This is the twelfth instalment of a four-month trans-Africa trip from Johannesburg to London that I did with Exodus Expeditions in 1980, travelling by ex-army truck and camping. We were not sightseeing, though we did see some incredible sights. Our goal was to see and experience Africa from south to north by whatever route was open. Four months. Twelve people. One truck. Fifteen countries. 18,000 kilometres. Links to the earlier posts are listed at the end of this one.


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Wouldn’t you know we’re riding on the Marrakesh Express
Wouldn’t you know we’re riding on the Marrakesh Express
They’re taking me to Marrakesh

I finally made it! I finally got to Marrakesh, that great hippie mecca, second only to Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco! It’s a dream come true, and so what if I’m a few years late to the party, or that I was plagued by imposter syndrome during all my hippie years; I longed with all my heart to be a real hippie without knowing exactly how to go about achieving that. Surely being in Morocco would give me some credibility, a bona fide entrance into the club. And at last I’m here! In Marrakesh!

It began in Sydney in 1968 when I saw a production of Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical about the hippie counterculture and sexual revolution of the late 1960s. I fell in love with it, the whole idea of it, but being still young enough to want to please my parents I became a librarian, that most staid of professions, and the polar opposite of anything counterculture or unconventional. Then in 1974 I went to North America and Europe for 18 months. It was Canada that did it. I blame Canada: living in a dilapidated old farmhouse on the outskirts of Vancouver with six other people, smoking a little hash, trying a little LSD, turning on, tuning in, dropping out. When I got back to Australia I was irrevocably changed, and promptly went to art school, then dropped out after seven months because I knew that what I wanted to do more than anything was travel.

I was in search of whatever it was most of us were searching for: self discovery, freedom, free love, a little hash, freedom, a life of authenticity, freedom. I’d started my transformation from librarian to hippie with clothing, most of it thrift store finds, and was jealous of those women who had exquisite, authentic, hand-woven, hand-made, hand-embroidered garments from Asia or South America. Or Morocco. On a later trip back to Australia: a conversation about the hippie culture with my mother, myself, and a spinster aunt. Mentioning a friend, the aunt asked: and is he one of the dirty ones? I wish I’d had the presence of mind at the time to say I don’t know any dirty ones. Boom! Though after four months on the road across Africa I’d certainly qualify.

I don’t remember why I chose South America over the hippie trail, that overland route popular from the mid 1950s to the late 1970s from London across Asia to Kathmandu, but I always expected I’d do it eventually. But first South America, and then Africa. By 1980 the hippie trail was no longer possible due to the Iranian Revolution and Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan.

Meanwhile a hippie trail, centred in Marrakesh, had developed in Morocco, largely due, I suspect, to the easy availability of good hash. And finally here I was, and it was everything I’d hoped it would be.

Crossing the border from Algeria into Morocco at Zellidja Boubker we head west through the foothills of the Atlas Mountains.








There’s a palpable relief to finally being out of the desert. Without realizing it at the time, the challenge of the Sahara has affected us all, and the ease of being in a mild climate on paved roads brings a joyous lightness. And soon we’re overlooking the city of Fès.





Separated from Spain by the Strait of Gibraltar with its famous “rock”, Morocco is a mountainous country with the Rif Mountains in the north and the Atlas Mountains spread throughout from north-east to south-west. Its indigenous people are collectively known as Berbers, and their influence can still be felt even though over the centuries Morocco has seen extensive migration from other cultures. The Arab conquest of the late 7th century led to most people accepting Islam. The 19th century saw Great Power politics leading to the country becoming a French Protectorate in 1912. Independence was regained in 1956, and to this day the country is one of only three monarchies in all Africa. The Medieval traveller, Ibn Baṭṭūṭah, a native of Morocco wrote: it is the best of countries, for in it fruits are plentiful, and running water and nourishing food are never exhausted.

Morocco is still an extravagantly exotic place, and in 1980 it was even more so. I was in hippie heaven.

Fès is surrounded by low hills carpeted with olive groves and orchards. We are unused to such abundance after weeks in the Sahel and the Sahara! The old town, or medina, is a labyrinth of narrow alleys, a tangle of adjoining buildings centuries old; it is known as Fès el-Bali. Fès el-Jedid, dating from the 1200s and founded as an extension of the medina and as a royal citadel, is the “new” old town. It chiefly contains the historic Jedid Gate


1980 postcard



and Fès Royal Palace, which was once the Moroccan centre of government, and on occasion is still used by the royal family today.





With a local guide we plunge into the medina, Fès el-Bali,


1980 postcard






a maze that is such a rabbit warren of crowded convoluted streets that getting lost would be easy.





Down the narrow cobbled streets we go, the ancient buildings rising high on either side. Along the street where fabric is dyed,





winding our way past donkeys and many mosques,





almost drunk with the medley of competing aromas, colours and sounds. Here for sale is everything you could imagine. We pass shops selling vividly coloured pyramids of spices, brassware, baskets,





exquisite hand made ceramic tiles, equally exquisite pottery,





dried fruits, dates, nuts piled high, beaded shoes, all kinds of leather goods, apothecaries, and market stalls. In a clothing store I try on a djellaba, the long, loose-fitting unisex outer robe that is worn in Northwest Africa.





Fès is a historical centre for trade, and for crafts such as pottery and leatherwork, and the crumbling Medieval medina, a vast vibrant network of dark stores and workshops lit by shining metal lanterns, is intoxicating.

