.
4 days to spare. I sigh with relief. A whole other procedure is needed for an overstay. (Complete details on how to manage this in the link)
But I sail through with no problem at either border - exit from Morocco, entry into Spain - I have my visa sorted now for another 3 months. Time to catch the bus into Ceuta and start checking out those banks.
But the bus won’t give change to more than €10 euros. I have just 2 €50 notes. The man behind me pays my fare. The bus heads off, past the fort and into the town centre. It’s around 12:30, a little later than I had planned, but still with plenty of time for the banks and other jobs.
Check out all the banks and try to get an account.
Task 4:
Go straight to bank. This is my main goal while in Ceuta. To try and solve ongoing bank problems by getting a Spanish bank account, which I’ve been told I can do with just my passport – no need for residency or even an address.
First bank I come to is a no go, but its not a bank that I was told most likely to work – just the first one I come across. No sweat. I still have all the afternoon
I see a kiosk. I should get a Spanish sim card so I’ve got data while I’m here. Between language and sorting, takes a little. But all is good. I like my new Spanish number.
I head off to the next bank, walk past the Chinese restaurant I eyed off the last time. In 2 seconds I have taken the detour. Sit with sea views, a beer of course, and pork!!!!
A treat. Why just have one meal – let’s have two. Good foreign restaurants are hard to come by in Tangier, and expensive. I spend just €11 – half of what I’d have spent for the same meal in Tangier.
The pork is gratifyingly good. I don’t usually eat it much, and never expected to miss it! I enjoy the meal, the beer, the sea view, and even get a piece of birthday cake from the table at the end.
Now to hunt down those banks and get this 12 month old problem solved. I head to the next bank half a block away.
It’s closed.
After asking around, turns out the banks close at 2pm for the rest of the day. Bank opening hours are 8:30am to 2pm. Plus I didn’t realise there’s also a time difference of 1 hour to Morocco. After getting my sim card they would have already been closing!
Collect some supplies at a pharmacy
Task 5:
Oh well. I guess that means another visit. Let’s get through the rest of the tasks – the pharmacy supplies of things I can’t get in Morocco.
It turns out that Spain is also not a place where it’s available. What I want is available in the UK, most of Europe including France, Germany, Italy and Greece. But not in Spain.
Hey ho. Then to task number 6.
Collect some Asian food supplies.
Task 6:
I head to Carrefoure supermarket. Not just the biggest one, all of them. It is a very hot day and I’m feeling the heat in my chest. I realise later that I was probably getting a bit dehydrated. But anyway, those Asian supplies in those Carrefoures? Most Spanish supermarkets have supplies. But I’m in Ceuta, a small place remote from Spain.
Yes. You guessed it. Nothing to be found!
Collect a couple of bottles of whisky and cheese and pork cold meats from a supermarket
Task 7:
The last task. To collect the cheese and pork salami meat supplies
– success!
And to get some alcohol supplies. I should check exactly what customs says I can take back to Morocco.
1 litre.
Just one litre!??!!!
That is seriously nothing. But a quick message with my flatmate and we decide to buy 6 anyway. The price of losing 5 will just leave us with paying the same price as we would have in Morocco for the one.
I traipse around in the heat with my increasingly heavy bag as I collect the 1 litre bottles of Red Label.
The weight - I now have a huge amount of cheeses, prosciuttos and salamis, and 6 litres of Red Label scotch. So hot. Chest tight. Maybe dehydrated, nearing heatstroke again. It is humid.
I am tired. I want a swim. I want to go home. I want tapas but I am still too full from lunch. I want sangria in the street with a sea view.
A new task:
Sangria in the street with a sea view.
Task 8:
The new task.
I start looking for the nearest bar. But everywhere is closed. Ceuta seems to close for a long siesta, starting at about 3pm until 6pm. But I don’t want to walk – including a bottle of water I’m carrying an extra 7 kg.
Finally I find one. I can sit on the street with views of sea, the tapas I am too full for, a sangria – and industrial garbage bins!!!
It would seem like another disaster. But seriously, it is so nice to sit at a tall bar table on the street in the breezy afternoon shade, with an excellet sangria.
And ok - just a few tapas, starting with a plate full of prawns/shrimps fresh from the sea.
Because in Morocco sitting on the street in the fresh open air to drink is just not doable.
Back to Task 7. I still have to get my bottles through customs.
