By coincidence, both Dave & Ali, and Dave J. went on holiday to Morocco during September. We'll be having a Moroccan evening and slide show on 12th November, but meanwhile, here's what they had to say about it:
I wake up to the hum of the air conditioning and realise that I'm in a city that epitomises every travellers' dream of the exotic and unusual - Marrakech! Before breakfast we spend half an hour watching the traffic outside the hotel. Impossibly stacked mule carts, mopeds and bicycles weaving in and out of each other, somehow managing not to get hit by the buses and cars. Pedestrians leaping suicidally into the road at every junction. I don't think I've ever been anywhere that felt so unutterably foreign. Buildings that are crumbling and dusty on the outside contain wonderful treasures of moulding and tiling, rooms fit for a hareem.
The souks are amazing. Ramshackle narrow streets packed with leather, ceramics, lanterns, spices, fly-blown meat. You look up from the dusty slime at your feet and see a dazzling display of jewelled slippers and glittering kaftans.
A hot sweaty bus ride takes us up into the Atlas Mountains. It is hot and the air is so dry you can feel it sucking moisture from your body, but so clear! Range upon range of crisply outlined mountains viewed from the continually winding road. Mules take our luggage to the Gite and we sleep on the roof to the sounds of dogs and jackals howling.
The walks are often bleak and desolate, like scenes from the wild west. Villages are green and there are people everywhere - walking, riding mules, working in the fields, climbing trees to pick figs. They say "bonjour" and often stare at us - we must seem very strange - many of the children seem to think we are hysterically funny!
We visit the Kasbah, formerly a local gangster's castle. It is falling down. Mud walls washed away with every downpour. Inside, tiled magnificence, beautiful hand-painted ceilings and shutters all left to ruin. We ask our local guide why no-one saves or repairs it, he shrugs and says "nobody lives here". Outside the mule has brought our lunch and we sit in the shade of a juniper tree sipping mint tea and feeling a long way from home.
As I have a Munro count well below most of the group (ie NIL) I decided I should go to climb some larger mountains as some sort of compensation. So an old school friend and I booked with Exodus Holidays (free ad) to climb Mount Toubkal in the Atlas Mountains, in Morocco.
This is the highest mountain in North Africa (and about number 5 in the whole continent) at 4167 m (about 13,700 feet).
We began in Marrakech in which the old town assaulted the senses with the sights, sounds, smells and intense heat of Africa and the Middle East: snake charmers, veiled women, spice stalls, donkeys and carts, minarets and best of all freshly squeezed orange juice stalls - 30p a glass!
Once we reached the mountains we entered a different world. "Houses" which wre no more than bricked up caves, tiny villages clinging to the mountainside, populated by the indigenous Berber tribesmen.
We made steady progress through the lower levels, acclimatising to the higher altitudes to the "base camp" at 6200 feet.
The villages we stayed in were an experience: dominated by huge peaks, linked to the outside world only by mule tracks and without electricity, running water or sanitation. Each village appeared to be self-sufficient with oases of terraced fields full of crops, and most houses having a live-in cow.
The climb was done in two stages, each of about 3500 feet. The first stage was completed in thunder, lightning and hail storms. Typical, I go to Ireland and see no rain, I go a stone's throw from the Sahara and get hail! But it did give the dark, jagged and massive scenery a dramatic backdrop.
The second stage was the steepest, climbing rapidly through scree. Our guide set a ferocious pace (a la Gareth et al), reaching the summit in three hours. There we were rewarded with excellent views in all directions in brilliant sunshine, although the Sahara was obscured by the heat haze.
After a 45 minute photo stop we began the long 7 500 foot descent to our base camp. We returned to Marrakech where temperatures of 40 degrees centigrade induced a bout of heatstroke. I managed to throw up in most areas of the hotel, the pavement outside, the stairs, corridors, flower pots and the roof garden before I reached my room to collapse.
All in all, an excellent break!
David Julian
While browsing in Stanfords (a famous map shop in London where I spend more money than I should) I picked up a leaflet that said Ordnance Survey Pathfinder maps are to be phased out - Explorer maps and Outdoor Leisure maps will take their place. The small Pathfinder maps at 1:25000 scale maps (that's the green coloured one to you and me) are going to be replaced by Explorer maps (Orange colour) at 1:25000 and Outdoor leisure maps (Yellow colour) also at 1:25000. The old pathfinder maps followed a rigid grid but the new maps will be more like the 1:50000 scale maps by overlapping each other. However its estimated it will take until 2002 before the new maps cover Scotland.
If you'd like to tell us about somewhere you've been, or write about a recent YHA trip, or anything else, this page is for you. Just give your contributions to Helen.