In April I went on a nine day trip to Morocco, most of it spent hiking in the Atlas mountains near Marrakesh. I had a really good time and enjoyed myself.
From Marrakesh you can see the mountains, some of which are
upwards 4000 m high and with snow covered peaks, which I sort
of hadn't expected considering the climate in Marrakesh, so the
trip for our group started out in a mini-bus with the goal
already in sight.
Our baggage, except for the small daypack with what you
needed during the day, was carried together with mattresses,
the food and kitchen equipment
by mules and a donkey
(five in all)
who plodded along steadily
and usually didn't go the same route as us tourists.
The Atlas mountains may seem pretty remote and inaccessible,
and of course parts of them are, but where we walked practically
all land was either planted or grazed, so we hardly saw any
wild animals except for birds.
But we
of course met sheep,
goats and cattle.
In all, we were ten Scandinavian tourists with one Swedish tour
leader, one guide from a local company (but he is born and lives
at 2000 m altitude in the mountains), a guide who owned the pack
animals and (I think) the dogs who sometimes followed us, sometimes
the baggage and the cook.
We started the hiking the first day down on the plain, and
followed sometimes dry water courses, but just as often
up and down across the ridges to come to the first village
we were to stay, but already on the second day we came
to a respectable altitude, with a view of where we had been.
We started the walk the day before in the upper left corner
of the photo below, close to the water reservoir.
The usual breakfast was black tea, bread, jam, marmalade,
margarine, cheese, dry milk powder, müsli, chocolate drink
powder, coffe powder and perhaps a bit more.
Three or four of the first was enough for me usually.
In all we stayed in three different villages, one the first
and last night, and one from which we "only" made a day trip.
At night we could of course hear dogs and donkeys (in one case
they and the mules were housed in the room below ours), but
in the morning one could also
listen to birds.
One in the group, plus the guide, was a birdwatcher who woke
up earlier in the morning every day in order to see as many
kinds as possible.
After breakfast hiking started, earlier and earlier as the guides
noticed we weren't as fast as some of the other groups they had.
I think the plans were for 4 to 5 hours walking every day, but
some days that wasn't quite enough for us, so a bit more than
6 hours was closer to the real time. But we didn't have any
times to meet, so it didn't matter.
The landscape was very varied. These three views are all from
the same day before lunch, which was the part of the trip when
we were at the highest altitude, which was about 1900 m (both
according to GPS and the not very detailed map).
Around noon, or a bit later, every day we stopped for
lunch at a place where the cook and the two muleteers
had prepared a place.
Very nice with a bit of shade and sitting down to rest,
as we didn't take too many long rest stops during the
walking, and even if it didn't look like a long distance
on the map we walked perhaps 10 km before and 10 km after
lunch, and a great number of altitude meters up and down.
Lunch always started with mint tea with lots of sugar.
Quite popular, and several of us inquired about how to
get and make it at home and at least one of us planned
on purchasing a typical tea pot to bring home.
The lunch itself was always "cold" which meant it was
always mostly sliced vegetables like red onion, ,
tomato, cucumber, black olives and some variations from
day to day, all with perhaps some kind of fish.
After eating one could have still more mint tea, usually
very fresh oranges,
sit and rest and talk,
as it was so hot we usually didn't start walking again until
about half past two.
During the more organised water drinking and rest stops during the way
we were offered something to eat out of the bag with peanuts, raisins,
dates and the like.
All the houses we stayed at were similar in that they had a totally
enclosed open yard in the middle, partially roofed over, where
we had breakfast and dinner, sitting on the mattresses. If someone
wonders about the red nose it's because of the sun and the fact
that I didn't look at myself in a mirror, so I didn't have very
good control on where I got too much sun and had too little protection.
Does it show I'm a bit exhausted and is waiting for the mint tea?
The food was cooked
in a small room next to the open space by the cook who naturally thought
it was a stupid question if he ever cooked food at home. Among the berbers
it's naturally not something a man can do, but doing it for tourists is a
real job, so then it's OK.
Dinner itself
was always started with soup, then some stew mostly with vegetables
and a bit of meat, and with that cous cous (good!), rice, spaghetti and
last night we almost got chips, but we protested and said cous cous
was better -- and to finish it some fruit.
This one's the boss dog, or whatever one can call him. Like all
dogs there he didn't have a name. He became friends with me, but
I would like to point out that I never gave him the smallest bit
to eat.
After the hiking, it was back to Marrakesh (or rather 7 km outside)
and the hotel for two nights and a day of resting.
Quite nice to sit outside in the garden and
listen to the birdsong.
The last night we were to take a couple of taxis (either small ones for three passengers or "large" (ordinary Mercedeses) for six passengers), but not many were passing and the phones were out, so we had to take a bus instead. The first one to pass went practically all the way to exactly the place we were having dinner.
After dinner we took a short (because we had to leave the hotel at 0500 the next morning) trip to the market square. I didn't understand anything of what the story tellers did and said, but they did have a sizable audience.
Urban