Crossing the Strait of Gibraltar was a snap, but as soon as I drove off the ferry ramp in Ceuta, a well-armed gent in army fatigues waved me over, approached my window and, in a voice that can be best described as satanic, said only "passport". I was confused and also slightly horrified and so I surrendered my passport with minimal fuss. He then lead me inside a brick building and placed me into a windowless detention room where I waited for what felt like an eternity but what was, I'd learn later, apparently only four hours.
As it turns out, taking a rental car off the Spanish mainland is frowned upon and my good friends at Avis had taken it upon themselves to contact the authorities in Ceuta and demand I be detained and my car impounded.
I was held hostage into the evening while my captors seemingly argued amongst themselves about what to do me with me. After much additional hand-wringing, I was finally placed on the last ferry back to Tarif that evening, only this time without a vehicle and with a considerably less sunny disposition than I had departed with that same morning. Fellow passengers I'm sure must have been confused to see a dour, car-less yahoo hauling luggage aboard.
I paid through the nose to rent another car in Tarif and then, behind schedule, hightailed it back to Barcelona to make my return flight home.
The fun didn't end there. Back in the states several months later I received a speeding ticket in the mail from the Spanish authorities. As it turns out, Spain is littered with speed cameras and I was nabbed (with photographic evidence) going close to a hundred in my haste to make it back to Barcelona.
Should I have paid? There are cases for and against. I didn't pay.
The following month I received a second, somewhat more urgent letter from the Spanish government warning that if I did not pay the fine in a timely manner they would, and this is a literal translation, come and "crush my car". Which is just fantastic to consider. Not only because I own two eminently crushable vehicles, but also because the idea of the Spanish authorities sending a couple government stooges over to Waterbury, Vermont to dish out some cold, hard justice is too great an image to dismiss. And so I'm still waiting, and partially hoping, to wake up one morning and find my Chevy Spark flattened in the driveway. I'd probably deserve it.
