Day 10
Melilla, Spain
A taxi strike in Fes almost prevented us from getting here today. Once the 600 dihrams were out of my wallet though, we were ushered into a car for the 325 km drive to Nador, a town of about 100,000 a couple of miles south of the border with Melilla.
Our 4.5 hour trip was like a thrill ride at Six Adventures, minus the seat belts. Moroccan drivers don’t abide by the speed limit, right of way or the concept of two lanes. So, we didn’t get much rest in the back of our 25 year-old Mercedes Benz.
After what seemed like endless olive grovers and roaming herds of sheep, we arrived at the frontera. American passports in hand, we jostled to the front of the line and easily entered Spain. The change was almost immediate — hustling taxi drivers and touts from shop keepers were nonexistent in Melilla (where Franco launched the Spanish Civil War in 1936), although we were still on the African continent.
We just had salads and mussels for dinner and toasted our arrival in country #2 on my trip around the world. Morocco was an amazing but exhausting place — and we’re excited to be in Spain, although not as much as our stomachs are.
Our overnight ferry to Malaga, Spain departs in two hours.
Marc Zawel 
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