10:42
"Morocco
is famous in tourist circles -- primarily for Marrakech, and rightly so. With bustling souks, boutique riads around every corner and a medina full of storytellers and snake charmers, Marrakech is a true East-meets-West city. It has a buzzing sense of otherworldliness and style that is hard not to like. Yet having landed in the impressive new Marrakech Airport, we ignored the call of the shopping in the souks (which, trust me is no hardship...) and headed straight for the High Atlas Mountains and Toubkal National Park, just an hour or two South of the City and home to North Africa's second highest Mountain.
Just a short drive past several curiously out-of-place golf courses (golf courses in deserts, why?), we were unceremoniously dumped with our backpacks at the side of the road leading up the Imlil Valley. Waiting for us was our guide, cook and mule (that being three separate entities not one multi-functional donkey/horse hybrid). Mules are used frequently in these parts to transport trekkers gear and food supplies and served to fully demoralise us throughout our trek by capably lugging 100kg of gear on tortuous paths that left us wheezing for breath."
is famous in tourist circles -- primarily for Marrakech, and rightly so. With bustling souks, boutique riads around every corner and a medina full of storytellers and snake charmers, Marrakech is a true East-meets-West city. It has a buzzing sense of otherworldliness and style that is hard not to like. Yet having landed in the impressive new Marrakech Airport, we ignored the call of the shopping in the souks (which, trust me is no hardship...) and headed straight for the High Atlas Mountains and Toubkal National Park, just an hour or two South of the City and home to North Africa's second highest Mountain.Just a short drive past several curiously out-of-place golf courses (golf courses in deserts, why?), we were unceremoniously dumped with our backpacks at the side of the road leading up the Imlil Valley. Waiting for us was our guide, cook and mule (that being three separate entities not one multi-functional donkey/horse hybrid). Mules are used frequently in these parts to transport trekkers gear and food supplies and served to fully demoralise us throughout our trek by capably lugging 100kg of gear on tortuous paths that left us wheezing for breath."
