2^nd March

Today we left on our big adventure!!

Hanna and I both flew into Portugal on 1^st March from the UK in the early evening and Chris met us at Faro airport.  We then met the house sitters and went out for dinner.

Today, Chris and I both got round to packing!  As I've been away so much in the UK, I really hadn't had the time to think about Morocco so it was a matter of throwing stuff together and hoping I hadn't forgotten anything vital.  Discovering we’d run out of toothpaste was a minor inconvenience, but one easily rectified.

Kath and Pete, our house sitters, are really lovely and we feel totally happy about leaving them in charge.  They’d also been given the cats’ seal of approval which is the most important thing.

Chris’s sat nav told us it would take about 12 hours to get to Algerciras, just outside Gibraltar, but the web told us 4 hours.  So, we left about mid-day hoping to get to our destination before it got dark.  We wasted loads of time in Portugal looking for a cash machine and diesel close to the border.  Our first choice town had a carnival on and was packed, our second choice town was a one horse town but eventually we sorted ourselves out.

They journey turned out to be about 4 hours and we amused ourselves listening to a linguaphone CD on basic Portuguese (sent Hanna to sleep and at the end of 8 lessons we’d learned how to say hello and my name is.....) and the 1^st CD of 50 years of James Bond songs.....brilliant!!

Algerciras is okay and our hotel is right by the port – nothing swish but perfectly adequate.

We catch our ferry tomorrow at 11am Spanish time, but have got ourselves confused by trying to stay on Portuguese time which also happens to be Moroccan time.  Need to get to a supermarket first though as have to stock up on all the stuff we forgot to pack!

Have a super view from the hotel balcony of Gibraltar.............