Jane & Rog’s retirement tour, Morocco 2023

We have loved your thread also 😍
So well written and with so much useful information (especially what3words) together with some lovely photographs. You should both be very proud of what you have created with this thread and I hope you are not deterred from reporting on your subsequent travels.
Best wishes for your father and I hope you get to the bottom of your heating problem xx
 
Jane And Rog said:
And thanks to everyone too for your lovely comments. They kept me going at various points when I felt like giving up. And all those if you who are doubtful about Morocco - don’t be. I must admit to being nervous as we drove off the ferry at Tanger Med - now I can’t wait to get back. See you there!
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Thanks you three, inspirational!
 
Can only echo the appreciation expressed here by others..... Elegant, well written, honest and compelling.... Loved the photos. Especially welcome during the dark months here, so thanks for taking the time and for taking us with you.

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It’s all gone a bit wobbly now but it would be really nice if you added a postscript in a month or so when you are all settled, a final close to your adventure informing all of the repairs and so on.
The heating,leaky joints, vehicle problems,your health and of course Dad.
 
Littlewheels said:
It’s all gone a bit wobbly now but it would be really nice if you added a postscript in a month or so when you are all settled, a final close to your adventure informing all of the repairs and so on.
The heating,leaky joints, vehicle problems,your health and of course Dad.
Click to expand...
Will do, good idea.
 
Though I’d write the first of my notes on Morocco. Let me know if this kind of thing is interesting and I can cover more topics. Questions welcomed too of course.

Clothes - weather & decency

Decency is the easiest thing to cover as it applies all year. Firstly, you can treat your campsite like a little bit of Europe. Wear skimpy shorts, a vest top or a mankini just as you would (or wouldn’t) on the Costa del Sol.

In towns, the only people you’ll see in shorts are Europeans or (rarely) have been playing sports. Personally, I’d advise long, fairly loose trousers for both sexes, or longish dresses or skirts for women. Men will be fine in T shirts (not vests), and Western women will get away with them too, although mostly I preferred to wear a loose, long-sleeved linen knit shrug over a vest top when the weather was warm, and a Rohan merino zip top when it was cooler.

When hiking, men are fine in shorts. I did do a couple of walks in shorts myself - my loose Rohan bags - but then switched to my walking tights. These weren’t ideal either, as they’re a bit tight-fitting, and next time I’ll buy some full-length Rohan bags. Trousers also win over shorts in protecting your legs from the sun and spiky plants! Also if hiking, take boots which offer decent ankle support. The mountains & shoreline can be rocky and uneven.

The weather - I’m talking about January and February here - yes, it can reach the mid twenties or more in the day time, but it is still winter. And Morocco is a country of massively varying temperatures - in all those mountains it can be very cold, and snowy. This morning, in early February, it is -1C in Midelt in the Atlas and will reach 9C, whereas Sidi Ifni on the south coast is 13C and will reach 20C.

Once the sun sets, and it does so early, compared to summer, you will need some warmth. Early morning is colder still, and sun rise is late - about 8:30am now, in February. Even in the middle of the day, it can been fine in the sun, but chilly in the shade. Layers, as ever, are the answer. Zipped fleece or merino zip tops are great, and neither of us would have been without our down jackets. Rog, as a founding member of B.O.G. (Bald Old Gits) club, needed his hats, and I even wore thin gloves sometimes, e.g. first thing when packing the table away. I wish I’d taken an extra fleece and jumper, and fewer T shirts and vests.

7639DA33-B604-4B7B-9EA2-9B851E3C30B5.jpeg

(Photo - man in fetching local hat stirs pasta)

The colder nights also mean it’s best you use your winter duvet. Ever optimistic Rog wanted to change to our summer one - thank goodness we didn’t!

The other thing worth noting is that it’s not too hard to find a site with a washing machine. This is usually a domestic model, and you just pay the site in advance to use it - so often you can choose your cycle / temperature. So another change I would make next time is to just take fewer clothes, and wash them more.

Posh togs - honestly not really needed. No one dresses up for restaurants, and I can’t comment on the nightclubs of Rabat, if that’s your scene. I’ll take a change of clothes or three for the evening next time, as I did this time, but that’s mainly because I tend to wear technical hiking clothes all day. If you want to visit some fine-dining place in Marrakech or Fes, then I’d take something more dressy if I were you, though.
 
