Zachary223

Trek within the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco<br /><br />What is it really like walking in the High Atlas mountains of Morocco? In June 2010 several us learned whenever we did a 7 day trek from Imlil and among Toubkal-Trekking.com guides, whose name is Jamal. It was our first experience of a "guided trek" and that we didn't have regrets by the end.<br /><br />To start with, we encounter they which is consists of the guide, a cook, and mules and muleteers. The mules perform the effort of carrying the camping equipment, a lot of the food necessary for the trek and our heavy luggage, preferably packed in a rucksack. Contrary to popular belief, they will use only female mules as his or her temperament is best suitable for the task. They start working together with light loads around 12 months this will let you working lifetime of 27 - 3 decades. Good mules can cost around 950 and will carry approximately 140kg.<br /><br />Accommodation around the trek varied from camping, refuges or residing in a Berber village house. The camp ground sites were often idyllic, usually from the side of your stream or river - well suited for summer swimming - and included a dining tent which provided protection from the heat with the sun as well as in the evening shelter from your cold and also occasional rain. In June, as we learned, will still be cold during the night even as camped above 2,000m.<br /><br />We stayed an evening within the Toubkal refuge which at 3207m is approximately 1000m beneath the summit of Toubkal (4167m) It is a large, modern refuge with dormitories of varying sizes, good showers along with a large communal area with roaring fire - much needed when we arrived at a snow storm! Our food here had been prepared by our cook, though we could also buy snacks from your refuge shop. You will find stunning views from your refuge up on the Toubkal summit and back the valley.<br /><br />Recognized we stayed in a Berber village house in Amsouzerte Village. This village, like many on the trek, doesn't have electricity, so lighting and heating (for the showers) was by bottled gas. Again our food was made by our very own cook - a tasty chicken tajine - the chicken being bought inside the village. Incidentally, you can easily see the villages with electricity as nearly every house has a large white satellite dish about the flat roof, clearly visible when you approach the village.<br /><br />On another occasion, because of weather Jamal arranged for people to settle in a pilgrims' hostel at the shrine of Sidi Chamarouch. This is an odd experience because the shrine attracts many pilgrims who arrive when walking or mule and turn into the evening. The shrine is barred to non-Muslims, but fortunately the hostel is not! Because always we used a floor on comfortable sleeping mats that your mules carried. We just necessary to provide our own sleeping-bags - so we were glad we'd brought warm ones. At altitude it is usually cold at night. Sidi Chamarouch, as a result of pilgrims and trekkers who pass through, is full of small stalls and shops selling snacks, sodas and souvenirs. It absolutely was almost surreal following your barrenness of most of the trek.<br /><br />[http://space.travel/profiles/blogs/trek-inside-the-high-atlas-mountains-of-morocco trek in atlas mountains]<br /><br />Our three mules carried our food that was supplemented with fresh food, particularly eggs, fresh bread and meat, bought within the villages along the way, even though there aren't shops as we know them within the High Atlas villages. All the food was cooked by Lahcen, our cook. Unlike Jamal who spoke excellent and colloquial English, the muleteers spoke no English and just Lahcen spoke some French.<br />Breakfast was an earlier meal and contained a warm drink (tea, coffee with dried milk), bread, jam, chocolate and cheese spreads and honey. This is enough to manage at 6.30 each morning! Only then do we set off for the morning's trek.<br /><br />After our departure the muleteers packed everything up, loaded the mules and would overtake us about the trail and be able to welcome us, around midday, with mint tea accompanied by a freshly prepared picnic lunch - complete with blankets to take a seat on! Lunch was a cold buffet, typically pasta, sardines (Morocco can be a major world producer), tuna and salad, as well as - Lahcen's speciality - a fashionable dish of potato, tomato and chick peas or a Moroccan omelette.<br /><br />Once we finished our day's walk, usually mid afternoon, i was always offered mint tea. After the trek our initial enthusiasm for mint tea had waned! We then had the capacity to relax, explore or talk, often with Jamal in regards to the Berber way of life. The evening meal was usually soup and a meat or vegetable tajine prepared from your basic ingredients (potatoes and carrots were peeled through the cooks) and cooked very efficiently on a small gas stove. Whenever feasible there was clearly berry (melon, oranges). No alcohol though, if you don't sneak some along with you.<br /><br />The majority of the walking we did was along narrow stony tracks, sometimes very faint and rarely waymarked. With out a guide it could have been super easy to obtain lost - yet we'd meet young kids herding goats in remote valleys or on high peaks, miles through the village. One time a boy aged about 14 had seen us from his village within the valley heading for a pass at 3,500m and had climbed up over 1000m to satisfy us at the top. Once we arrived in a biting wind at the summit he had beaten us and hang up in a row the six bottles of Coke he previously carried on top of him that she hoped we might buy. We did but higher productivity of popularity of his toughness and entrepreneurial spirit than desire to have a fizzy drink. He packed away the empties and hang up off again on the valley in his Wellingtons.<br />Even as approached the villages we got the small cultivated fields, with crops of potatoes, maize, tomatoes and oats and wheat. In the fertile valleys were orchards of cherry, walnut and apple. Young kids were herding goats or walking to school, women were carrying heavy bundles of fodder cut in the fields for the cattle, men were tilling the fields. Once we saw a huge tipper lorry carrying about forty workers to their villages. Piece by piece the original Berber way of life is beginning to change as tracks are widened and turn into passable to trucks, holes are ready for electricity pylons plus more villages are attached to a mains supply.<br /><br />But June remains the duration of the transhumance for a lot of in the mountains, the moving up of whole villages from your valleys to the high summer pastures. We had empty villages being gotten ready for summer occupation. These folks were surrounded by mountain pastures and extensive, old networks of irrigation ditches. One shepherd we met wondered where all others was: he previously apparently set off per week approximately too soon and was now being forced to return on the valley!<br /><br />We carried only day packs so that as we knew we might get closer the mules again at lunchtime, we carried only essential items: water (purified stream water), snacks (brought along with us from England) and additional clothing as possible very cold at altitude. Walking poles are incredibly useful and good boots needed for certainly not a day trek from Imlil. The walking is not difficult and Jamal made sure that people maintained a leisurely pace, allowing sufficient time for stops, photo opportunities and scenery gazing. Also, he took pride and pleasure in trying to explain to us the Berber way of life. We learned a lot regarding language, culture, religion, agriculture, family life - and mules! Additionally we found that the indigenous fauna of the area includes foxes, rabbits, wild goats and squirrel, but were assured that it's too cold for snakes and scorpions - a minimum of whenever we have there been!<br /><br />Most of us suffered to some extent with altitude sickness through the initial few days. I was glad that once we reached the Toubkal refuge there were acclimatised, helped by just about every day climbs over passes of more than 3000m and also by camping at altitude. Within the refuge we met another party of walkers that had walked up from Imlil in a single day, a height gain around 1500m. They weren't experienced or very fit and were battling with sore feet and altitude sickness. They meant to climb Toubkal these morning, speculate we discovered, they weren't fit or well enough and had to descend.