Atlas Shrugged: Hiking in the High Atlas Mountains, Morocco

Let me begin this story with a little bit of advice – no matter what anyone tells you, do not, I repeat, DO NOT, do the Toubkal trek in the Moroccan High Atlas mountains!!! My guidebook says all you need are some good hiking shoes. Let me tell you, that is a load of crap. It’s more like all you need is a penchant for misery, a masochistic personality, and a helmet. Of course, out of all things miserable and difficult come many laughs, which is how Renee and I decided to deal with the situation. It was either that or cry.

It began innocently enough. We hired a car to take us from Marrakesh to Imlil, where a guide met us to take us to Armd, the Berber village where we were spending the first night. That was only an hour walk uphill, not bad. For those of you who don’t know, Berbers are the indigenous mountain people of North Africa. They live in mud-like houses, and their major form of transportation are mules, which are essential for transporting goods up the steep mountain. The women carry scythes around their necks and sing while they walk, songs that sound almost like Native American music, with very high pitched voices. The children, while cute, obviously learn from a very young age that the most important words are “One Durham (the Moroccan money), Madam”, and then they ask for anything they see on you – your necklace, chocolate, pocket knife, water, anything. By the end, Renee and I were ready to drop kick one of these kids.

The night in the Berber village was fun. We were rooming with a neurotic, Jewish Canadian guy who was fascinated with death and reminded us of Woody Allen. He was a psychology professor in Vancouver, and boy, I bet he is messing up a lot of his students’ minds. He thought he was dying from the heat in Marrakesh. Oy vey! We shared an existential conversation with him, along with learning about Berber culture from some of the guides who were hanging around the house. We learned, for instance, that most Berber men are named Mohammed or Ibrahim. That must get rather confusing. One of the guides, who definitely liked the ladies, informed us that Berbers have nothing to do but “be snug as a bug in a rug” and that’s why there are so many children. Another favorite quote of his is “no hurry, no worry, no chicken curry”. We were in a little bit of a hurry to get away from him!

We ended up having to pay off our guide NOT to be our guide since we didn’t want him accompanying us the whole way and acting as a babysitter, which is what they seem to think is part of their job. He would barely let us buy our own food. So, the next morning we started off alone at 7 am. Of course, we got lost right away and spent a half hour going up and down the side of the hill before some women finally set us on the right path.

The first stop would be the marabout (a North African saint) shrine, one and a half hours up. By the time I got there, I was already beat and not happy. It was a very steep climb – remember, we are climbing the highest mountain in North Africa. In fact, this range of the High Atlas had been used as a substitute for the Himalayas in the movie “Kundun”. However, there were no snow capped peaks this year, so Renee and I were a little disappointed – we were so far not impressed with the beauty. It was rock, rock, and more rock. Barely a tree.

Our stop for the day would be the refuge, a type of hostel five hours up the mountain. By the time we got there, I was ready to forego climbing to the summit the next morning. This hike was bloody HARD!!! We had to stop every 20 minutes to rest, and unlike others who had rented a mule, we were carrying our own packs and sleeping bags. However, the refuge did turn out to be the best part, as we once again encountered an international cast of characters. Our saviours were two Swiss guys who took pity on us and gave us lots of their food. One was of Moroccan Jewish descent and had lived in Israel and now New York, and the other owned a surfer hotel in Playa Negra, Costa Rica. There was also two Welsh girls who giggled and ate non-stop and we couldn’t understand a word they said; a French Indian who lived in a cave and had gone to UCLA and Berkeley and told us “to be one with the mountain”; another Swiss guy who had biked from Alaska to Baja California; and an American with his Japanese girlfriend who were traveling around the world for two years.

The next morning we all rose at 5:30 to begin the ascent to the peak. I should have trusted my instincts and turned around in the first 10 minutes, while the gettin’ was good. While at the time we thought going up was hard, it was nothing compared to the descent. There was not one solid place on that whole freakin’ mountain; it was all rocks and scree. Descending was like snowboarding down a hill of rock with only your shoes for your board. That mountain is not meant to be climbed by anyone. Self realization made while on the mountain: I am not a billy goat. Second: I was not a Berber in a former life. Third: I wanted off that mountain BAD!

To sum up and spare you all our pain, it took Renee and I over 11 hours to finally get all the way down to Imlil. It was never ending, and by the end our knees were throbbing from walking downhill for so long. Our only satisfaction was from passing tourists who were on their way up the mountain, relishing in the fact that we were not them and they were about to experience hell. Our ride back to Marrakesh was fitting also – we ended up in a vegetable van crammed in on wooden benches with 25 other people. It smelled, but then I realized we were probably contributing to the smell since we had been wearing the same clothes for three days. The loud Berber music playing in the tape recorder was perfect for the moment. Renee and I like to call those instances “screen saver moments”.

As with everything, it finally came to an end, and the next day, by 5pm, we were in the wonderful beach town of Essaouira, where we would spend five relaxing days. Besides needing a little R&R, our visit was long in order to stay for the international music festival that happens here every summer.

Essaouira is all white and blue, a reflection of the sea and the sky. It is called “the happy city” and there is a reason. While it gets super windy here, and is one of the windsurfing capitals of the world, it is a beautiful place. I can see why Cat Stevens and Jimmie Hendrix did not want to leave this town. Our hotel overlooks the Portuguese ramparts and cannons. This morning we treated ourselves to a hammam, a Turkish bath. Nothing quite like big Arab women rubbing you down!!! You should have seen the dirt that came off us. It was quite the experience.

Please don’t think the Toubkal trek has marred my experience in Morocco, I still had an amazing time. Renee and I sum it up this way – it can’t get any worse than that.