Travel Stories

Not Any Port in a Storm

After visiting Morocco for a week, I was in Tangier, planning to take the ferry across the Strait of Gibraltar to Spain. I was staying at a nice hotel next to the coast in Tangier and from the hotel I could see the Port of Tangier about a kilometer away.  The next morning I was ready to go after breakfast and even though the ferry wasn’t scheduled for another three hours, I thought I might as well get there early.

The hotel ordered a cab for me and I got in and told the young driver to take me to the port. As we headed in the direction of the port, I was surprised that the cab got onto an expressway — for such a short distance. I was sure we were past the port, so I asked him if he was going to the port. Surprised, he said, “I thought you said ‘the airport.’”

“No,” I replied, “The port, for the ferry.” He looked puzzled and asked to see my ticket. “Oh,” he said, “that port near the city is the Port of Tangier which is for shipping. You need to go to Tangier Med Port for the ferry. It is 50 kilometers from here!”

Unbelievable! They have two ports called roughly Tangier Port.

The cab driver said, “I can get you there.” And I said, “Let’s go!”

He quickly turned around and raced along the expressway back toward Tangier. When he turned off the expressway he was heading generally south, away from the coast. I thought that was a little strange so I opened up the map app on my phone to follow our progress to see where he was heading. There were few roads away from the coast and we were now probably 10-15 kilometers south of the coast.

I was about to ask the driver why we were driving away from the coast when the road along the coast was much shorter. I then realized he was taking the faster route. The coast route was through a number of towns so it would have been slower and would have numerous stops. On this road has was going around 100km per hour, making very good time.

We arrived at the port about 10 minutes before the ferry was scheduled to sail. I thanked the driver, gave him a handsome tip, and raced to the ferry terminal and checked in. 

I was then informed that the ferry would be 45 minutes late!