Words about Toubkal
When I posted pictures last time my keyboard quit working half way through, so I just was working with the mouse and didn't feel like cutting & pasting to get words. Probably okay because I couldn't figure out how to get my keyboard off of the french keyboard anyway and it was slow typing. Now I'm back on an English keyboard so things should go faster. The dude sitting next to me in on his fourth beer and probably fifth cigarette so I might not stick around too long!
The pictures don't do the Toubkal area justice. It was so beautiful. The best I can describe it is that it's the kind of terrain that I would imagine for the David & Goliath Bible story. Huge rocks, steep mountains, herds of goats and sheep wandering around, hot and dry with sparse vegetation. Surprisingly there was still patches of snow in some of the creek valleys... not what I was expecting in North Africa. We caught a taxi from Marrakesh to Imelil on friday, checked into a hotel to ditch most of our stuff and hiked in to the Toubkal refuge that afternoon. I say "took a taxi" and "checked into a hotel" but you have to translate these yourself into Moroccan experiences. Not how you'd do it in the US.
When we got the the Refuge- run by the French Alpine club and way nicer than any backcountry hut I've been in before... running water and even one western style toilet instead of the ubiquitous hole-in-the-floor. They also did breakfast and dinner for you if you wanted (which we did). Arriving at the refuge was like dropping into a cosmopolitan airport hub... there were people from all over the world speaking all kinds of languages. Of course the Moroccans who worked at the refuge all spoke 5 or 6 languages. The Moroccqn capacity for language astounds me and has created a whole new definition for me about what is a reasonable number of languages to learn (more than I know now!). Spanish seemed to be the dominant language of the day and Cammie and I quickly suffocated all the French we knew by spending the entire evening visiting with the spaniards. We even got an invite to come with one of the groups to Todra Gorge for some rock climbing the next day. Well, Cammie got the invite, those blondes get all the attention. (& we didn't go.)
The next morning we impressed everyone who noticed by reaching the summit in two hours. Not actually that impressive but we seemed to be a step above the typical tourists fitness-wise. It was a long trip back down to Imelil, mostly because Cammie was sick so we had to stop a lot (Cammie's perfectly healthy at the time of writing this). But at Imelil we had our hotel (One of the Berber houses in an upper valley that rented rooms along with dinner & breakfast) and our host, or rather some mysterious women whom we didn't meet, cooked us a tagine for dinner. Probably the best tagine I'd ever had at that point. Then again, every tagine has been the best I've ever had so far.
Our next destination was Tafraout. We didn't know anyone who'd ever been there and it was far away but we decided it seemed like a place we would like.
Okay, I've been officially smoked outta here. More later.
The pictures don't do the Toubkal area justice. It was so beautiful. The best I can describe it is that it's the kind of terrain that I would imagine for the David & Goliath Bible story. Huge rocks, steep mountains, herds of goats and sheep wandering around, hot and dry with sparse vegetation. Surprisingly there was still patches of snow in some of the creek valleys... not what I was expecting in North Africa. We caught a taxi from Marrakesh to Imelil on friday, checked into a hotel to ditch most of our stuff and hiked in to the Toubkal refuge that afternoon. I say "took a taxi" and "checked into a hotel" but you have to translate these yourself into Moroccan experiences. Not how you'd do it in the US.
When we got the the Refuge- run by the French Alpine club and way nicer than any backcountry hut I've been in before... running water and even one western style toilet instead of the ubiquitous hole-in-the-floor. They also did breakfast and dinner for you if you wanted (which we did). Arriving at the refuge was like dropping into a cosmopolitan airport hub... there were people from all over the world speaking all kinds of languages. Of course the Moroccans who worked at the refuge all spoke 5 or 6 languages. The Moroccqn capacity for language astounds me and has created a whole new definition for me about what is a reasonable number of languages to learn (more than I know now!). Spanish seemed to be the dominant language of the day and Cammie and I quickly suffocated all the French we knew by spending the entire evening visiting with the spaniards. We even got an invite to come with one of the groups to Todra Gorge for some rock climbing the next day. Well, Cammie got the invite, those blondes get all the attention. (& we didn't go.)
The next morning we impressed everyone who noticed by reaching the summit in two hours. Not actually that impressive but we seemed to be a step above the typical tourists fitness-wise. It was a long trip back down to Imelil, mostly because Cammie was sick so we had to stop a lot (Cammie's perfectly healthy at the time of writing this). But at Imelil we had our hotel (One of the Berber houses in an upper valley that rented rooms along with dinner & breakfast) and our host, or rather some mysterious women whom we didn't meet, cooked us a tagine for dinner. Probably the best tagine I'd ever had at that point. Then again, every tagine has been the best I've ever had so far.
Our next destination was Tafraout. We didn't know anyone who'd ever been there and it was far away but we decided it seemed like a place we would like.
Okay, I've been officially smoked outta here. More later.
Labels: Morocco
posted by LAV at 06:03
3 Comments:
Nice despatches, LAV. Come across any Sufi musicians so far? And about that Augustine dude... with that one word I believe you have the cure for the dry writing. Don't know if you intended it, but it came out hilarious.
:)
And I met someone who spoke russian the other day and was psyched to be able to pull out my few russian words... you'll have to teach me some more sometime!
Oh, yeah? Very good, impressed you remember! Budding polyglot, aren't you :)
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