My next stop was a dingy flat in a grey suburb with grey weather in a grey London. Somehow, I had envisaged a white Christmas with snow covered Christmas trees and lovely green holly decorating every doorway. This cold, dull, drizzly place wasn’t what the doctor ordered, so a few of the flat’s occupants, including myself, hatched a cunning plan to escape and head south through France and Spain to the warm, sunny beaches of southern Morocco. Seven of us chipped in and bought an old Ford Transit van with a few mattresses in the back and off we went, all happy to leave the perpetual greyness of England.
Spirits were high and we drove and drove without stopping, taking turns at the wheel or flopping onto the mattresses when tiredness demanded. Eventually, after nearly four days we reached Algeciras, southern Spain, where we caught the ferry across the straight to Ceuta, a town in Morocco which was actually part of Spain. Don’t ask me why. After such a long non-stop drive, as you can imagine, tempers were becoming a bit frayed and when the Moroccan customs refused entry to the seven long-haired, bedraggled-looking hippies in our van, we really had to bite our tongues and with a friendly smile re-offer our passports, with $20 worth of Moroccan money stuffed between the pages of each one. This tactic quickly brought smiles to the officers’ faces and the required three-month visa was stamped into our passports. Oh, the joy of finally reaching our destination!
We stopped at the first town and enjoyed a delicious tagine dish of vegetables and goat meat followed by sweet mint tea and a pipe containing some green plant material which somehow made our drive to the south much more relaxing. On reaching our final destination of Taghazout Beach, we pitched our tents and set up camp in the sandhills. A few other vans of European surfers and travellers were our neighbours in the dunes, and so life became an idyllic routine of surfing by day and playing drums and cooking tagine dinners over the campfire at night, usually in the company of some of the local Moroccans. I had taken an old guitar to use during our music sessions, and there was a young local boy who took a shine to it and strummed it whenever he had the opportunity. So being full of joy and generosity at the time I gave it to him, thinking he might learn some chords and play along. The next night he appeared at the campfire without the guitar. “Why didn’t you bring it along to practise with?” I asked. “Oh I sold it,” he replied with a big smile. So much for dreamy altruism.
Sometime later, I was having trouble sleeping in the tent I shared with a friend who snored, when suddenly there was a muffled cough outside the tent. I lay still and after a few moments heard the sound of a knife cutting through material. Someone was trying to access the tent. I saw a hand reach through the hole and feel around. I reached for my torch and suddenly turned it on and at the same time brought it down with some force onto the groping hand. A loud scream was followed by the sound of footsteps running over the sandhills. We wisely didn’t give chase, but kept an eye out at the next campfire parties for someone with a bandaged hand.
One evening, one of our number, a Kiwi girl called Wanda, who enjoyed playing guitar and singing, came rushing into our campsite. She hadn’t been with us for a few weeks, since starting a relationship with a handsome young Arab man who lived in a nearby town. She had gone to stay with him and we all thought she must be happy there, singing in the local cafes and living amongst the Moroccans. However, on arrival, she had a terrified look on her face. “Please, get me out of here – Now,” she shouted. It turned out that her new love had made some rules for her at his house. He had refused her requests to go to the local cafes and had locked her in a room while he went to work. She was only allowed out when he got home. He had threatened violence if she disobeyed or tried to leave. Eventually however, she managed to escape and make her way to us. So, being unsure of the young Arab’s mental stability and afraid of what he might do in light of Wanda’s actions which could have crossed some cultural taboos, we quickly packed up our camp and headed off for Marrakesh and the next episode of our Moroccan adventure.
Words by Ross Liggins
