When I was in the Army we did a Adventure training trip to Morrocco to climb the biggest mountain there. 12 blokes mostly under the age of 30 a officer and a WO2 in charge.
Got off to a bad start some of the idiots tried to smuggle beer into the dry country in one of the Land rovers, a bribe of fags got us out of that.
Then got stopped by the police on a trumped up speeding stop , the WO2 went for the fag bribe again, the officer had had enough of bribery and tried to stop it where upon we were told we would be taken to jail. So fags passed hands again.
Went to a restaraunt, negotiated the price, at the end the price suddenly doubles, we refused to pay, 2 guys came out of the kitchen with meat cleavers, all 12 of us stood up and grabbed the closest possible weapons, chairs , steak knives etc. They backed off, original price paid.
Climbed the mountain on the way down, 2 incidents. I was by myself taking pictures and some random goat herder came up to me and tried to push me down the steep side of the mountain, now I am small but a dam site heavier and stronger than the guy so he ended up doing a flying somersault down the slope.
We had mule drivers who then refused to take us any further unless more money was stumped up. The guys were pissed off by now so they were sent on their way with a kick up the butt and we kept the mules and led them ourselves. When we got to the base village we told the mule owner who then hid in a olive grove and when the 3 guys appeared he whipped the living daylights out of them.
Went to Marakesh in the market 2 of our number got detatched and a guy with a monkey started to demmand money for photos, when they refused to hand over any dosh ( silly as we had been warned if you take a photo of anyone they would probably want money) he threw the monkey at one of them which scratched his head and face so he threw it back. The guy then claimed his monkey was injured and wanted a fortune. They refused to pay up and started walking. Soon they had a 30 odd strong band of angry morrocans following them. They rejoined us and we had a stand off, many of them with knives drawn but we we were mainly big and strong and fit so in the end a price was negotiated.
Then in Tangiers we were in a restaraunt and a local guide was trying to extort a load of money out of a young french couple with a baby so one of the guys who had had enough of the whole trip grabbed the guy and bodily threw him out of the place. Later as we left the guy turned up with some mates and a running battle ensued down the street where the locals lads found out it was better to beat a hasty retreat. ( Tangiers back in those days really was a horrible place to me)
Also in the second part of the trip 2 of the guys got the ramping trots. now they did not get a huge amount of sympathy as they were the 2 most annoying guys on the trip one being the officer. Most of us had followed advice and not eaten food from street vendors, these 2 had. The poor guys orignally were asking us to stop the landrovers by a tree or a wall, then it got much worse and they did not bother with such privacy. When we got back to base both got diagnosed with I think Salmonella , the 6ft 5 officer lost 7 stone in total.
Not unsurprisingly I have never gone back having never been threatened by so many people with so many knives before or since.
