Marrakech

We had three days in Marrakech, up from the original plan of two days
and to be honest it was one day too many. There is only so much of
souks, souvenirs and kasbahs one can take in.

The riad which housed us was excellent - a blissful retreat from the
chaos outside; quiet, cool, comfortable; the hostess friendly and
helpful. Hot showers and tea were the first things on our minds after
the long overnight bus ride from Merzouga After getting recharged
such, we hit the streets. The riad was in the old, walled city - the
medina - a 16 sq. km collection of filthy alleyways coated in fresh
horse dung, mostly unmarked with plenty of dead-ends and unintuitive
twists. Yes, you got it, the world's smelliest maze. Then you throw in
the crowds. The streets were barely four persons wide if you stood
shoulder to shoulder, and there must have been at least a bazillion
people walking down any given street at any moment, pushing and
shoving. Then you throw in the frequent bicycle, moped or scooter
travelling at a fair pelt (expecting people to jump out of the way),
the occasional horse carriage or donkey cart, and even the occasional
car ( wing mirrors scraping either side of the street ) and you get
the idea of the brand of chaos I'm talking about. The picture below
does it no justice - this was taken early in the day in the main
square, before the real crowds kicked in. And again, with insane and
aggressive touting, you can see how this quickly became tiresome. The
place really felt medieval, not just for the small streets and chaos,
but also for the peoples' attitudes and the 'wild west' feel. I can
understand now why many folks choose to spend a large part of their
time in Marrakech in the safe confines of their riad - or in the new,
modern and rather anonymous and dull New Town (think large boulevards
and malls).

Anyway, we were adventurous, rubbed shoulders (literally) with the
locals, got in (and out of) some scrapes, tried to out-tout the touts,
saw the sights and usual tourist attractions of the city, etc. (the
museum, menara Islamic college, palaces, main mosque, are all
breathtakingly beautiful pieces of architecture). All in though, by
the last day, we were pretty happy to be leaving. :)

Camels across the Sahara

Given that we had made a decision not to trek back through Todra, we
found ourselves with two extra days going spare. We were always going
to do a camel trek across the Sahara an spend a night in the desert,
we decided to make it two nights.

The Sahara was fun. The dunes are spectacularly other-worldly. And the
camels really sucked! The smelly beasts stank to high heaven and the
worst part is, we could have easily done all of it on foot. Keep in
mind that we are seasoned hikers, perfectly comfortable with
travelling on foot over difficult terrain for many hours, even when
hauling luggage. We just climbed Toubkal, for example! Walking through
the Sahara would have been easy in comparison, and much faster than
the camels. To prove this, I chose to walk on day two, granted I left
my luggage on the camel.

Anyway, the dunes we were on - Erg Chebbi, alongside the tiny village
of Merzouga - is on the western edge of the Sahara and the eastern
edge of Morocco, the Algerian border not far off.

My recommendation for future hikers - don't waste your time with
camels. Don't even waste your time with an organised trek or guides.
As long as you have a compass and know how to use it, you can make
your way into the desert on your own easily enough from Merzouga.
Heading due east in a straight line from Merzouga, you will cross the
entire width of Erg Chebbi in about 3 hours. 1 ~ 2 hours in would be a
great place to set up camp, ideally in a trough between the dunes to
be shielded from the winds. Take a warm sleeping bag, a tent if there
is risk of rain, and lots of water. About 3 litres per person per
day. And enjoy the beautiful and starry night! And remember that the
best time for walking in the desert is between 5am and 10am, when
there is plenty of light and the temperatures not too high. Sunrises
and sunsets are both spectacular when viewed from a high dune.

Anyway, back to our story - we spent one night in the dunes and te
second night in the wastelands just east of Erg Chebbi with a bunch of
nomadic Touareg. Yeah quaint, but ultimately very boring. We had many
hours to kill since we crossed the dunes in record time.

Eventually we crossed Erg Chebbi again to Merzouga, and got the long
overnight bus to Marrakech. Stay tuned for the next - and possibly
final - leg!

The Sahara

Getting out of Todra was tough, particularly after the floods. Or
maybe that was just an excuse. Either way, we couldn't leave the
evening of the floods, as I would have liked, so we stayed another
night. No taxi would go for any reasonable sum of money and we had
missed the only bus of the day. We even missed the bus the next
morning due to delays getting out of the gorge and to the bus terminal
in Tinerhir, but managed to find an alternate, indirect bus that
involved changing buses halfway. The main thing is that we were on
our way!

