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Trek within the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco
The facts love walking in the High Atlas mountains of Morocco? In June 2010 a group of us found out when we did a 7 day trek from Imlil using one of Toubkal-Trekking.com guides, whose name is Jamal. It had been our first experience of a "guided trek" and we didn't have any regrets by the end.
First of all, we meet up with they that is composed of the guide, a cook, and mules and muleteers. The mules carry out the work of carrying the camping equipment, a lot of the food required for the trek and our heavy luggage, preferably packed in the rucksack. Believe it or not, they'll use only female mules as their temperament is best fitted to the work. They start working together with light loads around twelve months and have a working duration of 27 - Thirty years. Good mules can cost around 950 and will carry as much as 140kg.
Accommodation about the trek varied from camping, refuges or remaining in a Berber village house. The camp sites were often idyllic, usually by the side of your stream or river - ideal for summer swimming - and included a dining tent which provided defense against the heat with the sun and in the night shelter in the cold as well as occasional rain. In June, as we learned, will still be snowy through the night as we camped above 2,000m.
We stayed an evening within the Toubkal refuge which at 3207m is approximately 1000m underneath the summit of Toubkal (4167m) It is a large, modern refuge with dormitories of varying sizes, good showers plus a large communal area with roaring fire - much needed whenever we arrived in a snow storm! Our food here was still being served by our cook, though we're able to also buy snacks from the refuge shop. There are stunning views in the refuge up on the Toubkal summit and back down the valley.
One night we stayed inside a Berber village house in Amsouzerte Village. This village, like many around the trek, does not have any electricity, so lighting and heating (for the showers) was by bottled gas. Again our food was prepared by our own cook - a tasty chicken tajine - the chicken being bought inside the village. Incidentally, you can easily find the villages with electricity as just about any house has a large white satellite dish around the flat roof, clearly visible while you approach the village.
On another occasion, because of bad weather Jamal arranged for people to settle in a pilgrims' hostel in the shrine of Sidi Chamarouch. It was an unusual experience as the shrine attracts many pilgrims who arrive by walking or mule and turn into the night time. The shrine is barred to non-Muslims, but fortunately the hostel is not! Here as always we slept on the floor on comfortable sleeping mats that the mules carried. We just required to provide our own sleeping-bags - so 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 move through, is filled with small stalls and shops selling snacks, carbonated drinks and souvenirs. It absolutely was almost surreal following the barrenness on most with the trek.
trek atlas mountains
Our three mules carried our food which was supplemented with fresh foods, particularly eggs, fresh bread and meat, bought within the villages on the way, though there aren't shops as you may know them inside 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 in support of Lahcen spoke some French.
Breakfast was an earlier meal and contained a fashionable drink (tea, coffee with dried milk), bread, jam, chocolate and cheese spreads and honey. This is enough to manage at 6.30 in the morning! Then we tripped for that morning's trek.
After our departure the muleteers packed everything up, loaded the mules and would overtake us around the trail and be prepared to welcome us, around midday, with mint tea then a freshly prepared picnic lunch - filled with blankets to sit down on! Lunch was obviously a cold buffet, typically pasta, sardines (Morocco can be a major world producer), tuna and salad, and also - Lahcen's speciality - a warm dish of potato, tomato and chick peas or perhaps a Moroccan omelette.
Whenever we finished our day's walk, usually mid afternoon, we were always offered mint tea. By the end of the trek our initial enthusiasm for mint tea had waned! Then we had the capacity to relax, explore or talk, often with Jamal in regards to the Berber life style. Supper was usually soup along with a meat or vegetable tajine prepared from your basic ingredients (potatoes and carrots were peeled from the cooks) and cooked very efficiently on the small gas stove. Whenever you can there was clearly berry (melon, oranges). No alcohol though, if you don't sneak some with you.
Most of the walking we did was along narrow stony tracks, sometimes very faint and infrequently waymarked. With no guide it might are already very easy to acquire lost - yet we would meet young children herding goats in remote valleys or on high peaks, miles through the village. One time a young boy aged about 14 had seen us from his village within the valley heading for a pass at 3,500m coupled with climbed up over 1000m to meet us at the very top. Whenever we arrived in a biting wind at the summit he had beaten us and set up in a row the six bottles of Coke he had carried up with him that she hoped we would buy. We did but more out of admiration for 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 as part of his 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. Young children were herding goats or approaching school, women were carrying heavy bundles of fodder cut from your fields for the cattle, men were tilling the fields. If we saw a huge 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 prepared for electricity pylons and much more villages are linked to a mains supply.
But June remains the period of the transhumance for most in high altitude, the moving up of whole villages from the valleys towards the high summer pastures. We had empty villages being ready for summer occupation. They were flanked by mountain pastures and extensive, old networks of irrigation ditches. One shepherd we met was wondering where everyone else was: he previously apparently tripped a week roughly too soon and was now having to return on 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 with us from England) and additional clothing as they can be cold at altitude. Walking poles are very useful and good boots needed for anything but a day trek from Imlil. The walking itself is simple enough and Jamal made certain that individuals maintained a leisurely pace, allowing plenty of time for stops, photo opportunities and scenery gazing. He also took pride and pleasure in trying to explain to us the Berber life style. We many userful stuff here 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 it is freezing for snakes and scorpions - a minimum of when we were there!
The majority of us suffered to varying degrees with altitude sickness through the first couple of days. We had been 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 who had walked up from Imlil in one day, a height gain of approximately 1500m. They were not experienced or very fit and were battling with sore feet and altitude sickness. They intended to climb Toubkal these morning, speculate we discovered, they weren't fit or well enough coupled with to descend.
