All together!

Mackenzie, Matt and Cathryn had a fabulous three nights in the village of Imlil in the Atlas Mountains. At 6,000 feet elevation, the town has 1,800 residents, and our hostel was about 5 minutes further up the mountain from town.  We spent one day hiking most of the way to the Base Camp of the tallest mountain in North Africa (12,000 feet), a rocky promontory with few other features.  We stopped at a shrine for cokes kept cold in a stream. 

The second day we hired a local guide, Ibrahim, to take us on a 27 kilometer (he said, though we thought maybe closer to 23 kilometers) loop hike up into the mountains, over 3 passes, through 3 tiny Berber villages, across the river, and back to Imlil.  We hiked through dense pine forest, over rocky trails, alongside ancient aqueduct systems, and through the tightly clustered stone and mud residences (most with satellite dishes) of villagers, alongside men leading donkeys with carts, women wearing robes and scarves and carrying children or grass for the animals. It was a spectacular hike through varied, beautiful territory.

We are finding the Muslim Moroccans to be warm and friendly, extremely helpful, and shockingly (to us) well educated in languages – most speak Berber, Arabic, French and often a 4th, 5th or 6th language, often including English or Spanish.  They seem to treat us females more like western men do, unlike the way in which they interact with women of their own families and country. 

We rented a car in Marrakesh, a little black Peugot, and Matt immediately transformed into a crazy Moroccan driver who handles the frightening traffic, wild roads, mountains, one-land roads carrying two-way traffic and the seeming disregard for all traffic laws with complete calm and competence.  Cathryn is extraordinarily grateful as she is the second driver on our rental agreement and does not relish the thought of driving in the local conditions.  Matt is super!

We arrived back in Marrakesh this morning after 90 minutes and met Bob at the  airport much to Cathryn’s relief and delight.  It turns out he almost didn’t make it, as his flight arrived late in Paris and then security and customs took so long that he missed his flight to Madrid.  Fortunately he was able to catch another flight 3 hours later and arrived in Marrakesh on time.

We drove 4 hours to the fortess village of Ait Ben Haddou (think movies such as “Ben Hur”, “Gladiator” and others) and toured for 2-3 hours before returning to our hotel for a swim (Matt and Mackenzie) and dinner.  This is a spectacular place that enchanted us.

Happy to be all together and back on track with our itinerary! Morocco is fascinating, beautiful and fun.