Backpacking

Hi kids,

So i write this from Marrakech, some two and a bit weeks into the trip, rather than write about where i have and havent been i thought i would tell you all an adventure i had...

The Todra Gorge is beautiful, if you ever get a chance to go i suggest that you take it! Some 100+km long it is magical, beautiful, accessible, etc etc. the hiking is fantastic however if a local is telling you about what paths to take then i have some very important advice to remember:
1. there are no clearly visible path and the maps suck
2. 'difficult' means straight up rock climbing
3. 'come back the same way you went up' is code for you are going to get lost coz this is a one way path with no option of return unless you have abseiling gear in your back pocket
4. ' 2 hours' really means 5 hours.
5. 'you can get a guide for 200dm' is money well spent!

So rather than take the easy path i decided to take the 'difficult but ok' path. The first group went up an hour ahead of us, they were three boys, we were the second group, 4 girls, and then there was another group of 2 boys. (when i say boys and girls i mean ages between me and about 40ish so really adults)

The first thing i discovered is that my fitness has gone to shit. If i could have phrased that in a more eloquent and mature way i would have, however that is the most honest way i can put it. I thought that i wouldnt make it and the rest stops were frequent - that is on the way up though, i must say as the day wore on i realised that maybe endurance or just plodding along is more my thing!

To get to this peak was amazing, a solid 2hrs just up (dont know about this 2hrs return business!) and ended with rock climbing straight up a cliff face. This last part was of course the perfect opportunity for two of my group to reveal their fear of heights! What a team we were; bung leg jenny, deaf audrey, bad knee and scared of heights amanda, and scared of heights jamie. 'Be prepared' was obviously our motto! HA! The view from the top was worth it, gorge after gorge you could see! of course we were sweating and exhausted however there was a shepherd and goats up the top and they looked at us like we were freaks. The amazing thing about Morrocco, you can be in the middle of nowhere and then someone will just appear - i tell you we set up camp somewhere and within minutes there are 5 random people coming over the dunes, or out of the bushes! freaky! So meetnig this man at the top was weird, of course he was a nomad and spoke only berber, so he was no help on an alternative route down the mountain. So here begins part two of this adventure...the down hill path!

We walked the ridge until we found a spot with minimal cliff face, then decided to go down there and walk across the valleys until we can connect with the path. This proved to be difficult because of the terrain. (as a side i just asked Dave who you will read about in a minute how to describe the rock we were going across i.e. 'scree' or something, his response was 'sharp fucking painful rock'...i think you get the picture). so one hour later we were still struggling to go down and across, we had cuts and scrapes, torn trousers, hysteria, etc. In the end we decide that as our water is running low (this is 5 hours into a 2.5hr walk) we are best to head straight down through a ravine. This plan went according to plan for an hour until it turned into a cliff. the only word i could say at this time started with an f. Therefore we had to try to climb back up the mountain and find another way down, it was bloody hot, running out of water, and we only had two hours of light left. However this girl power team got their shit together and encouraged one another back up the mountain onto another ridge to decide on an alternate plan. I must say that while doing this scrambling we were being followed by bloody goats that just somehow jump and trot and make all this mountain stuff look so easy. I tell you i would have eaten a goat with glee just because of my hatred for them at that moment. If i had had a weapon there would be no more goats in that herd!

So here we are up on a ridge, in the setting sun, bloody exhausted, we can see our campground destination but with only cliffs and rock between us and it. There was a silence as one of the girls said 'i cant make it i just cant go on' and ever sensitive jenny responded with 'well you either go on or you sit on this mountain in the freezing cold all night'. I dont know where i get my sensitive side from! Then out of nowhere, as it would only happen in Morrocco, this head pops up from the side of the mountain! The only place where someone can find you when you are lost in the middle of nowhere is in Morrocco! he was the goats herder, and in this moment i take back every bad thing i thought about those goats, he had the face of an angel (a very sexy angel) and i am not just saying that because i was delerious. He was a nomad who spoke only berber, we spoke only english, we resorted to sign language and pointed at the campground so far below and put our hands up in a gesture to say 'how do we get there?'. Of course i am quite confident that by the looks of us he knew we were bloody lost and we only looked more stupid with our sign language! oh well, in for a penny in for a pound! And bless this nomad with the face of an angel, he calmly led us for over an hour down the cliff, through valleys, down more cliffs, all the way back to the path. Bless his cotton socks! I cannot praise this man enough, as without him i would have stayed the night on the mountain or alternatively I would have had to climb down in the dark to get help. he had a soothing voice and a calm manner and his patience was incredible. He got us to the path and we sat for a drink of water thanked him profusely, then he sent us off down the path. We turned back after a minute to wave (we were not walking very fast in our sore and sorry state) and the cheeky bugger had already run halfway back the direction we came to get his goats! I tell you to move at our pace and lose an hour he had the most patience of anyone i have met. We FINALLY made it down and made it back to camp where we proceeded to drink water and beer without moving as we ached! woo, disaster averted, not stuck on the mountain overnight, thanks to a nomad!

Around the campfire we hear that the boys in the first group got back reasonably ok, by that i mean a 5hr round trip with serious cliffs, scrapes, knocked egos, etc. They did not down play the fear they had gone through, they had already done an inventry of what they had to get through the night and what they could ditch for the sake of getting down quicker. Of course this meant that as it wasnt just my group getting lost the boys in the group of 2 behind us must also be in a spot of bother. Turned out, that was a pretty mediocre way to say it. At 8pm they were not back, some locals had gone driving along the road to look for them and into town with no luck, the rescue team had gone up the mountain (by rescue i mean the boys in the drum band and their friends/family who were familiar with the mountains - and i must say they moved up and over the ridge at an incredible pace - remember it took us 2hrs to get up and they were up and over within the hour). At 10pm we get word from the local village that Dave, who i refered to earlier you may recall, had turned up at the restaurant. Our leaders went to him with some more rescue people. Dave had, and after being on that mountain myself i dont know how he did it, climbed down for over 40min, straight down that is in the dark. Cliff faces were involved. Then had a quick feed and gone straight back with the climbers to get the other bloke. Unfortunately it was to dangerous to climb the final cliff to rescue him so he, Simon, bunkered down for the night on a cliff face, and Dave and climbers returned to camp. Then again in the morning Dave and climbers returned up the mountain to fetch a cold and tired Simon. All credit to Dave for going up there on three seperate occassions and to those climbers who would not take any payment or compensation for their time and effort.

After 24+hrs since first stepping foot onto the mountains we boarded the big yellow truck and head off out of the Todra Gorge, physically and mentally exhausted, sore and tired, and generally happy to be leaving! Poor Dave's hands were so torn up from night climbing...should have seen him try to eat acidic fruit for the next few days!

So here i am in Marrakech, i have vowed not to complain about male harrassment after being saved from the middle of nowhere for the remainder of my time in Morrocco (it is hard but i am persevering), i am not complaining about my aching legs as people went through far worse, and i have had a few of the best nights sleep i have had since this holiday started!

Sorry it has been long but i hope you had a few laughs at my expense if you read all the way to here! If you are part of my travel group reading this, congrats to all of us who made it off that mountain in one piece, thanks to my girl group for the team work we displayed, and a big well done to Dave!

We head south from here, next update will be from Mauritania! Over and out from a still dirty feet Jenny