Monday, June 25, 2007
Day One; Marrakesh to Aremd
Right... day one- Monday 11th June, Marrakesh to Aremd;
Saturday was spent travelling, after quite an uneventful flight I arrived at Marrakesh airport and met our tour leader, Ali, a local guy who spoke excellent English (as well as Berber, his first language, and French!)
There were 10 of us on the tour; me, Sandra, a very fit lady in her 60's who I met at Heathrow, four men, and two couples, one couple were from the states. All very nice people.
We had Monday morning free in Marrakesh, but couldn't go too far as we had to be ready for departure at 12.30pm. Me and Sandra had a walk around and found a park full of pretty trees and plants.
The traffic in Marrakesh is mad, and you take your life in your hands crossing the roads- eventually we were to learn that the most effective way was to spot the locals and follow them across the road! There are lots of cyclists and scooter riders, complete with helmets slung onto the handlebars.
Marrakesh; The City Walls
We were driven to a cafe overlooking the impressive Koutobia minaret for lunch, I am afraid to say I had omelette and chips! Then we faced a two hour drive, over switch back roads and hairpin bends, through the mountains to the hamlet of Imlil.
Imlil has a real 'Wild West' feel to it; tumbledown houses, mule hiring yards and locals riding mules and donkeys up and down the streets. We had around an hour's wals to our first night stop, Aremd. It wasn't hard walking, we had quite a gentle climb up to the road that led to the hamlet.
Aremd Village
Our first night was to be spent in the village 'gite'- basically a house with rooms, all with matresses on the floor for sleeping bags, a room for eating, a kitchen and showers downstairs, and a large roof terrace plus toilets upstairs. Basic and crumbling, but adequate. Once settled in, we had the first of many afternoon refreshments of mint tea; Moroccans love their mint tea, made with green tea and fresh mint, plus lots of sugar!
After this we had a mooch round the village... what an eye opener! Really does make you appreciate what we have in the West... the houses are very basic; just mud and brick walls, with crude wooden doorframes and ill fitting wood or metal doors. Often there are very small windows without glass, and flat roofs which form terraces for the houses above. Livestock is kept on the ground floor of the houses, and the women and children drive them to the fields to graze during the day. The women must also gather long grass, which they carry on their backs to be dried out on the roofs for winter feed.
There is often no electricity, running water or toilet facilities. Very few houses have tv's. There are no roads or streets, just rocky paths between houses. People use mules as we use cars. Most people are friendly, but quite often we were followed by children calling "Bonjour? Dirham? Un stylo?" (pen) we had been warned not to give them anything but some were quite persistent.
Berber Houses
View of Jebel Toukbal (right) from Aremd
Saturday was spent travelling, after quite an uneventful flight I arrived at Marrakesh airport and met our tour leader, Ali, a local guy who spoke excellent English (as well as Berber, his first language, and French!)
There were 10 of us on the tour; me, Sandra, a very fit lady in her 60's who I met at Heathrow, four men, and two couples, one couple were from the states. All very nice people.
We had Monday morning free in Marrakesh, but couldn't go too far as we had to be ready for departure at 12.30pm. Me and Sandra had a walk around and found a park full of pretty trees and plants.
The traffic in Marrakesh is mad, and you take your life in your hands crossing the roads- eventually we were to learn that the most effective way was to spot the locals and follow them across the road! There are lots of cyclists and scooter riders, complete with helmets slung onto the handlebars.
Marrakesh; The City WallsWe were driven to a cafe overlooking the impressive Koutobia minaret for lunch, I am afraid to say I had omelette and chips! Then we faced a two hour drive, over switch back roads and hairpin bends, through the mountains to the hamlet of Imlil.
Imlil has a real 'Wild West' feel to it; tumbledown houses, mule hiring yards and locals riding mules and donkeys up and down the streets. We had around an hour's wals to our first night stop, Aremd. It wasn't hard walking, we had quite a gentle climb up to the road that led to the hamlet.
Aremd VillageOur first night was to be spent in the village 'gite'- basically a house with rooms, all with matresses on the floor for sleeping bags, a room for eating, a kitchen and showers downstairs, and a large roof terrace plus toilets upstairs. Basic and crumbling, but adequate. Once settled in, we had the first of many afternoon refreshments of mint tea; Moroccans love their mint tea, made with green tea and fresh mint, plus lots of sugar!
After this we had a mooch round the village... what an eye opener! Really does make you appreciate what we have in the West... the houses are very basic; just mud and brick walls, with crude wooden doorframes and ill fitting wood or metal doors. Often there are very small windows without glass, and flat roofs which form terraces for the houses above. Livestock is kept on the ground floor of the houses, and the women and children drive them to the fields to graze during the day. The women must also gather long grass, which they carry on their backs to be dried out on the roofs for winter feed.
There is often no electricity, running water or toilet facilities. Very few houses have tv's. There are no roads or streets, just rocky paths between houses. People use mules as we use cars. Most people are friendly, but quite often we were followed by children calling "Bonjour? Dirham? Un stylo?" (pen) we had been warned not to give them anything but some were quite persistent.
Berber Houses
View of Jebel Toukbal (right) from AremdThere were wonderful views of Jebel Toukbal from the terrace; each morning was clear and sunny, and it quickly became very hot. Later on in the afternoon, the peaks would cloud over, but the cloud would clear again during the night. I didn't see a drop of rain all fortnight- then come back to Britain and gales, rain and flood warnings!!
Labels: Aremd, High Atlas, Morocco, trekking
