The longest day... Pt 1

What a day, yesterday we decided to go to Montserrat - about an hour out of Barcelona. But the pressing issue was what to do regarding our onward travel plans.

Off to the train station to book a ticket to Almeria or Algecaris so we could then take a ferry across to Morocco. The train to Algecaris was leaving at 10pm so 'perfect' we thought and then went to book it. Alas, there were no seats, not even a sleeper berth. So with no onward journey plans and no idea what to do next, we jumped on the train to Montserrat and forgot about Morocco for the time being.

Montserrat is a lovely monastry set high in a mountain with great views of the valleys below - on a nice clear day that is. Unfortunately it was raining and very cloudy so we had virtually no view at times and none at others. But it did make for some interesting photo opportunities (none of which I have viewed yet).

So back to Barcelona and on to the bus station to see what was on offer. A bus to Almeria leaving in 2 hours that would travel overnight and arrive 12 hours later. Perfect! So into a taxi to go and collect our bags from the hotel, then back again in time to buy tickets and board our bus.

While waiting for our bus we went to pick up a few food items to snack on - having not had any solid food since breakfast. And back at the station we were sorting it out when a man came by to ask a question about heck knows what - while another man proceded to pick up mum's wallet and start to walk away. Luckily mum spotted him and called him a not very nice name and grabbed it back - disaster averted, thankfully.

The journey was long and tedious - not helped by the smelly man in the seat next to mine. Every couple of hours the bus stopped and the smokers got out to smoke and then everyone got back in and off we went again.

09.10 this morning we pulled into Almeria and headed for the port to see what was available there to get up to Morocco.

By 10am we were aboard a boat ready to sail to Nador. Unfortunately this left no time to buy anything more to eat and the boat was not selling anything. We had just enough as it turned out - eating the last things as we docked.

Nador, it turns out, is a depressed town unused to foreigners - especially 2 lone women. We were 2 of 7 people who had non-local passports coming off the boat. The other 5 were all men and all looked like they probably belonged here, but who knows (they definitely knew the language).