Talk:Tangier

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Did anyone try to hitchhike the ferry back from Tangier to Algeciras? I didn't due to a lack of time, but truck drivers on the way to Tangier told me that I would be very hard (strict police/customs controll and drivers' fear of drug trafficking)

I tried but didn't succeed. Police there was very nice and let me ask truckers in their parking before going to port. But most of them only take trailors to the port and going back. And one Dutch trucker told me it's not allowed for them to take a passenger. I gave up after 5 hours (in Morocco quite a long time). If I would know that to cross Spain I'll need 6 days I'd try longer here :D --Kundrt 15:32, 17 February 2012 (CET)


me and my friend patricia managed to hitch the boat successfully in April 2013. we went to the truck gate at about 7 am, made friends, explained ourselves, with the security dudes, and waited for the trucks. a little later they started coming - most were not going to spain, just taking the trucks to the boat where they go to spain driverless. all of those who were taking their truck across declined taking us. as the hours passed we made friends, and explained what we were doing, with everyone who worked at the gate, and quite a few other random people who passed. we also performed some songs together (guitar, tambourine, voice), which could have helped things along. we talked with a spanish trucker, who said that he would take one of us if we sorted out our passports, and were searched and cleared by the police. this is by far the biggest entrance to europe from all of africa, security is insanely tight, trucks smuggling people and insane amounts of hash are commonly found, the risk for a truck to take a hitchhiker in this situation is so high, why on earth would they do it? but fuelled by this idea, of walking across customs alone and finding a ride on the other side, we convinced the policeman at the entrance to let us go through. he took care of our bags while we went in with our passports, and we quickly found some truckers who would help out. then some guy who worked there found us some moroccan exit cards, which we filled out, then gave to the border stamp dude, who gave us our exit stamps. we went back to the policeman at the gate who had our bags, he searched them, then we walked in with all our stuff. but our trucks had disappeared. we hung out talking to new ones until the worker who had found our exit cards took us to the truck scanner. then he disappeared for a while. then he gave us some new exit cards to fill out, then took them to another police, who searched us again. then he pointed us to a portuguese truck, which we both hopped in, (he had already gone through the whole-truck scanner), and drove us to the boat. because there were three drivers in the same truck, they made some trouble about that, but as the trucker had just been told what to do by the earlier workers, they grumbled, relented, and we drove onto the boat all together, had a nice meal at the trucker canteen, and walked off the boat at the pedestrian exit. time: two hours outside the gate, one hour in the port sorting things out being confused, then an hour waiting in the truck for the ferry to arrive. i don't know what would happen if i tried this again. it worked perhaps because we made such an effort to be friendly to everyone we met, and because we never gave up, and because of "mandeesh fluz". may the force be with you. --Damaniacle (talk) 14:36, 5 April 2013 (CEST)

I have just crossed from Tanger Med to Algeciras, and a bit of a different experience/way to do it. My friend and I (both of us female) went to the truck gate, but the police officer was quite unfriendly and wouldn't let us pass to be able to reach the trucks in their parkings to ask them about taking us with them. Therefore we tried with the trucks which were arriving to the gate but has not entered the first control yet, and as someone said most of them leave the load and then return to Tanger. A man then told us to try it from the passenger terminal and there we went. (There is a free shuttle between gates, cause they are some kilometres apart!) At the passenger terminal we went to the passport control and as they asked for the ferry ticket we had to explain our plan. The policemen there were much more open about it than the one at the truck gate, after retelling our story, smiling and joking, each time for an officer of higher rank, they allowed us into the port without problems. About to get the buses that take you to the ferries, an employee asked for our tickets and we had to retell our story once more. This was the key to success as the employee out of just plain and beautiful goodwill, told us he would provide ferry tickets for us, cause looking for a truck driver would be difficult / tiring. There he went with our passports and returned with two "infant" tickets for the next ferry (FRS was the ferry company). and there we went with the rest of the passengers to the boat. Just one last problem entering the boat as we had children tickets which we obviously weren't, but at the mention of the employee's name everything was solved :) --Masanfe (talk) 08:47, 22 May 2014 (CEST)