The bus journey was visually spectacular. All sorts of changing
terrain, from high mountain passes to lonely desert landscapes. Shame
about the smells - these local buses stank! - and the touting. More
about the touting in another post, as I promised before. But yes,
horrible smells, crowded and sweaty, a bus driver that drove part of
the way with the door open to ventilate the bus, and a kid that threw
up on Ted. And the kid's mom who stole Ted's water to wash the kid.

The bus got us to the desert village of Rissani, where we had to
haggle our way through a small gang of taxi drivers to get a ride to
Merzouga, where we had booked accomodation. This much fabled Chez
Isabelle was what we had to look forward to - our oasis of normalcy in
this desert of crazy heat, aggressive touting and bad odours. Perhaps
it didn't live up to it's reputation, but in relation to all else, it
was just what we needed.

We spent a night in Merzouga, a little village alongside bright orange
sand dunes. We decided to head to the dunes soon after we put our bags
down and got some lunch in us. Amazing stuff! Sand so fine that you
can clearly see the tracks of even the smallest insects. And then the
storm hit. Probably a continuation of the same storm that brought on
the flash floods the day before; this storm whipped up sand and
blasted us with hot, heavy rain and high winds. Great fun! We walked
back an hour or so later, soaked to the bone. As darkness fell the
storm worsened and lightning lit up the sky above the dunes.

After getting dry, we whiled the evening away over good dates, a
tagine and a drumming session with our hosts. A combination of a
djembe, a tom tom and a small Moroccan goatskin drum, called something
I can not remember.

Todra

After the crazy-long coach ride, we arrive at Tinerhir close to 11pm.
We call our hosts at the hotel in the gorge and they come out to get
us. Too dark to see much, but in the morning we wake up to
breathtaking views of the gorge, right outside our window!

Very excited about three dedicated days of climbing here!

So after sleeping in a bit and a big breakfast, we walk through the
gorge. Huge 300m walls, beautiful rock, perfect temperatures. Most
routes are 4 - 5 pitches, and on average the grades are around F6a. We
did find several good routes between the F4 ~ F5+ range too though,
good warm-ups. I find that routes here tend to be overgraded, in that
an F5 has been given too high a grade and it really ought to be an F4.

Anyway, here's the tragedy: with all this beautiful climbing around
us, we only managed a lone, single-pitch 20m F4 (warmup) before the
rains began. And wow did it rain. A while after the rains stopped, a
flash flood raged through the gorge, filling it up and partially
breaking the paved road passing through. I will post a video of the
flood when I get to a real computer.

So that killed our climbing, and with forecasts of more rain for the
coming days, we decided to short-circuit the climbing and head to the
desert first. The excessive touting and ghastly hotel helped our
decision too, but that's subject for another post!

En route to Tinerhir

This and the next few posts are in retrospect, due to poor connectivity.

We left Marrakech in an unexpectedly high standard coach. Passed
through some breathtaking scenery, complete with desert vistas and
high mountain passes. A wild and beautiful country.

The bus stopped to break fast (we're in the middle of Ramadan, and the
faithful pray and eat at dusk). This picture is of dusk over the vast
and flat expanses.

The long bus ride to Tinehir

So this morning was easy. Slept in, had a big breakfast and headed out
of the Atlas mountains to Marrakech. Here is a pic of the streets,
while waiting for our bus to Tinehir. The 8 hour busride should be
fun ...

Summiting Toubkal

(posted a day late due to poor Internet connectivity)

What a day. Really early start at 4am for a quick breakfast, and a
planned departure at 4.30am to try and summit Toubkal and get all the
way back down into the valley for the night, 2200m below the summit.

We ended up leaving an hour late, waiting out a raging storm, all
huddled in the mountain refuge. The climb started well, with all three
of us moving strong and fast, in the dark using flashlights. About
3500m, the ground was covered in snow and frost, and the terrain
slowed us a little. Ted and I both felt some of the effects of the
altitude, oddly Nushi was fine.

From about 3900m though the going got really hard for me, feeling
mild Acute Mountain Sickness symptoms including dizzyness, nausea and
mild headaches. I decided to press on slowly all the same, given how
close we were to the summit.

Nushi was having a hard time too, dealing with the fatigue of a steep,
strenuous and unabated climb. Ted was doing great and after pacing
himself, got over any altitude effects he originally felt and raced up
to the top with Nushi and I following about half an hour later. 4187m,
we've arrived! :) We then proceeded to make great time descending, and
almost met overall guidebook times despite the setbacks. Literally
running down in places.

Stopped at the refuge on the way back for a short break of hot tea,
soup and bread before we started the long descent back to the valley.

Utterly exhausted at the end of the day, but strangely not as tired as
yesterday. Nobody's 'broken' as such, and we're all feeling superhuman
after conquering the highest mountain in north africa!