September 12 2010 / Atlas Mountains, Morocco

I woke up only once, which was actually pretty incredible, because I had fallen asleep on my back, and when I opened my eyes the stars had changed positions dramatically and the milky way was now diagonal instead of horizontal.  So that was pretty amazing.  After that I crashed out again until about 6:30, when everyone was called awake to get some breakfast of stale-ish bread.  I was happy enough with it.  Afterwards we packed up and thanked who I think was the man who owned the house all individually.  He asked me in French if I was married, and when I said no he said to come back when I was married.  He was so kind and funny.  :D 

A note about the bathroom situation: there is no such thing as toilet paper in Morocco.  You just have to bring your own and hope that works.  Oftentimes, there is also no toilet at all, and there’s just a hole in the ground.  I used the hole once.  Not a fan.  I also didn’t bring toilet paper so I relied heavily on other people’s tissue donations and hand sanitizer.  I was not prepared for that. 

The mules were packed up once more with our backpacks and the first group left around 7, 7:30.  It was so incredibly amazing, because the mountains were just covered in this blanket of fog, and the sun wasn’t out yet.  The stones all looked very pinkish and white, and I definitely enjoyed getting up earlier so I could enjoy the coolness of the air.  We passed small villages with a valley on one side of us, tons of goats and sheep speckled below us. 

The guides had told us that we were going to go in a sort of M shape through the Atlas Mountains—up the mountain, down, then up, and down.  Well, let me tell you this right now—we did not do an M.  It was more like a MMMMM.  While yesterday was purely desert, today was purely mountain terrain that had not been paved or made safe or anything.  We literally climbed along crumbling slate mountain deer paths that were a foot and a half across with a huge drop to our right during the first hour.  I wasn’t too scared, but the guy in front of me was apparently terrified of heights.  Still, the terrain and the view was incredibly gorgeous—I took so many photos, because I just know I can’t do it justice in words.  It was definitely the most exhausting hike ever.  When we saw the second group walking along the dry riverbed below us, we were pretty grumpy—they were totally cheaters!  Still, they probably didn’t get the incredible experience that we did.  We also walked through several more villages, the people there stopping to stare or greet us, depending on how they felt. 

After a couple of hours, we stopped inside this pine forest to rest—our first rest.  Group one is definitely exhausting, but I’m not complaining about it or anything.  I’m really taking it upon myself to not be a whiner.  We ate some Moroccan trail mix (dried figs and dates, peanuts, little dried bread things) and admired the forest—it was so bright green.  Aside from the desert shrubbery, when there is green in the mountains, it is REALLY green.  At that point we were on top of one of the mountains, which was pretty incredible because there was nothing but blue sky above us instead of more mountains to climb.  At one point, we ran into a very strange house—it was built with bricks and was actually rectangular, with solar panels, pens for its cows, and pepper and tomato gardens.  This must had been a summer home for some wealthy European, because there was no way that it was part of any of the villages we walked through.  It was still pretty interesting to see though.  At that part we were on a fire road or what seemed like it.  It was much wider and a lot more gently downhill.  Still, to the side of us you could see Africa stretched out as far as the eye could see, with little towns here and there.  I wondered which one was Marrakech and where we had started from.

We kept going for three and a half hours—it would have taken us five if we had taken breaks like normal people, but we booked it hard.  It definitely wasn’t easy, and I was absolutely dying.  We climbed through tunnels practically made of cactus and lept across gorges.  We also found the only water hole in all of Africa.  I said “The water hole? What’s so great about the water hole?” and no one got it, which was tragic. 

We arrived at our lunch spot at 11:30, four hours after we started.  It was a little forest besides the path, with a great bike open spot perfect to lay blankets down for food.  But of course, just  because we had hiked hard didn’t mean everyone else did.  The last group got in TWO HOURS later than us for lunch—and they didn’t even have any lifelong learners with them!  But anyway, we munched on some of the same vegetable salad, some plain pasta, and some fish.  There was the spicy tuna like last time and there was also what looked like whole sardines, assumedly just out of the can.  I popped one in my mouth and was not a fan, but then again, I’m not really into fish.  The donkeys frequently decided to talk to each other in loud, semi-hysterical brays.

We stayed there for another hour after lunch so that the mules could rest, so I took an orange that hadn’t been eaten and cut it in half, wanting to offer it as my thanks for them carrying all of my stuff—they were troopers.  It was funny seeing one of them slurp one up, juice dripping from his mouth, and another one wandered over to me for the other piece.  I made two friends, haha.  I kind of rested my eyes while people threw orange peels at each other (that’s what college kids do, apparently), but then we were up and away.  This was nice because we only had one hour to hike now, and after hiking up a mountain we were basically free to walk along this fairly stable dirt road to the next village.  This one seemed a little bit larger—there was a minaret in this one, which was pretty neat.  The traveler’s home we were at in this town had THREE stories and two traitorous roofs, though they needed people to go over to a smaller house with two roofs, so I went over there with a couple of other people.  Once again I set up my mat outside on the roof, and was really excited to just dangle my legs over the side of the roof and watch goats be herded by beneath me.  A couple of us played a card game called Phase Ten which was incredibly fun and I think I will have to pick it up at home.  Nearby, a little girl was singing in Arabic.  Someone said that she was singing passages from the Quran, which was just… incredible. 

I went to dinner at the opposite house when it grew dark, which was lamb and bread (even staler) as well as some roasted carrots and potatoes, which were great.  I sat with some lifelong learners this time around and had a good time just quietly listening to conversation.  I’ve become more comfortable with not being super active in a conversation.  Afterwards we had some delicious yellow melon, which seems to be everywhere in Morocco but I’ve never seen it before, and then I headed back over to our houses to prepare for the night with my mat and pillow and covers.  Dasha, Steve and I stayed up for a little while talking and looking at the stars together, but we quickly fell asleep—we’d had an exhausting day.  :)