On The Road In Morocco, 1974

It was 47 years ago, the summer of 1974, the year Abba won the Eurovision Song Contest, West Germany beat Holland in the World Cup Final, and the Watergate scandal was unfolding.  After months of work in the Brymbo and Shotton steelworks I had scraped enough money together to go to Morocco. The big day finally arrived. A gang of twelve left the York Road in Leeds one morning in a brand-new hired minibus. There was me and Penny, my brother Paul, Dave, Jacky & Bill, Leigh, Jill & Ron, Ann, Mike, and Terry. Most of us knew each other from college. 

Traffic queue at Ceuta.

We headed for Dover to catch the night ferry to Calais. This was the first time in my life I had set foot outside the UK, so even being in France and Spain was an exciting adventure. We drove all night and all the following day. I think Leigh and Mike did most of the driving. There was room for three to sit at the front on what we called the flight deck as we headed south towards Spain, listening to music on cassettes most of the time. I think Mike Oldfield and Pink Floyd were the popular choices. We crossed the Pyrenees and arrived in the town of San Sebastian in the Basque country. In a restaurant the twelve of us tried to explain to the waitress what we wanted. She didn’t speak English and none of us spoke Spanish. She walked away and hadn’t written anything down.

 "She is ignoring us because she doesn’t like the British", I spluttered angrily.

Within minutes she had returned laden with exactly everything all twelve of us had ordered. I could not believe it. The following day we had our first mishap when on a mountain road we were hit by another bus which nearly forced us off the road and into a ravine. One side of the vehicle was quite bashed in, so we drove to the nearest police station to report it for insurance reasons, but they were not interested and ignored us. Spain was still run by Franco in those days. We carried on through Bilbao, Burgos, Valladolid and Salamanca. Then we were stopped by two cops on motorbikes. They didn't speak English but handed us a card printed in English which they conveniently had on them. It said something like,

YOU HAVE TRANSGRESSED ONE OF THE TRAFFIC LAWS, YOU ARE FINED 600 PESETAS, UNLESS YOU PAY THIS FINE IMMEDIATELY YOUR VEHICLE WILL BE IMPOUNDED.                                                                                                                               

They must have just parked by the road and wait for vehicles with foreign number plates to come along. They were little more than licensed bandits. We had no choice but to give them their money and we drove on, heading south through Toledo, Cordoba, Seville, Jerez, and Cadiz. I liked Andalusia. We finally reached the port of Algerciras where I had another encounter with the police. I was strolling down the street dressed in only a pair of shorts and a cop told me put a shirt on, which I hurriedly did before he arrested me. That night we set sail for Africa. At dawn I stood on the deck and watched dolphins follow in the wake of the boat as we sailed towards Morocco. When we set foot on African soil it was disappointing to find that we were not yet in Morocco, but in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta. 

It took us sixteen hours to get through customs because fearing a coup the Moroccans were searching every single vehicle. Finally, that night we drove into Morocco and set up camp on the first beach we found. Within five minutes a man arrived who wanted to sell us some herbal stuff called Kif. He also started bartering to buy our big tent, but we wouldn't have it. I wandered off along the beach and lay on the sand staring at the sky. It was as black as ink but studded with thousands of stars. I had never seen such a starry night in all my life and every couple of minutes there would be a shower of shooting stars. I could see why the ancient Arabs were great astronomers. Every night in the desert they would have had nothing to do but study the sky.

The next day we visited the town of Tetouan where we paid one boy to guard the bus while another acted as guide. We moved to a camp site called Camp Africa near a town called Asilah where you could rent little huts with straw roofs which were nice and cool. They had a bar there where you could buy bottled beer called Stork or Bock. It was weak and barely worth drinking, so we gave up on it and drank Fanta instead. The cigarettes were awful, but cheap. Casa Sports were about tuppence for twenty. After resting up at Camp Africa for a while we headed along the coast road, reaching Casablanca which turned out not to be a romantic Humphrey Bogart type place, but a dirty industrial port and we did not hang about. We carried on south, finally reaching Essouira where we stayed for a while. Then we headed inland to Marrakech, the fabled city.

It was a place I had always wanted to visit, ever since reading about it as a kid. The Souk at night-time was interesting until Paul got us involved in an argument with a gang of angry people. Leigh had to sort out the argument.  Another unpleasant incident was when we went to the swimming pool one afternoon to cool off and the Moroccan boys went crazy at the sight of white women in bikinis. Apart from that, the Moroccan people were genuinely nice to us. We often got invited into their houses so they could practice their English. We had been told that we would be robbed in Morocco, but it only happened once, when an Englishman on our campsite stole our large tin of Nescafe. We left Marrakech and headed to Agadir through the mountains. That was an interesting journey through mountains inhabited by Berber tribe’s people. We discovered to our surprise that Agadir was a modern city because it had been flattened in an earthquake 11 years earlier and completely rebuilt.                                                                                                                                

On the campsite there we met two nurses from Edinburgh called Zibby and Eska who had flown into Agadir to check out the 'freak' scene. They were really silly. We also met some Americans who I think were draft dodgers and nice people. One night we were all huddled in a tent. Zibby was banging on about the freak scene and Dave said,

"Any minute now, the floor will open, and the pools of hell will pour out".

Zibby looked at Eska and said, "Come along now Eska, it's getting late, we should get back to the hotel". When they left we laughed our heads off. After Agadir we headed even further south until we were almost near the Spanish Sahara. The heat was becoming unbearable. One day there was a windstorm from the Sahara, the temperature was about 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Celtic types like me do not get tanned. I was suffering from sunburn with blisters as big as golf balls. I left my camera in the bus, just inside the windscreen and it melted into a mess of plastic with a glass lens floating in it. 

 We decided to try and find somewhere where it might be a bit cooler, and we camped near a small village called Diabat near Essaouira for a few days before slowly heading north. I will never forget one amusing incident when we were on the beach near the capital Rabat. Along the beach from us was a magnificent huge tent, more like a marquee. The family invited us to their tent for tea. They were a rich Moroccan family who were on holiday. The father worked for the Interior Ministry and was obviously a powerful figure. They wanted to hear a traditional English folksong. We did not know any and sat there scratching our heads until one of the Yorkshire people remembered 'On Ilkley Moor Ba T'at' (On Ilkley Moor Without A Hat). It was really surreal singing that on a beach in Morocco.

The journey home was quite uneventful. Dave had a funny incident in Spain. In a little village called Tarifa he met this Spanish girl and arranged a date with her that evening. He came back to camp disappointed because she had turned up with her uncle who had come along as chaperon. When we finally arrived back in England it looked pleasant and green after journeying through the barren landscape. We heard the news that Nixon had resigned. In Morocco we had forgotten all about what was happening in the outside world. In Canterbury we sat on a wall outside a chip shop and fish and chips never tasted so good after all that couscous and kebabs. Then we fancied a nice pint of beer and went to a pub.

"We are not serving you, how dare you come in here dressed like that, no hippies!”.                     

Suddenly I wished we were back in Morocco where we were treated like royalty. Anyway, we got home that evening. I was glad I was not the one who had to hand back the minibus because it was battered. That was the end of our adventure to Morocco in those far-flung days of 1974.