Task 7, again:
Feeling much refreshed, and now ready for the lovely ride back to Tangier, I catch a taxi back to the border. A bus is now more than I am willing to face.
It is time to face customs.
With 2 friends recently being made to leave Morocco and their residency cards taken - neither of them being given a good reason why, plus stories that at Ceuta they will make people stay a full day in Spain before you’re allowed to return to Morocco – I’m a little anxious. My record for successes for the day hasn’t been that great. I really don’t want to deal with finding somewhere to stay and managing without any overnight gear. I am tired and I want to go home.
As it turns out, they’re very happy that I just wanted a day shopping and enjoying tapas and sangria. I will be back, I promise. And I mean it.
Morocco frowns and wants to know where I’m going and what I do. Usually they are so friendly and welcoming. I always answer “A tourist” - Back to collect my gear from a friend’s place before I head to Tarifa in Spain by ferry (I don’t elaborate that my timeframe is after 3 more months) They want to know what my work is - I teach. Writing is not a good profession to list in countries like Morocco, however innocent the plan. Online teaching, I say, since it is a tourist visa.
This is a funny deal with the Moroccan border. The first time is all smiles and “Welcome to Morocco!”. After that they can see the pattern of stamps every 3 months. They know the score. They just stamp your passport and look to the next person. They know exactly what I do, where I live, when I clean my teeth even. They simply aren’t paid enough to make a fuss. Paperwork is not a favourite task in Morocco.
So she frowns and asks questions, but she lets me through.
Then baggage declarations.
One X-ray zone. Bags go in at one end. They are so heavy that just getting them off my shoulders is hard work
They go through. The customs man is watching the X-ray machine.
I listen for the call.
But nobody says anything.
I pick up my bags trying very hard to pretend they are not heavy and head off with my 5 excess bottles of whisky.
The taxis start their usual – tangier – 400 dhs. No – I want the 5 dhs ride back to Fnideq for the 40 dhs ride to tangier. Id’ been told it was 50 all the way, but no idea of those taxis.
“Ana sekna hna”, I say again - my go-to phrase – I live here. With the subtext of – so stop messing me around.
So they take me to a taxi which goes all the way to tangier. No trip via Fnideq. No traipsing through the markets – albeit something I normally like, but not carrying 7kg+ extra when I’m already so tired.
60 dhs – not 50. But the way I feel – that’s close enough. In the end I’m paying an extra 1 euro for a whole lot of saved effort.
So I sit back to enjoy the ride.
Which is magnificent.
Ceuta is worth the trip just for the trip itself, all along the north coast with views of Spain all the way. That is your clue to another bit of trivia you can stash away to show off at dinner parties.
Spain has 5 land borders, not just 2. It has land borders with France and Portugal - the obvious ones. And don’t forgot that tiny country in the Pyrenees mountains, squeezed in between Spain and France - Andorra. Now you now know about the Moroccan land border - there are in fact two: Ceuta, and a bit further around towards the Algerian border there is Melilla.
So where is the fifth one?
I am looking at it now. Spain also has a land border with the UK. Yup. A bit of England which grows palm trees. The strait shares the same name.
It’s called Gibraltar.
From a distance it appears to stick up out of the sea, out of nothing. But it is well attached to Spain, right next to its big harbour of Algeciras. It is as expensive as the home country. And it has palm trees. And monkeys.
As I watch Gibraltar and Spain’s hills from the other side of the strait, I recall a FaceBook expert, a tourist who passed through one day on the ferry from Morocco to Spain, and because he couldn’t see Morocco from Spain that day insisted it was impossible, that Spain was too far and simply not visible. He even showed me on a map the part of Morocco he insisted I was looking at - the far side of Tangier’s Marina Bay, which I have walked to - one day of uncharacteristic physical optimism.
With a shake of my head, I sit back and enjoy the beautiful drive - the beautiful azure sea on the outward journey earlier that day, and now views of it glistening under a sinking sun. I watch the sun’s ball turn magenta as it sinks towards the hills behind Tangier, and the changing colours reflecting off the sea, all the way to the gap that is the entrance from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. I am anticipating my supper of Spanish cheeses and pork salamis on fresh baguettes accompanied by scotch and a range of music across the myriad of cultures that constitute Tangier.
Tangier has some amazing sunsets. And this is one of those spectacular ones.
For a day of misadventures, this one has a very good ending.
