In September 1987 Hitesh and I decided to travel to Portugal , Spain and Morocco. I had initially looked into travelling across Morocco Algeria and Tunisia but it seemed to be a little bit of the beaten track so we decided to travel to Portugal and hire a car and take it to Morocco. Armed with a large AA driving Atlas of Europe and North Africa we ventured into the unknown. No  accommodation booked but we had our tent in case of emergency! Adventure here we come!

In those days, hiring a car and taking it across different countries was not an issue. So we flew in to Faro and explored the Algarve for a few days before crossing into Southern Spain and visiting Granada and Cordoba amongst other places. Having been occupied by the Arabs hundreds of years earlier, these places had a very Moorish feel about them especially the Alhambra palace. After a few days exploring these cities, we were ready to take the ferry from Algeciras to Ceuta. Ceuta although in North Africa is a port of Spain. The crossing was relatively short and we arrived in Morocco with plans to see all the major cities and venture up the Atlas mountains and go to the Sahara desert.

In Morocco we visited Tangier, Agadir, Rabat, Casablanca, Fez and Marrakesh. Everywhere we went we were greeted with songs and dances from Indian films. Back then, the Moroccans used to watch a lot of Bollywood films and knew all the songs and dances. Not being accustomed to seeing too many tourists, especially not Indian tourists, they would get very excited when they saw us and start asking how we were in Hindi or start singing a song from their favourite movie. They even thought we were film stars at times! Or maybe they were just humouring us!

Of all the places Fez and Marrakesh were the most interesting and colourful. In Fez we stumbled upon a horse racing festival. 

Marrakesh was a feast for the senses. We were travelling along by car and a guide on a bike stopped our car and asked if he could give us a tour of the city. We didn’t want to but he insisted. So we agreed a nominal price. He was a University student and gave us a lot of information about the city and took us to the souk, a place we would have had difficulty exploring on our own. The delightful souks were a wonder to behold with everything under the sun being sold and of course we ended buying a couple of rugs. They looked very pretty and colourful, but of course we never used them at home. Isn’t that always the way with all these souvenirs one ends up collecting! However Nikhil has now taken the smaller one for his flat. Looking at the larger one, it is beautifully decorated but I’m ashamed to say it’s depicting a hunting scene so will definitely not be gracing any of our houses. I think we just saw the vibrant colours at the time and didn’t focus on the picture. Tour over and the guide didn’t want a payment but wanted a couple of the cassettes of Indian songs we had been playing in the car. He hadn’t heard these songs before but loved them. They really were all crazy about Indian songs. 

After Marrakesh we ventured into the Atlas mountains. It was beautiful. There were so many different coloured stones. We ended up buying some of these rocks at quite cheap prices after being told they were quartz and amethyst etc. They grace our display cabinet still today but we’ve never ascertained whether these are indeed genuine or not. They still look good some 35 years later so maybe they are.

From the Atlas mountains we descended into the desert and into an oasis town called Er Rachdia. I’m not sure we knew anything about it at the time, we just stumbled upon it! It’s now touted as one of Morocco’s most ancient and famous cities.  It just seems incredible that we managed to travel so far not only without the car breaking down or anything but without sat nav and with limited sign posts we managed to visit all these destinations. 

And it was in Errachdia that we had our most humbling encounter with the locals yet. We had managed to book ourselves into a kind of B&B and were having dinner when a group of men interrupted us. There were 3 of them and they wanted to invite us to their house for tea. We politely declined but they insisted. Of course all the conversation were taking place via me as they couldn’t speak any English so the medium of conversation was French. They thought nothing of sitting with us whilst we were having dinner and kept on insisting. Hitesh was really not keen but there’s only a certain number of times you can say no politely. So I told Hitesh that we should take up their offer. They really seemed to want us to visit their house. He relented and we agree to go after dinner. They also insisted that we join them in the cinema after the visit to their home.

They were thrilled we had a car and then proceeded to get in the car! This hadn’t been part of the plan. We thought the place was nearby. The main guy got in the front and 2 others in the back with me. It was a small car so they were squashed against me and whilst Hitesh was driving all were gesticulating wildly as to where to turn. We drove for about 10-15 minutes, part of me thinking this was the end and not sure why we agreed to the visit. And then in the middle of a dark deserted alley we stopped. It was around 7pm and very dark. This is where we get kidnapped or abandoned and they take the car I thought. So many wild thoughts racing through my mind. Why or why did we agree to this. I tried to focus on my Navkar Mantra hoping against hope that no harm would come to us. 

And then suddenly they were opening the door to a house and we were being led inside. And it was an incredible sight. The house was palatial. There were quite a few rooms downstairs and a courtyard in the middle. It was magnificent. We started to relax. We weren’t going to get car jacked or anything.

All the women were gathered in a separate room and offered to make tea. The men went to another room and started showing us their collection of Hindi film tapes. Sadly we hadn’t seen half of them but they kept on putting one film after another. I was allowed to sit with the men as I was the only means of them conversing with Hitesh. They really admired Hitesh and thought him to be a film star!

After about half an hour and once they had drunk the tea, they advised that we needed to be on our way otherwise we would be late for the cinema. We couldn’t believe what had just happened and were feeling ashamed for thinking the worst! They really had just wanted to invite us for tea!

The cinema was owned by one of these guys and when we got back we just wanted to freshen up before we went in the cinema. We were about 10 minutes late but they hadn’t started the screening as they were waiting for us to turn up. They gave us VIP seats with a complimentary coke and apologised that it was a chuck Norris film and not a Hindi film!

This has to be one of my favourite travel experiences to relate of course only because nothing happened. Would we do it again if in a similar situation. I definitely don’t think so now as you hear of so many horror stories. But it’s nice to know that most of the people you meet are genuine and just want to get to know you better.