Having imbibed more culture than a pot of yoghurt left out in the sun we left Marrakech just before I decided to launch my own fashion line. Our destination; the Atlas Mountains.
Our gallant minibus ground up hills and around hairpins, climbing ever higher until it shuddered to a halt in a small village.
“We’ve arrived,” I thought.
“We walk from here,” announced our guide.
Apparently the village we were staying at was further up and could only be accessed by foot. Our luggage was loaded onto mules (they were on foot too) who set off at a deceptively slow pace. They would comfortably beat us to the destination.
The path upward started at a deceptively gentle gradient. Irrigation channels carried snowmelt past us and through what looked like bush but was probably farms. Walnut trees were one of the crops grown. We weren’t the only ones making the trip, our route was essentially the only street leading in our direction and so there were others also making their way up.
After teasing us which gentle slopes and smooth surfaces for the first few hundred metres the path got rougher steeper and rockier and the gasps of the less fit (me) grew louder as we struggled ever upward. Finally our guide pointed at an imposing building at the top of a particularly vertiginous climb.
“Is that where we’re staying?” I asked more in hope than expectation, I know how this works now. The guide pooh poohed such a naive thought but did acknowledge that the gite we were staying at was just behind it. With the salt of my sweat mingling indistinguishably with my tears of despair we continued.
Eventually we arrived at the village of Aroumd where we would be staying for the night. We were just in time for lunch. To add some context another tour group arrived at 2.30 in the morning and they were just in time for dinner.
We were staying in a gite, a family run home stay/guesthouse which afforded spectacular views of the High Atlas. While there I felt something I hadn’t felt before in Morocco, cool.
With lunch disposed of the question arose of what to do with the rest of the day. Some four kilometres further up the same mountain was the shrine of Sidi Chamharouch. Visiting it would be a four hour return trip. The younger and fitter amongst us were keen and some of those who were older and putatively wiser decided to go along as well. For reasons I can’t begin to explain I was one of them.
Off we set pointing our noses at the heavens while our feet tried to avoid the mule crap. The path was narrow, rocky and mules had right of way which required a certain amount of cliff hugging from time to time. The aforementioned youngsters capered ahead bounding from rock to rock and finding the time to chatter amongst themselves the while. The only reasons they weren’t murdered by the older travellers were a) they were out of reach and b) sheer physical incapacity. The journey was gruelling but the scenery was stupendous, the air was crisp and there was a guy with an espresso machine partway up the mountain. I visited on both the outward end return journeys.
The shrine itself was a little underwhelming but its location, high in the mountains with a stream gushing through was superb. I allowed myself a feeling of triumph and took photos to prove I had made it. Then it came time for the trip back down. This was if anything even worse as much of the path was loose rock and needed to be taken with extreme care if you didn’t want to descend the mountain at a rate unconducive to good health. One of the other shall we say, more mature travellers and I helped each other over the difficult bits (most of it) and eventually we arrived physically exhausted in the village of Aroumd for the second time that day.
I think that the help was all one way Neil. I couldn't have done it without you!
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