Charisse49
De BISAWiki
Trek in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco
What exactly is it love walking inside the High Atlas mountains of Morocco? In June 2010 several us found out when we did a 7 day trek from Imlil and among Toubkal-Trekking.com guides, whose name is Jamal. It absolutely was our first experience with a "guided trek" and that we didn't have regrets at the end.
First of all, we encounter the team that's consists of the guide, a cook, and mules and muleteers. The mules carry out the hard work of carrying the camping equipment, a lot of the food necessary for the trek and our heavy luggage, preferably packed in the rucksack. Surprisingly, they will use only female mules as his or her temperament is best suitable for the job. They begin dealing with light loads at about 12 months and have a working duration of 27 - Thirty years. Good mules can cost around 950 and may carry approximately 140kg.
Accommodation around the trek varied from camping, refuges or remaining in a Berber village house. The camping ground sites were often idyllic, usually from the side of the stream or river - ideal for summer swimming - and included a dining tent which provided protection from heat with the sun as well as in the evening shelter in the cold and even occasional rain. In June, once we learned, it's still cold during the night once 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's a large, modern refuge with dormitories of varying sizes, good showers plus a large communal area with roaring fire - essential when we arrived at a snow storm! Our food here was still being prepared by our cook, though we could also buy snacks from your refuge shop. There are stunning views from the refuge up on the Toubkal summit and back down the valley.
One evening we stayed in a Berber village house in Amsouzerte Village. This village, like many about the trek, has no electricity, so lighting and heating (for that showers) was by bottled gas. Again our food was prepared by our very own cook - a tasty chicken tajine - the chicken being bought inside the village. Incidentally, it is possible to spot the villages with electricity as virtually every house has a large white satellite dish about the flat roof, clearly visible while you approach the village.
On another occasion, due to rainwater Jamal arranged for us to settle in a pilgrims' hostel on the shrine of Sidi Chamarouch. This is an odd experience as the shrine attracts many pilgrims who arrive when walking or mule and stay the night time. The shrine is barred to non-Muslims, but fortunately the hostel just isn't! Here as always we used the floor on comfortable sleeping mats that the mules carried. We simply needed to provide our own sleeping-bags - so we were glad we'd brought warm ones. At altitude it is always cold through the night. Sidi Chamarouch, due to the pilgrims and trekkers who go through, is stuffed with small stalls and shops selling snacks, sodas and souvenirs. It absolutely was almost surreal following the barrenness of many with the trek.
high atlas mountains trek
Our three mules carried our food that has been supplemented with fresh foods, particularly eggs, fresh bread and meat, bought in the villages on the way, 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 in support of Lahcen spoke some French.
Breakfast was a young meal and was comprised of a hot drink (tea, coffee with dried milk), bread, jam, chocolate and cheese spreads and honey. This was enough to face at 6.30 each morning! Only then do we set off for your morning's trek.
After our departure the muleteers packed everything up, loaded the mules and would overtake us around the trail and become ready to welcome us, around midday, with mint tea then a freshly prepared picnic lunch - detailed with blankets to take a seat on! Lunch would be a cold buffet, typically pasta, sardines (Morocco is really a major world producer), tuna and salad, and also - Lahcen's speciality - a warm dish of potato, tomato and chick peas or a Moroccan omelette.
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! Then we had the capacity to unwind, explore or talk, often with Jamal concerning 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 is fresh fruit (melon, oranges). No alcohol though, unless you sneak some along 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 have been very easy to acquire lost - yet we'd meet young boys herding goats in remote valleys or on high peaks, miles through the village. On one occasion a boy aged about 14 had seen us from his village inside the valley heading for a pass at 3,500m and had climbed up over 1000m to fulfill us at the top. When we found its way to a biting wind at the summit he'd beaten us and set in a row the six bottles of Coke he previously carried track of him that they hoped we might buy. We did but higher productivity of popularity of his toughness and entrepreneurial spirit than desire for a fizzy drink. He packed away the empties and hang off again on the valley in his Wellingtons.
Once we approached the villages we had 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 kids were herding goats or travelling to school, women were carrying heavy bundles of fodder cut from your fields for that cattle, men were tilling the fields. After we saw an enormous tipper lorry carrying about forty workers returning to their villages. Piece by piece the original Berber way of life is evolving as tracks are widened and become passable to trucks, holes are prepared for electricity pylons and more villages are attached to a mains supply.
But June remains the time of the transhumance for many out in the wild, the upgrading of whole villages from the valleys towards the high summer pastures. We had empty villages being gotten ready for summer occupation. These were encompassed 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 along the valley!
We carried only day packs so when 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 it can be snowy at altitude. Walking poles are extremely useful and good boots required for certainly not per day trek from Imlil. The walking is not so difficult and Jamal made sure that individuals 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 many userful stuff here regarding language, culture, religion, agriculture, family life - and mules! We also discovered that the indigenous fauna of the area includes foxes, rabbits, wild goats and squirrel, but were assured that it is freezing for snakes and scorpions - no less than whenever we have there been!
Many of us suffered to some degree with altitude sickness through the first couple of days. We were glad that when we reached the Toubkal refuge we'd acclimatised, helped by almost daily climbs over passes of more than 3000m by camping at altitude. In the refuge we met another party of walkers who'd walked up from Imlil in a day, a height gain of about 1500m. They weren't experienced or very fit and were struggling with sore feet and altitude sickness. They meant to climb Toubkal the following morning, speculate we discovered, they were not fit or sufficiently and had to descend.
