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Trek in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco
The facts love walking inside the High Atlas mountains of Morocco? In June 2010 a group of us learned whenever we did a 7 day trek from Imlil and among Toubkal-Trekking.com guides, whose name is Jamal. It had been our first connection with a "guided trek" and we didn't have any regrets at the end.
To start with, we connect with the c's that is made up of the guide, a cook, and mules and muleteers. The mules perform the work of carrying the camping equipment, most of the food required for the trek and our heavy luggage, preferably packed in the rucksack. Contrary to popular belief, they will use only female mules as his or her temperament is much better fitted to the job. They begin dealing with light loads at about twelve months this will let you working life of 27 - 30 years. Good mules can cost around 950 and can carry up to 140kg.
Accommodation around the trek varied from camping, refuges or residing in a Berber village house. The camping ground sites were often idyllic, usually by the side of your stream or river - well suited for summer swimming - and included a dining tent which provided defense against the warmth with the sun and also in the night shelter from your cold and even occasional rain. In June, even as learned, it is still snowy during the night as we camped above 2,000m.
We stayed per night within the Toubkal refuge which at 3207m is all about 1000m underneath the summit of Toubkal (4167m) It's a large, modern refuge with dormitories of varying sizes, good showers and a large communal area with roaring fire - much needed when we arrived at a snow storm! Our food here was still being prepared by our cook, though we're able to also buy snacks in the refuge shop. You can find stunning views from the refuge up for the Toubkal summit and back the valley.
One night we stayed in a Berber village house in Amsouzerte Village. This village, like many around the trek, does not have any electricity, so lighting and heating (for that showers) was by bottled gas. Again our food was served by our own cook - a tasty chicken tajine - the chicken being bought within the village. Incidentally, you can easily find the villages with electricity as just about any house includes a large white satellite dish around the flat roof, clearly visible as you approach the village.
On another occasion, because of rainwater Jamal arranged for us to sleep in a pilgrims' hostel on the shrine of Sidi Chamarouch. It was a strange experience as the shrine attracts many pilgrims who arrive when walking or mule and stay the evening. The shrine itself is barred to non-Muslims, but fortunately the hostel is not! Here as always we used a floor on comfortable sleeping mats that the mules carried. We simply required to provide our personal sleeping bags - and that we were glad we had brought warm ones. At altitude it is always cold at night. Sidi Chamarouch, due to the pilgrims and trekkers who go through, is full of small stalls and shops selling snacks, soft drinks and souvenirs. It had been almost surreal following the barrenness of many from the trek.
trek in atlas mountains
Our three mules carried our food that has been supplemented with fresh foods, particularly eggs, fresh bread and meat, bought within the villages in route, even though there aren't shops to be sure them inside the High Atlas villages. All of 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.
Breakfast was an early meal and consisted of a fashionable drink (tea, coffee with dried milk), bread, jam, chocolate and cheese spreads and honey. It was enough to handle at 6.30 each day! We then set off for your morning's trek.
After our departure the muleteers packed everything up, loaded the mules and would overtake us about the trail and be ready to welcome us, around midday, with mint tea accompanied by a freshly prepared picnic lunch - detailed with blankets to take a seat on! Lunch was a cold buffet, typically pasta, sardines (Morocco is a major world producer), tuna and salad, and in addition - Lahcen's speciality - a hot dish of potato, tomato and chick peas or perhaps a Moroccan omelette.
Once we finished our day's walk, usually mid afternoon, we had been always offered mint tea. By the end of the trek our initial enthusiasm for mint tea had waned! Only then do we had time to wind down, explore or talk, often with Jamal about the Berber life style. The evening meal was usually soup plus a meat or vegetable tajine prepared from the basic ingredients (potatoes and carrots were peeled by the cooks) and cooked very efficiently on the small gas stove. Whenever feasible there was fresh fruit (melon, oranges). No alcohol though, until you sneak some together with you.
The majority of the walking we did was along narrow stony tracks, sometimes very faint and rarely waymarked. Without a guide it would are already super easy to acquire lost - yet we might meet young boys herding goats in remote valleys or on high peaks, miles through the village. One time a young boy aged about 14 saw us from his village inside the valley at risk of a pass at 3,500m and had climbed up over 1000m to fulfill us at the top. Once we arrived at a biting wind in the summit he previously beaten us and hang up up in a row the six bottles of Coke he had carried up with him that they hoped we would buy. We did but higher productivity of popularity of his toughness and entrepreneurial spirit than wish to have a fizzy drink. He packed away the empties and hang up off again on the valley in his Wellingtons.
Once we approached the villages we got the small cultivated fields, with crops of potatoes, maize, tomatoes and oats and wheat. Within the fertile valleys were orchards of cherry, walnut and apple. Young children were herding goats or travelling to school, women were carrying heavy bundles of fodder cut from the fields for the cattle, men were tilling the fields. After we saw a massive tipper lorry carrying about forty workers to their villages. Little by little the original Berber life-style is evolving as tracks are widened and be passable to trucks, holes are prepared for electricity pylons plus more villages are connected to a mains supply.
But June remains to be the duration of the transhumance for a lot of in high altitude, the going up of whole villages from the valleys for the high summer pastures. We saw empty villages being gotten ready for summer occupation. They were flanked by mountain pastures and extensive, old networks of irrigation ditches. One shepherd we met wanted to ask where all others was: he previously apparently trigger a week roughly too quickly and was now having to return on the valley!
We carried only day packs so when we knew we would catch up with the mules again at lunchtime, we carried only essential items: water (purified stream water), snacks (brought around from England) and further clothing as it can be very cold at altitude. Walking poles are very useful and good boots needed for not each day trek from Imlil. The walking is simple enough and Jamal ensured that individuals maintained a leisurely pace, allowing plenty of time for stops, photo opportunities and scenery gazing. Also, he took pride and pleasure in explaining to us the Berber life-style. We learned a lot about their language, culture, religion, agriculture, family life - and mules! We also learned that the indigenous fauna with the area includes foxes, rabbits, wild goats and squirrel, but were assured that it is too cold for snakes and scorpions - at least when we have there been!
The majority of us suffered to some extent with altitude sickness through the initial few days. We had been glad that by the time we reached the Toubkal refuge we had acclimatised, helped by almost daily climbs over passes greater than 3000m and also by camping at altitude. Inside the refuge we met another party of walkers who'd walked up from Imlil in one day, a height gain of about 1500m. They were not experienced or very fit and were suffering with sore feet and altitude sickness. They intended to climb Toubkal the next morning, but as we discovered, they weren't fit or sufficiently coupled with to descend.