If anyone is still interested in the ongoing mechanical problems, we visited an Adria dealer who then sent us to Soul Campers - a bespoke converter who are qualified Webasto/Whale repairers. The Webasto problem is confirmed as a faulty thermistor reading far too high and turning the heating off. A new sensor is on its way from Madrid right now. Whale diagnosis confirms my investigation: there’s no blockage in the air intake. It’s some other problem in the unit - possibly caused by water ingress from the leak… either way, we’ll get the heater disassembled in Blighty. as for the leak itself, I’ve put the pipes back into their clips again - I think I maybe found another clip and, as of writing right now, the van is dry.
 
From your experience on body work repair, we are getting our van repaired tomorrow, it’s going to take 5 days so will communicate on Sunday how it all went!
same place in Tafraout.
 
Jays2 said:
From your experience on body work repair, we are getting our van repaired tomorrow, it’s going to take 5 days so will communicate on Sunday how it all went!
same place in Tafraout.
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Hope you’re as pleased as we were. Five days - are they making you a new van? :)

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No but damage from 15 years of travel!
Brother in law advised us to not repair it until we want to sell it.
It will be sold on our return, hence the repairs.
 
Jane And Rog said:
If anyone is still interested in the ongoing mechanical problems, we visited an Adria dealer who then sent us to Soul Campers - a bespoke converter who are qualified Webasto/Whale repairers. The Webasto problem is confirmed as a faulty thermistor reading far too high and turning the heating off. A new sensor is on its way from Madrid right now. Whale diagnosis confirms my investigation: there’s no blockage in the air intake. It’s some other problem in the unit - possibly caused by water ingress from the leak… either way, we’ll get the heater disassembled in Blighty. as for the leak itself, I’ve put the pipes back into their clips again - I think I maybe found another clip and, as of writing right now, the van is dry.
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Glad the heating is getting fixed, it's not very warm in NE Spain at the moment. How is it where you are?
 
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Loved Rohan gear since 1997 when I needed desert clothing (so I thought) for 4 days at an airshow at Nellie Air Force base near Las Vegas. 38 to 44 degrees temp on the concrete 😝😝😝
 
The next in my notes on Morocco, this time on dogs. Please can we keep any comments on this focussed on helping people to get their dogs to Morocco, not on the past.

Dogs

Although it’s a hassle getting your dog to Morocco - and was particularly stressful for us, as we only realised the full extent of what we had to do on the morning of our ferry to Morocco - it’s worth it as, surprisingly, Morocco is a very dog-friendly country.

Partly this is because dogs are allowed pretty much anywhere, at the shop/café owner’s discretion. In cafés, rather than people being offended if Flynn laid his considerable weight on their feet, they smiled and asked his name! Beach access is fine too, with none of the restrictions we see at home.

The minor hassles are twofold - street dogs being by far the worst. If your dog is well-socialised (and Flynn is, no credit to us - he was obviously well-treated before getting himself lost or abandoned in a Hungarian forest), and there are just a few, friendly dogs, then you’ll get on fine. If there’s a larger pack, and they are more aggressive, then we discovered that the best thing to do is to pick up a stone, menacingly. You won’t need to throw it - but the dogs are used to this treatment from locals and it does make them nervous, and keep their distance. I want to stress that this only happened to us twice, among many, many happy encounters. The other issue only happened to us once - a girl threw a stone at Flynn. I now realise she was mistaking him for a street dog, which wasn’t too bright, to be honest. On the plus side, this probably meant she had no intent of hitting him, just of scaring him away. But again, everyone else was interested and friendly - no need to worry on this score.

Dog food is readily available in large European supermarkets such as Carrefour and Marjane, and some local grocery stores too. (Flynn is a large dog and eats raw food at home, so we switched to Wolfworthy high-meat content kibble on a recommendation from MHF - and he loved it.) You can also pick up replacement bowls, leads, collars and more - but not poo bags, so take plenty with you.

What paperwork do you need to take your dog over to Morocco?
  1. An EU pet passport. I presume a UK AHC can be substituted but have no experience of this myself.
  2. A titre test done by an EU-approved lab. This takes some time, so is best done well in advance, before you leave home. Our UK vet checked up on valid labs, and used Axiom, which proved to be acceptable to the Spanish authorities.
  3. Within 24 hours (some people say 10 days, but I would play it safe) before you travel, you need to get a health certificate from a Spanish vet. The vet will need to see (1), (2) and your vehicle’s V5. You dog also needs to be wormed - the vet below was happy to do this when we visited. I would get the vet visit done late on the day before you sail, leaving you with more time on the day itself. We can highly recommend Clinica Veterinaria La Huella - the vet speaks good English, and is friendly. They are at head.playoffs.primed and they charged us €38 for one dog.
  4. On the day you travel, visit the PIF office in the port of Algeciras, at floor.straw.exhale, on the first floor. The PIF people will look at all your documents, and then replace the health certificate you got the day before with a temporary export certificate and a customs document. You are now free to go and queue for your ferry.

