We took a day trip to Imlil - the base camp of the 2nd highest mountain in Africa - Jebel Toubkal. Our trip was organized through an excursion company - Sahara Rouge. They were pretty sketchy. They wanted all our money up front, in cash, and were a little put out when we asked of what the trip consisted. The employee said that it included a certified guide, the trip, and lunch. We found out that it was not necessarily true - but it was an amazing time anyway!
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| Jebel Toubkal |
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| The mountain we climbed! |
Imlil is about 2.5 hours away from Marrakech so we took a minibus there. The drive was very pretty and a lot like our bus ride through Ecuador to the rainforest - steep ledges, rock slides, and all. It was cool to see the dessert fall away into the forest. On the way there we saw a camel! The views were beautiful. We get to Imlil and a bunch of men mob the bus. Our driver looks out and basically says...um, that guy. We, again, are confused and ask the driver if the guide is included. He seemed offended but said that he would pay the guide.
We start the hike through Imlil dodging donkeys, horses, puddles, etc. We saw beautiful waterfalls and many shoppers enticed us to buy their goods. Luckily, we did not take them up because we were walking a long way up the mountain. In the little villages, we saw a goat stampede and had tea in a Berber Village high above the valley. After a brief respite, we decided to hike to the top of a mountain (not Jebel Toubkal).
The hike was hard - espescially in sneakers. The altitude got to all of us a bit. Our guide was probably about 50 years old and did the hike in dress pants and dress shoes. He hopped from rock to rock singing while we were all huffing and puffing. He may have been part goat. I hope I never forget him singing in Berber and clapping along while skipping along the crazy mountain trail.
The view from the top was beautiful and well worth it! We shared our path with brown and white grazing horses. The hike down was a bit scary, lots of loose rocks, steep slides etc. When we finally got to a road we were so happy!
At the end, we gave our guide a tip of 200 dirham (about 20 euros) he seemed very upset but when I told him the driver was going to pay him he was very happy. Again, a bit sketchy since the driver did not tell the guide he would be paying him. After a crazy expensive super touristy lunch, we drove back to Marrakech.
That night was our last night all together in Marrakech. We went to D'jemma for a bit to play the coke bottle fishing game. There are a bunch of bottles set up and they give you a fishing pole with a ring attached to the end of the line. You have to get the ring around the top of the bottle. The boys probably played this game for an hour. Both nights. We took Eric to the souks to do some shopping and had a huge Moroccan meal at our Riad. It was a wonderful night with great people! Marrakech was amazing and I would love to go back! The food, the ambiance, the people - it was awesome!
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| The fishing game. |
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| Take 1 - our awesome dinner. |
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| Take 2 - the other side of our awesome dinner. |
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