Blogs from Mount Toubkal, Souss-Massa-Draâ, Morocco, Africa

Day One After an early morning flight from Luton costing around £140 return with Ryanair we arrived at Marrakech airport. First post of call was to obtain some local currency as you cannot obtain it outside of Morocco. The next port of call should of been to the duty free shop to get some drink supplies but we passed on this which would later haunt us. Our Moroccan host Mohammed Aztat had arranged for a taxi to pick us up from the airport to take us to our mountain base camp in Imlil which was about 90minutes away. We played a game of taxi cab bingo on the plane which I proudly declare myself the winner of, a 1970s brown Mercedes, often seen in many foreign countries. Weather wise it was quite warm and cloud free. ... read more

Day 1: Bart’s Birthday It turns out that the part I had hiked in April with my two friends from Peace Corps Togo was only the beginning of the trail. Bright and early in the morning I set out hiking from Imlil with Bart (Peace Corps Morocco) and Dave (US civilian). We passed up Sidi Chamarouch, where I had turned around last time, at 11am and continued on up the trail to the Toubkal Refuge. We didn’t have much gear - Dave didn’t even have a sleeping bag and was relying on an airplane blanket to get him through the night at 3200 meters in the High Atlas. But the weather was perfect and we all had good shoes. The trail up to the refuge is fairly easy, with only a few steep bits, though it’s ... read more

Oh dear, I've resorted to sensationalist and deliberately provocative headlines reminiscent of "The Sun". I've obviously been living in London too long! It's not a lie though; my trip to Imlil and Aremd did involve naked ladies. In fact I was one of them. But that comes later. Anyone travelling to Morocco to escape the winter blues of London had better steer clear of the High Atlas mountains in March. It was very cold. If the sun was out during the day it was really nice. But at night it was FREEZING. Just over the mountain from where we were staying in Aremd was a ski resort. I hadn't ever linked the words Morocco and skiing in my head, but I guess it's no different to people being surprised that you can ski in Australia. We ... read more