We are brought to a balcony overlooking the Chouara Tannery, the largest and oldest of three tanneries in Fès. While before there was a mix of aromas, here it stinks – the pungent, overwhelming combination of urine and decaying flesh. Animal hair and skins (sheep goats camels cows) lie everywhere around the stone vats of coloured dyes. The dyes are natural – poppy for red, indigo for blue, and henna for orange.The entire process, operating for over five hundred years, uses only manual labour and has not changed since Medieval times. The butter-soft leather is sold to craftsmen who produce Morocco’s famed leather goods.








I don’t really understand the process, but I certainly understand the result, and buy myself a beautiful pale-peach coloured overnight bag. I have never before or since felt leather so soft and supple.

In stark contrast to the tannery, Al-Attarine Madrasa, founded in 1325, is all quiet calm elegance, a masterpiece of Islamic architecture. Situated in the heart of the medina, the school housed students who studied verse by verse the entire contents of the Koran.








And so we come, finally, to a carpet shop, an inevitable end to the tour, where we have a party drinking mint tea and looking at all the beautiful rugs.





I buy a small one. I sign the back with a felt marker, and when I return to Australia a year later it is there waiting for me.

It is in the carpet store that I meet Abdul. And one of the other women in our group meets Mohamed. I am amused by their names, which must surely be the most common Muslim names; it’s as if we’ve gone to England and met John and Johnny. They ask us out on dates. We are both wary, me more so than the other woman. I try to organize a double date thinking that would be safer, but the guys are having none of it. I decide to chance it. The voice inside my head is telling me to just go for it, so I do.

In Fès we are in a regular campground for a change, rather than wild camping outside of town. Abdul meets me there and we walk, first to a lovely restaurant, then later to a bar. I have a wonderful evening, and like the perfect gentleman that he is, he escorts me back to the campground. Not once does he make any moves on me. He’s a really good guy. A year later, when I finally return home, there’s letter from Abdul waiting for me. We stay in touch, and soon after he emigrates to Australia and we briefly meet again in Sydney. He is always kind and courteous. If you read the letter remember that English is his third language after Arabic and French, and his second alphabet. 


The letter is addressed to Linnet because that was my name at the time.



To this day I do not understand why the other woman got into a car with Mohamed. He said he wanted to take her to a village to meet his family. He stops the car at the side of the road and rapes her. It is the risk of travel, the things we do to have an immersive experience. When we women travel the odds are not in our favour. I got lucky is all. The other woman is stoic. To this day I wish I’d known better how to comfort her.

And so we travel on. To Marrakesh. At last. In many ways it’s very much like Fès, and if my hippie heart was looking forward to Marrakesh, I find it has already been hugely nourished by Fès.

Marrakesh, one of Morocco’s four imperial cities, lies in the centre of a fertile plain and vast palm grove. The medina, known as the pink city for its ancient buildings of beaten clay, is a densely packed, walled Medieval city. By the late 1960s it was an essential part of the new hippie trail, frequented by seekers of all kinds – here may be spiritual enlightenment, and hopefully enough hash to dissolve western conditioning.

Like Fès, all your senses come to life here, with the noise, the colour, the energy. The medina is a place of maze-like cobble-stone alleys where busy souks sell spices, brass and silverware, leather goods, traditional textiles, and pottery. I haggle over the price of a hand-woven vest, buying myself a piece of true hippie clothing, and hang out with some of the others, and a couple of new friends, for a mint tea refresher.





We take a two-hour carriage ride in a traditional caleche, rolling gently by the ancient walls, a soft pink in the afternoon sunlight, and past 12th century palaces, mosques, and tombs of sultans, while inhaling the heady scent of orange trees.





But above all, the greatest show in town is Djemaa el-Fna Square. Situated at the centre of the medina, this vibrant market place is so huge it’s not really a square at all, just a vast open space where everyone gathers – touts and tourists, traders and merchants, street-food vendors, locals and visitors alike; all activity in Marrakesh begins and ends at Djemaa el-Fna. The activity, the street theatre, the deal-making, the visiting, have been non-stop here since the 11th century. In hippie parlance: It’s all happenin’ man.





And probably the most exotic of all are the water sellers, who played an essential part in the ancient trade business of the Moroccan desert. They carry tar-lined goat skin bags filled with fresh water for sale to thirsty travellers. They ring the brass cups to attract attention, and even now Moroccans consider it lucky to drink the water they sell.





From Marrakech we drive to Ceuta on the far northwest coast of Morocco. It is a Spanish exclave, military post, and free port, and is an autonomous city administered by Spain. It is from here that we take a ferry to Spain for the final leg of our journey to London.

In Fès Abdul helps me score a chunk of hash, a bit smaller than a golf ball. Then I learn that it is actually illegal in Morocco. Who knew?! So except for a tiny amount, no bigger than my smallest fingernail, I flush it down the toilet.






Next post: through Spain and France a mad dash, two decisions that are rash, a drunken farewell bash, the scrapbook cache. And the hash.



Disclosure:
1. I’ve changed the names of everyone involved for privacy.
2. Obviously any photo with me in it was taken by another member of the group, but I’ve no idea who. We all swapped photos when we got to London.

Previous posts:
1. The Drums Of Africa. Botswana and Zambia.
2. Tanzania Mania
3. Wildlife And Tribal Life In Kenya
4. The Opposite Of Glamping
5. Turn left At Sudan
6. Mud Luscious and Puddle Wonderful. Central African Republic
7. Becoming Unstuck. Central African Republic
8. Waiting For The Rabbit To Die. Bangui, Central African Republic
9. Between The Jungle And The Desert: Cameroon and Nigeria
10. Sahara Prelude – traversing Niger
11. The Land Of False Borders – the Sahara and Algeria





All words and images by Alison Louise Armstrong unless otherwise noted
© Alison Louise Armstrong and Adventures in Wonderland – a pilgrimage of the heart, 2010-2024.