Airport June 2012

I pulled a Thelma and Louise with my sister Rhonda in May. We drove the Mustang from France to Casablanca. We took about 9 days for this road trip. But, that is another story.

In June, we left Morocco again for France, part of our quarterly departure since our residence papers are not yet ready, lucky us. At the airport, the customs guy flagged me. He said "there is a car issue." So we went to the office of the customs guy. He said to us "I see you brought a car into Morocco, where is it?" We answered, "at home." He said, "well, you have to bring it to the airport with you when you leave. We have to go outside and verify that it's here, then you have to give us the car papers and the keys and leave it with us."

I'm thinking, is he for frickin' real? No way in heck am I giving this guy the ownership papers to our mustang along with the keys. We'll never see the car again.

We explained that we have 2 cars and a chauffeur and that our car is very expensive and there is no way we are going to risk leaving the car at the airport to get stolen. So, I was totally annoyed thinking I was not going to be able to leave the country because of these imbeciles. So, I said, "I'm sorry, but I have to ask the question, ""Why?"" Can you guess his answer? "C'est la procédure, madame." Non, really, "why?" He finally said because expats come and sell their cars for very expensive then leave the country. So, Xavier dropped names like he was sought after to work for OCP and that we leave every 3 mos because our residence papers are not yet done, however, we of course will be coming back to Morocco in like 4 days. The customs officer said that he has an entire drawer filled with car papers and keys.

So, next time, I guess I'll bring a photocopy of the papers with and leave them at the customs office, yet keep the car at home. Getting a carte grise for the Mustang was expensive and total hell in France. I'm not risking leaving that very important paper with these guys. We'll see. Pretty irritating. Who could have guessed that would happen?? In the meantime, I'm thinking we're going to miss our flight because of this sheer stupidity. In the end, we didn't.

Conclusion: Dude, just let people sell cars in Morocco and stop with the stupid paperwork and harassment.