Melilla to Oujda
Melilla is still part of Spain, so once ashore you navigate to the border crossing at Beni Enzal. I headed into Melilla first to fill up with fuel and take a look around the old fort, by which time dawn was breaking over the boat I had arrived on.



I then had a couple of coffees, in the hope the queues at the border would then have died down. Some hope! Beni Enzal is probably the worst place to enter Morocco and I think next trip I will take the daytime sailing from Almería to Nador—Nador is mainland Morocco so police control will be done on the boat and everything should be quicker.

Travelling south east, I had planned to head for the mountains around Berkane but saw the low snow line and decided to hug the coast to Saidia instead. Saidia was to have been a fabulous Mediterranean resort designed to attract European holidaymakers looking for a beach resort. Instead it stalled, and the few developments that have been completed have mainly been sold to Moroccans who only visit in the summer, so it's a bit of a ghost town.

Marjane, the Moroccan hypermarket chain, has a supermarket in Saidia. Marjane is controlled by one of the Moroccan King's holding companies, so he was probably instrumental in deciding to 'support' the resort in this manner. In the last year the Marjane chain has decided to stop selling alcohol, and I thought it would be interesting to check if this also applied to the Saidia branch.

The answer was yes. So here we have a development intended to attract European sun worshippers and you can't even buy a bottle of wine at the supermarket—what chance of recovery?



I headed south, passing through a narrow gorge where, either side of a small river are two roads, one in Morocco, the other in Algeria. There's a stopping place either side of the border where people take photos with the other country in the background—the green flags in the photo above are Algeria. This is as close as most Moroccans get to Algeria. It's a great shame the land border is closed, if you want to visit you either have to fly in or arrive by ferry.



But I did go and take a look at a couple of other closed border crossings. The first, above, is at Ahfir. And yes, photos are not permitted.



Then just north of Oujda I did a diversion to the Zouj Beghal crossing point to Algeria. Lots of signs not to take photographs, and guards watching me, so I took a photo instead of the go-cart track that is situated right on the border.



Health and Safety in Oujda!

My first night in Morocco was at Hotel Al Hanna in Oujda at 100 dh/single with another 10 dh for secure parking.

Oujda is very pleasant university city which is the capital of the Maroc Oriental region. If you are suffering from tourist hassle, Oujda is the place to head for—everyone practically ignores you. But if you ask for directions, people couldn't be more helpful. Most of the people I met spoke English.



It was Oujda where I first noticed the enhanced security presence over previous visits, with six policemen guarding the Catholic Cathedral of St Louis (above). Personally I like seeing policemen and security forces out on the street in Morocco. By mixing with the population I think they have a good idea who the 'naughty' guys are, and are able to keep an eye on them.

By comparison I rarely see policemen patrolling on foot in London. When I do, they are invariably in pairs, deep in conversation and totally oblivious to what's going on around them...



Map of the route to Oujda plus the following day's route to Ain Beni Mathar. The black line running north-south at the right of the map is the Algerian border.

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"For sheer delight there is nothing like altitude; it gives one the thrill of adventure
and enlarges the world in which you live," Irving Mather (1892-1966)