Jumping ahead a bit, the trip to Goulimine and Tan Tan was the start of my 50-year love affair with Morocco. I went another seven times that year, taking electric blankets to sell in Morocco and bringing back kaftans, bags, hats, drums, whatever.

On one trip I bought back a parcel of kaftans balanced on my motorbike fuel tank; the Spanish customs guy asked what was in the parcel and I replied “shirts for my friends.” He snipped the string and the parcel expanded three-fold to reveal 129 kaftans, but he merely commented that I must have a lot of friends. They were searching for more important stuff and they always assumed I was returning to the UK so didn’t impose the normal 100% duty between Morocco and Spain. 



Well this couldn’t last and the owner of a Moroccan shop in Fuengirola became aware of my success and denounced me to the Guardia Civil for evading import duties. One of the Guardia came to the Sugar Shack and casually mentioned to Peter, the owner, that they were coming to find me the next day. Peter warned me and I disappeared for a few days—I actually went back to Morocco to get more supplies!

I adored Moroccan mint tea, and on another trip decided to bring back a bag of mint. “How much?” I was asked. We had only recently gone metric in the UK and I was rather flustered and responded, “5 kilos”. Perhaps I should have said half a kilo. Well 5kg was an absolutely ginormous sack and when I reentered Spain the customs naturally suspected I was smuggling cannabis in the middle of the bundle, so took it apart and examined every leaf. It would have been really serious as mere possession (as opposed to supply) was said to be punished at that time with six years in prison.

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"For sheer delight there is nothing like altitude; it gives one the thrill of adventure
and enlarges the world in which you live," Irving Mather (1892-1966)