Mohammed563
De BISAWiki
Trek inside the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco
What is it love walking within the High Atlas mountains of Morocco? In June 2010 several us learned once we did a 7 day trek from Imlil with one of Toubkal-Trekking.com guides, whose name is Jamal. It absolutely was our first experience of a "guided trek" and that we had no regrets by the end.
To start with, we meet up with the c's which is composed of the guide, a cook, and mules and muleteers. The mules do the effort of carrying the camping equipment, the majority of the food required for the trek and our heavy luggage, preferably packed in the rucksack. Surprisingly, they use only female mules as his or her temperament is best fitted to the work. They begin dealing with light loads at about 12 months and also have a working lifetime of 27 - 3 decades. Good mules could cost around 950 and can carry approximately 140kg.
Accommodation on the trek varied from camping, refuges or remaining in a Berber village house. The camping ground sites were often idyllic, usually through the side of a stream or river - perfect for summer swimming - and included a dining tent which provided protection from the heat of the sun and in the evening shelter in the cold and also occasional rain. In June, once we learned, it is still snowy at night as we camped above 2,000m.
We stayed a night in the Toubkal refuge which at 3207m is approximately 1000m beneath the summit of Toubkal (4167m) This is a large, modern refuge with dormitories of varying sizes, good showers and a large communal area with roaring fire - much needed whenever we found its way to a snow storm! Our food here was still prepared by our cook, though we could also buy snacks in the refuge shop. You can find stunning views in the refuge up towards the Toubkal summit and back the valley.
Recognized we stayed in the Berber village house in Amsouzerte Village. This village, like many about 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 very own cook - a tasty chicken tajine - the chicken being bought within the village. Incidentally, it is easy to find the villages with electricity as nearly every house features a large white satellite dish about the flat roof, clearly visible when you approach the village.
On another occasion, as a result of rainwater Jamal arranged for us to settle a pilgrims' hostel at the shrine of Sidi Chamarouch. This was a strange experience because the shrine attracts many pilgrims who arrive by walking or mule and remain the night time. The shrine is barred to non-Muslims, but fortunately the hostel is not! Here as always we slept on a floor on comfortable sleeping mats which the mules carried. We just required to provide our very own sleeping bags - and that we were glad we had brought warm ones. At altitude it is usually cold through the night. Sidi Chamarouch, because of the pilgrims and trekkers who pass through, is full of small stalls and shops selling snacks, sodas and souvenirs. It was almost surreal following your barrenness of many from the trek.
atlas mountains trekking
Our three mules carried our food that was 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 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 only Lahcen spoke some French.
Breakfast was an earlier meal and consisted of a fashionable drink (tea, coffee with dried milk), bread, jam, chocolate and cheese spreads and honey. It was enough to manage at 6.30 in the morning! Only then do we trigger for the morning's trek.
After our departure the muleteers packed everything up, loaded the mules and would overtake us around the trail and become able to welcome us, around midday, with mint tea followed by a freshly prepared picnic lunch - detailed with blankets to take a seat on! Lunch was obviously a cold buffet, typically pasta, sardines (Morocco is a major world producer), tuna and salad, and in addition - Lahcen's speciality - a fashionable dish of potato, tomato and chick peas or perhaps a Moroccan omelette.
Once we finished our day's walk, usually mid afternoon, i was always offered mint tea. By the end of the trek our initial enthusiasm for mint tea had waned! Then we had the capacity to unwind, explore or talk, often with Jamal concerning the Berber life style. The evening meal was usually soup plus a meat or vegetable tajine prepared from your basic ingredients (potatoes and carrots were peeled from the cooks) and cooked very efficiently over a small gas stove. Whenever feasible there was clearly berry (melon, oranges). No alcohol though, if you don't sneak some along with you.
The majority of the walking we did was along narrow stony tracks, sometimes very faint and barely waymarked. Without a guide it would are already quite simple to acquire lost - yet we'd meet young children herding goats in remote valleys or on high peaks, miles from the village. One time a new boy aged about 14 saw us from his village inside the valley at risk of a pass at 3,500m coupled with climbed up over 1000m to satisfy us at the top. Once we arrived in a biting wind on the summit he had beaten us and hang up up in a row the six bottles of Coke he had carried track of him that she hoped we might buy. We did but more out of admiration for his toughness and entrepreneurial spirit than desire for a fizzy drink. He packed away the empties and set off again on the valley in the Wellingtons.
As we approached the villages we had the small cultivated fields, with crops of potatoes, maize, tomatoes and oats and wheat. Inside the fertile valleys were orchards of cherry, walnut and apple. Small children were herding goats or walking to school, women were carrying heavy bundles of fodder cut from your fields for the cattle, men were tilling the fields. If we saw a massive tipper lorry carrying about forty workers back to their villages. Piece by piece the original Berber life style is changing as tracks are widened and become passable to trucks, holes are ready for electricity pylons plus more villages are attached to a mains supply.
But June is still the duration of the transhumance for a lot of out in the wild, the moving up of whole villages from your valleys to the high summer pastures. We saw empty villages being gotten ready for summer occupation. These were surrounded by mountain pastures and extensive, old networks of irrigation ditches. One shepherd we met wondered where everybody else was: he had apparently set off per week or so too soon and it was now having to return along the valley!
We carried only day packs so that as we knew we might 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 they can be cold at altitude. Walking poles are incredibly useful and good boots needed for certainly not per day trek from Imlil. The walking itself is simple enough and Jamal ensured that individuals maintained a leisurely pace, allowing the required time for stops, photo opportunities and scenery gazing. Younger crowd took pride and pleasure in trying to explain to us the Berber life style. We learned a lot about their language, culture, religion, agriculture, family life - and mules! Additionally we found that the indigenous fauna with the area includes foxes, rabbits, wild goats and squirrel, but were assured that it's freezing for snakes and scorpions - a minimum of whenever we have there been!
Most of us suffered to varying degrees with altitude sickness through the first couple of days. We were glad that once we reached the Toubkal refuge there were acclimatised, helped by almost daily climbs over passes of more than 3000m and by camping at altitude. In the refuge we met another party of walkers that had walked up from Imlil in one day, a height gain of about 1500m. They were not experienced or very fit and were struggling with sore feet and altitude sickness. They intended to climb Toubkal the following morning, speculate we discovered, they were not fit or good enough and had to descend.