Returning to Spain
When we returned from Morocco to Spain, no-one checked our dog documents. I absolutely would not take this as meaning that all our documentation was obtained in vain. I think the most likely explanation is that the Spanish port authorities have linked your vehicle registration (which they took from the V5 when you got the export certificate) with the correct export certificate, and therefore see no need to check on you. Even if this is wrong, I would not take the risk. Who would want their dog to be spot-checked and not be allowed to re-enter Spain?

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Last edited:
Jane And Rog said:
The next in my notes on Morocco, this time on dogs. Please can we keep any comments on this focussed on helping people to get their dogs to Morocco, not on the past.

Dogs

Although it’s a hassle getting your dog to Morocco - and was particularly stressful for us, as we only realised the full extent of what we had to do on the morning of our ferry to Morocco - it’s worth it as, surprisingly, Morocco is a very dog-friendly country.

Partly this is because dogs are allowed pretty much anywhere, at the shop/café owner’s discretion. In cafés, rather than people being offended if Flynn laid his considerable weight on their feet, they smiled and asked his name! Beach access is fine too, with none of the restrictions we see at home.

The minor hassles are twofold - street dogs being by far the worst. If your dog is well-socialised (and Flynn is, no credit to us - he was obviously well-treated before getting himself lost or abandoned in a Hungarian forest), and there are just a few, friendly dogs, then you’ll get on fine. If there’s a larger pack, and they are more aggressive, then we discovered that the best thing to do is to pick up a stone, menacingly. You won’t need to throw it - but the dogs are used to this treatment from locals and it does make them nervous, and keep their distance. I want to stress that this only happened to us twice, among many, many happy encounters. The other issue only happened to us once - a girl threw a stone at Flynn. I now realise she was mistaking him for a street dog, which wasn’t too bright, to be honest. On the plus side, this probably meant she had no intent of hitting him, just of scaring him away. But again, everyone else was interested and friendly - no need to worry on this score.

Dog food is readily available in large European supermarkets such as Carrefour and Marjane, and some local grocery stores too. (Flynn is a large dog and eats raw food at home, so we switched to Wolfworthy high-meat content kibble on a recommendation from MHF - and he loved it.) You can also pick up replacement bowls, leads, collars and more - but not poo bags, so take plenty with you.

What paperwork do you need to take your dog over to Morocco?
  1. An EU pet passport. I presume a UK AHC can be substituted but have no experience of this myself.
  2. A titre test done by an EU-approved lab. This takes some time, so is best done well in advance, before you leave home. Our UK vet checked up on valid labs, and used Axiom, which proved to be acceptable to the Spanish authorities.
  3. Within 24 hours (some people say 10 days, but I would play it safe) before you travel, you need to get a health certificate from a Spanish vet. The vet will need to see (1), (2) and your vehicle’s V5. You dog also needs to be wormed - the vet below was happy to do this when we visited. I would get the vet visit done late on the day before you sail, leaving you with more time on the day itself. We can highly recommend Clinica Veterinaria La Huella - the vet speaks good English, and is friendly. They are at head.playoffs.primed and they charged us €38 for one dog.
  4. On the day you travel, visit the PIF office in the port of Algeciras, at floor.straw.exhale, on the first floor. The PIF people will look at all your documents, and then replace the health certificate you got the day before with a temporary export certificate and a customs document. You are now free to go and queue for your ferry.

Returning to Spain
When we returned from Morocco to Spain, no-one checked our dog documents. I absolutely would not take this as meaning that all our documentation was obtained in vain. I think the most likely explanation is that the Spanish port authorities have linked your vehicle registration (which they took from the V5 when you got the export certificate) with the correct export certificate, and therefore see no need to check on you. Even if this is wrong, I would not take the risk. Who would want their dog to be spot-checked and not be allowed to re-enter Spain?
Click to expand...
Thanks for this info. We are in Spain atm & we got a titre test done in France on the way down & will call back to the vets on the way back for the result & paperwork in readiness for a trip to Morocco next year. It's helpful to know about the requirements for the export certificate. It would be devastating not to be allowed to re enter Spain. Glad it all worked out for you & Flynn
 
Yes, we’re back in the UK now. I posted on here about our return to Spain and getting the heating fixed.
 

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