French Traveler Returns After 5-Month Ordeal in Morocco’s COVID Lockdown

With his partner, his cat and his dog, this young man from Montpellier had traveled to Morocco to spend a month there in a green Citroën Jumper van equipped with a bed and a gas stove, reports Le Parisien. However, the kingdom closed its borders in March due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This was the beginning of an ordeal that would last nearly five months. "At first, during the lockdown, it was understandable. We had to deal with people stranded all over the world and the Covid-19 epidemic was raging. But I never thought it would last that long. We had to fend for ourselves. The French government abandoned us," fumes Sacha angrily.

He heads south and isolates himself in the desert, near Guelmim where there was a group of "travellers" and camper van owners. "We got in touch with the caïd. At first he wasn’t very comfortable with the idea of us staying there, but in the end he did everything he could to help us. He had a 6,000-liter water tank delivered to us for free, which allowed us to last ten days. The first village was an hour’s drive away. We grouped together to stock up every two or three days. On the Moroccan side, there was a lot of solidarity," says the young man from Montpellier.

Sacha heads towards Tiznit after spending two months in the desert. He hoped to board a boat. Impossible. "I had signed up on the website provided. I was never contacted to be one of the selected people. Some were able to return in June, others not. What were the criteria? I never knew," Sacha confides. Luck will smile on his girlfriend, however. She managed to return to France first.

The young man from Montpellier had to face the high prices of the airlines: 170 euros for the round trip between Algeciras (Spain) and Ceuta and 700 euros for the return to Genoa. Another difficulty encountered: presenting a negative PCR test before boarding. A test that was difficult to obtain in Morocco. "I have friends who saw their boat leave without them because they didn’t have this certificate," he says. Sacha finally returned to France via a ferry that transported him from Tangier to Sète in early August.