From Merzouga to Tangier overland

It was not an easy task, but I managed to arrive in my destination alive and entire using only Grand Taxis.

Merzouga-to-tangier

We started in the city of Mezourga, place where the Sahara desert tour ended. Me, a Brazilian guy and 3 Australians sticked together to fit in this old Mercedes-Benz with over 500 thousand kilometers in the odometer. They call it Grand but was pretty tiny for this amount of people. For 7 hours the driver went from Mezourga to the city of Fes.

merzouga-to-fes

We payed 25 euros each for a 500km trip and thought we would be kidnapped. See the entire history here. As soon as we arrived in the bus terminal in Fes we got the good news that there wasn’t buses available for that day, so we ended up negotiating a new Grand-Taxi to go further north.

fes-to-Ouezanne-grand-taxi

We got a deal from Fes to Ouezanne, about 200 km for 60 Dihrams. Again squeezed as a tuna in a can with other 5 marroquins. The driver was pretty old and could not manage to drive straight; every time he changed gears we were a bit out of the road.

As soon as we arrived in Ouezanne we tried to find a Grand-Taxi to Chefchaouen, place where we would sleep that night. We payed 35 dihrans for this 70km ride. On this one me and my Brazilian friend shared one front seat.

chefchaouen-grand-taxi

We spent the next day exploring the beautiful blue city of Chefchaouen and in the afternoon we went to Teoutan paying 40 dihrans for 60 km. Our travel companions weren’t happy to be in our pictures.

Chefchaouen-tetouan

The last trip between Teoutan and Tangier we were sick of being smashed in those cars so we bought the entire back seat for us, paying double price. 50 dihrans each for 4 seats in total. Two people in the back and three in the front.

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As we arrived in Tangier in the north of Morocco, we took a normal taxi to the boat terminal. We payed 45 euros for a ferry ticket to Tarifa in Spain and the trip lasted only 40 minutes crossing the Gibraltar straight.

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After 800 kilometers I was so happy to be back in Europe!