THE Sunday National spoke with Scottish adventurer Alice Morrison on the 10 things that changed her life. She is speaking as part of the Inspiring People series for the Royal Scottish Geographical Society – tickets available HERE.
1. Running the Marathon des Sables
IT'S six marathons across the desert in six days. I did it as a challenge because it’s meant to be the toughest foot race in the world. It led me to Morocco and to a place, a country that I fell in love with and I’m still living here 10 years later.
It’s known as the “marathon of the sands” and you run across the Sahara Desert. You have to carry all your own food and equipment for the week.
To make it a little bit more difficult the middle marathon is a double, so it’s 52 miles. The temperature is obviously one of the big problems because it’s so hot. Your feet take an absolute bashing.
I took it on as a big challenge and it led me to Morocco, which I fell in love with and stayed. I went for a couple of months and I’m here a decade later so that changed my life.
2. Dad giving me Arabian Sands
WHEN I was 11, my dad gave me a copy of Wilfred Thesiger’s book Arabian Sands. It’s the story of a man who crosses the Empty Quarter of the Arabian Peninsula.
It’s a huge adventure story, he almost died. And he wrote about the Bedouin culture, the nomadic Arabic culture. It was so heroic, so hard, so courageous that it really stuck with me at that age.
You’re 11 so you’re very romantic, but all these years later I’m planning my own trip to cross Saudi Arabia. You maybe don’t know at that age but my whole life has been involved with Arabic and the Middle East so that book had a huge impact at that age.
3. Morocco
AS I say, I came to this because of the Marathon Des Sables but I didn’t think I’d live there. I only came for a couple of months to experience it all.
But little by little it seduced me to living there and it’s completely changed my life. I live in an Amazigh family compound, a family compound high in the Atlas mountain range.
I use my Arabic every day and I am, if you like, living as an outsider in this really warm, hospitable, friendly culture that has just embraced me.
I think what Morocco has given me is a cultural insight of course, but it’s also a beautiful country. I’m surrounded by mountains, sunshine and people who really enjoy their lives day to day.
They live in the present, they try to be good to each other and are very community-focused. It reminds me a lot of Scotland in some ways and that’s completely changed my life.
Since being here, I’ve done four books, two TV series and become a full-time adventurer.
4. David Cameron
HE did change my life. He effectively abolished Quangos so the company I had set up had to shut down and as a result, I made myself redundant having been chief executive.
I was so pissed off with everything. With Britain, the government, with having worked so hard for nine years to build this up and make a difference to have it swept away by politics.
So I signed up to cycle across Africa, as you do. I thought, "right, this is it" in a fury and cycled from Cairo to Cape Town.
After that, I was unable to come back to a normal, working life in Britain. That pushed me into finding new adventures and doing different things and being an adventurer full-time.
5. Discovering good sports kit
WHEN I started off, I signed up to do a biking, running and canoeing challenge. I was doing my training in the Peak District in the winter.
I was cycling 40 miles on a winter’s day in a cotton t-shirt and cotton leggings. It was always raining and my waterproofs weren’t very good. I got so cold and wet, everything was heavy and just ruining my life.
Someone asked me, why don’t you just spend some money and get some proper cycling shorts? A proper long-sleeve top and waterproofs and it did change my life because it made everything so much easier.
Now I’m a kit maniac; you can ask me anything about what works and what doesn’t and I’ll be able to tell you. I’ve made lots of mistakes but it can mean the difference between success and failure.
6. Writing
LIKE most people, I worked, I had my hobbies and loved the outdoors and my holidays. But I remember lying in bed one morning at home and thinking about what I’d like for the next stage of my life.
I thought I’d love to write more and for people to pay me to travel or travel with someone else paying the bills. That hasn’t quite happened yet, by the way. It’s getting there though.
I had this urge to write because I’ve always read. My dad gave me a typewriter one Christmas when I was really young. I didn’t really use it then but it was there and on my mind.
I did that incredible cycle tour across Africa and thought, let’s write about it. Once I started, I’d worked in journalism but writing books is different; it took me in a different direction. The point of the adventures is just to do them but also it’s about communicating and sharing with other people.
I write my books so you can sit there with a glass of red wine in a nice cosy house and you don’t have to actually punish your body and your mind by walking across the desert or climbing a mountain. You can just come with me on the adventure through the books.
Writing has given me great pleasure and continues to do so. The thing humans do best is communicate, so writing is a way to do that with people and to take them along.
Not everyone can spend seven months with six camels.
7. Hamish the camel
BEFORE Hamish, I had done a bit with camels but not very much. And I didn’t really like them, I didn’t appreciate them.
They’re quite bolshie animals, they do spit at you. They’re very double-jointed and can kick you from the side. They can be bad-tempered.
But Hamish was my lead camel for my seven-and-a-half-month walking expedition across Morocco and the Sahara. I ended up with a real soft spot for him. It was an unrequited love, I gave him treats, fed him leftover pasta, tickled his chin. He spent the time trying to bite my head off.
8. Proud of being Scottish
I’M extremely proud of being Scottish, being born in Edinburgh, going to school in Edinburgh and going to university in Edinburgh.
I have spent more of my life in Africa than I have in Scotland but I take Scotland with me wherever I go. I am Scottish. We have got characteristics I think of resilience, of a desire to explore the world.
That Scottishness has definitely been a source of strength for me in difficult situations. And because the Middle East is my speciality, the thing that has made people respond to me is I sing Flower Of Scotland in Arabic.
There’re now various people in various parts of the world who can do that.
9. Sheep kebabs – Tit liw in
I NEVER thought I’d say this but then again, we Scots aren’t averse to a bit of offal with our haggis but there is a food that has surprised me most.
After Ramadan, you have the big holiday which is called Eid-el-Kabir and most families will slaughter a sheep because it’s a celebration of having fasted for a month et cetera.
When you slaughter the sheep, what you do first is take the liver, you cook it on the barbeque, take the stomach fat and hang it out on the clothing line to dry.
It looks like a lace curtain. Everyone comes together to make kebabs which are cubes of liver covered in cubes of belly fat which you cook over charcoal.
They’re called “tit liw in” – it sounds disgusting but you eat it with freshly baked bread and sweet mint tea. It’s the most delicious thing you’ll taste in your life.
10. Going for what I want
I HAD a lightbulb moment in my life which was that people don’t really care what you do. Not in a negative way, in a really positive way. When I understood that, it freed me to really go for what I want.
And I have really gone for what I want. I’ve achieved some level of success with it and I hope there’s more to come.
What I would say to people is, there’s lots of noise around in our modern world, but beneath all that, you really are - if you’re lucky enough to live in a country like we do - free to pursue your dreams.
If people love you, they want you to succeed. If people don’t like you, they want you to fail. But in the end, they’re always more interested in their own lives, people really are. So whatever you really want to do, liberate yourself from the thoughts of others, liberate yourself from their views on what you do because in the end, they don’t care.
And just do it. The minute I realised that whatever I did, it didn’t really matter to others, obviously within legal and social practice, it totally liberated me to absolutely 100% strive for my dreams.
And through that striving and resilience and "I want to do this", I’ve achieved many of my dreams but there’s still more left.
