Sun., Jan. 28, 2018 - High Atlas, Morocco

Atlas Lodge/Gite
Up the mountain from Aroumd
High Atlas Mountains, Morocco

We had seen our next destination, the High Atlas Mountains, from the medina in Marrakech, another reason why that city was remarkable.  Morocco has four mountain ranges: The Riff Mts running east-west along the Mediterranean Sea, The Middle Atlas running in the centre of the country, The High Atlas also in the centre but south of the Middle and the Anti Atlas in the south.  The Middle, High and Anti run parallel and are separated by wide, very flat plains, fertile and green in the north of Marrakech and becoming drier and drier going south until the Sahara.  It's a country that has a remarkable geographic variety in a relatively small area.  Marrakech is considered to be the turning point between north and south.  The Berbers are the majority in the south, living in smaller towns; Arabs in the north in larger cities.

In the foothills.  According to our guide, this was the last painting by Winston Churchill when he was staying in Marrakech after the world.  Apparently, one of his favourite cities.

The outskirts of Marrakech were blanketed by developments of large villas and golf courses, obviously disapproved of by our Berber guide, Samir (and by us).  Samir made it clear that he thought it illogical and irresponsible to irrigate the golf courses on increasingly arid land where water was a scarce resource.  Gradually, we climbed and reached the foothills.  The valleys became steeper with inhospitable but stunning rocky slopes, lightly dusted with snow on the distant peaks.

We arrived in Aroumd, a small but commercial town catering to the hiking tourist who forgot water or almonds or djellaba or maybe sneakers.  A delightful place clinging to the mountainside where we had our first experience of the hole in the porcelain with footpads toilets.  Worked fine.  One must always carry toilet paper!

Beasts of burden are used everywhere in Morocco including the cities, even Marrakech.  Big brown eyes and very patient.

On our way.  Seven layers plus scarf.

And then the hike up to the tiny but tightly packaged town where our guest house was situated.  Two donkeys carried the gear of seventeen people - mind you, we carried only necessities for the night.  Luckily, it was cold as we started out so Peter and I already had on all our layers -seven on top for me, our long underwear - and we chose to include our borrowed sleeping bags - fortuitous!  Two other donkeys carried two of our group who chose not to hike.

A lower village across the gorge from our destination marked about halfway.

Our path was a bit rough.

The village was perched on what our guide called an "artificial" hill created when two ancient glaciers moved down the mountains and left a pile of earth and rocks.  This was a millennium or two ago...Artificial?

Even the donkeys were tired and needed a little help.

Almost there.  The guys of the village were clearing the snow off the trail with picks, brooms and a couple of shovels.  Peter was told not to take photos as we past.  He sneaked this one as we hair pin turned up the slope.

The village was perched on a steep slope with a riverbed in the bottom.  A bridge in the photo way down below was partially built to connect the village to the other side of the river where the school was located.  Unfortunately the bridge wasn't finished so flood days replace our snow days.  Probably more of them.

 On arriving at our "git", elevation 2100 m, we were made welcome by the owner's family, served Moroccan tea - either sweet mint or sweet valerian, much more sugar than tea - on the terrace overlooking the valley.  And then lunch in the dining room, low tables around a room lined with low benches all colourfully decorated with vibrant handmade pillow coverings and tablecloths.

The village streets.  We saw a woman carrying a huge pile of grain/hay? on her back through these rather treacherous and icy paths.

Each town, and the valley was dotted with them in the other direction, had it's own minaret and mosque.  This one was exceptionally narrow and tall. 

The sheep had nice warm coats.  A snowstorm the week before had buried and killed 25 sheep.  An expensive loss for the village.

The photographer is always faster than the group.  One advantage is getting shots of us in the far distance.

Half way stop for freshly squeezed orange juice.  Hat on now!  This vendor had a fire lit in his shelter where we warmed our hands.

The trail, unbelievably had a few shops! More work for those donkeys. This one was closed.

Many of us then headed up the mountain into a threatening snowstorm to a shrine,  elevation 2,800 m, with strict directions from Samir to return immediately with the first snowflake.  We were lead by the high school student of the house who was on holiday.  He told me that the boys and girls in the village attended primary school in the village but the boys left the village for further and further flung towns for middle and high school and then university.  He didn't like his circumstances - 300 boys in a residence of dormitories served by four toilets.  Terrible but worse to me was that the girls only went to primary school.  Samir confirmed that in the mountain villages, this was unfortunately, the case.  Charming young man ably lead us into the snow....and back.

Our highest destination.  This gathering of buildings included a couple of cafes, shops and even places to stay.  The people from the village in which we were staying walked up for the day with supplies and went back to their homes at the end of the day.  Those on pilgrimage to the shrine stayed a day or two.

Up there, somewhere is the highest peak in Morocco (about 4,000m).  A few intrepid Moroccan hikers were putting ice picks on their shoes to climb another four hours to the "hotel" base camp in snow and dark.  

  

The restaurants

The mosque and shrine.  The shrine is the large white painted boulder with flag.  Our guide was uncertain of who it was for but it still attracts many.

We weren't allowed in but hovering outside we could hear drumming and chanting.  Interesting.

Close up of the shrine!  Mysterious.

The patch of brown at the bottom of the picture was the site where the pilgrims sacrifice an animal - sheep or cow - by slitting it's throat.  They then cook it up and eat it.

The showers.

Starting our trek back down.  Snowing hard now.  Soon the path was completely covered in snow.  We were sodden.

Back to the river bed.  Wasn't snowing quite so hard.  Still smiling.

Samir was very relieved to see us appear out of the snow curtain.  Those in our group who hadn't hiked were huddled around the fire, wrapped in blankets.  We joined them for a feast of tajine and salad and veg.  Samir talked to us proudly about his country and upbringing, patiently answering all questions.  A day we would never have experienced travelling on our own.  Some tours are the better way.

Time for bed.  Two very heavy blankets and sleeping bag plus all our layers minus jackets.  Freezing (forecast -11 Celsius) but happy!