The Permanent Tourist

Morocco continued… In August 2024, I whimsically dragged Lexi into a steamy Moroccan adventure featuring a sizzling hike, questionable lunch choices, and enough adventure to require a GPS and a mule. Those attributes still applied to the final days of the excursion. The third day was the final push to the refuge from Armed. We began at the base of the hilly village where three of us had enjoyed playing in the creek the day prior. As it was a tad chilly that morning, I actually wore pants to start with. I found myself quite thankful as the narrow trail wandered through a woody area cloaked in underbrush that whipped my legs violently.

I spent a majority of the third day hiking alone on a far easier, well-defined trail to navigate. No Google Maps screenshots or directions to turn at the weird tree. Due to the steeper incline, I even stayed ahead of my two forty-something’s girl gang counterparts. Honestly, it allowed me to clear my mind and just enjoy a good, hot hike. Exercise! Switchbacks were in abundance the higher I climbed. While the day started on the cooler side, once the sun broke over the mountain top, the heat immediately backhanded me across the face. I was suddenly thankful for my solitude as I stripped off my pants in exchange for shorts from my pack. I’m quite sure a few nosy goats got a show, though.

Today’s adventure took me through small villages with creeks winding through them, then up and around mountain after mountain top. Finally, at about 1145, I spotted the refuge a short distance away. I made it! One of the group members had grown ill and made the decision to take a mule ride up that morning. When I arrived, he was lounging on the makeshift bedding we would be sleeping on for two days. As more of the guides surfaced, they started the annoying task of pitching all of our tents. I elected to assist in that little endeavor, and we got the tents up pretty quickly. It also gave me the ability to select one of the newer, less stinky tents for Lexi and I.

I’ve camped in several foreign countries, and I don’t mind it for several days. However, the ground they had claimed was purely rocks, rocks, more rocks, and some ground rocks known as dirt. The padding they provided us to place underneath our sleeping bags was lacking in padding department. We cleared out as many sharp stones as possible, but it was going to be a long couple nights. Our camp was also in full sun, not a single tree in sight to provide shade and relief from the scorching sun. Our meal tent once full of humans was just as steamy as the small two-person tents. The mostly electricity-free refuge did at least have showers, but with the number of people present at the campsite, you did have to wait in line. Regardless, they had hot water to wash off the dirt caked to our bodies.

The remainder of that day was spent sitting around the dining area of the refuge, hanging out in our own meal tent, and preparing for an insanely early day the next morning at 0400. Well before the sun rose, we were up and armed with our daypacks for the final uphill hike of the trip. Jaouad would not allow me to hike ahead until daylight broke, and once we started upwards, I found that to be an excellent agreement. Our headlamps only put a small dent in the inky darkness as we climbed higher. Having seen a couple of groups making the trek up before us, I could see how steep the incline was. The trail guide called it “moderately challenging with some exposure.” What he failed to mention was that “some exposure” was trail-speak for a single wrong step away from becoming a cautionary tale. The trail was entirely slick slate rock that was too forgiving under our feet. Slipping and tripping was the theme of the morning. At one point, I found myself pressed against a rock like a poorly hung piece of wallpaper, having what I can only describe as a full-body negotiation with gravity. As the wind picked up, it decided I was no longer allowed to wear a baseball cap, tearing it from my head along with my expensive sunglasses that were perched atop it. I assumed it was a goner, but one of the guides snatched it up before it fell to it’s death.

Once light began penetrating the nearly impervious darkness, our guide allowed The Mountain Goat Girls to head up towards the peak alone. After making it through the switchbacks, we moved our gaze skyward just for it to be met with a steep, slate-strewn treacherous trail leading almost straight up. I’ve never been a huge fan of such precarious and unstable paths, and now I was in a hostage negotiation with my own nervous system. “Get out of your head, dammit!” I scolded myself. My inner monologue taunted me, calling me quitter, so what did I do? Told the voice to screw off as I started clumping forward. I was very proud of myself for how confidently I surmounted that terrain in the end. We got to a break in the stone wall just as the sun breached it the horizon. What an astonishing sunrise that played out before us. The view was other-worldly – the best way to describe it was desert-ous mountains. No foliage or shrubbery to be seen in any direction. On the other side of the peaks lay open desert.

Our sunrise viewing break was a tad too long, and we all started to get colder than a witches tit in a cast iron bra. The elevation and wind were making my ears ache terribly, and the gusts cut through my meager clothing like knives. Onward to the peak and our ultimate prize! Sonia and I made it to the summit three hours and twenty-three minutes after our 0500 start time.

The only signs of life other than crazy humans hiking up to the peak were the goats. Everywhere. Oh, and some devilish looking spiked plants that I didn’t want to tangle with. We climbed around the final right turn and were met with the triangular, metal sculpture denoting the top. Many photos were snapped, group and goats included, and we were finally met by the excited shrieks of our counterparts. Lexi’s sheer elation at making it under her own power to the top on her first international hiking trip was palpable. She wanted photos at the peak, which obviously, I photobombed unbeknownst to her.

After spending some time on the plateaued peak, I had to confront my irrational fear of going down the mountain on the slippery shale. With my increased confidence on the way up, I was positive I could make it down! Only to eat it seconds later… Okay, perhaps it’s a semi-irrational fear. I would do that many more times, but there was no one around to witness the klutziness. Eventually, I got accustomed to using a method akin to skiing down the rocks. Not graceful, but successful. My controlled slide back to the start of the morning’s jaunt left me with a look of shock and confusion when I arrived at the spot where I had narrowly saved my hat from certain death. I could have sworn we were on the side of a perilous cliff, only inches from plummeting off it. Turned out it was quite low and quite flat. Leaving that early in the morning in the dark, the rocky topography played tricks on our minds! With zero ambient light, we could only see as far as our headlamps would allow, which wasn’t much.

I awoke the next morning sore as ever – I’m not sure if it was because of the hike the day before, or sleeping on the ground with a jagged rock digging into my forty-year-old side. Waking up is a new physical challenge I’ve been unprepared for. Today we would be hiking back to the village we started in, but all downhill with several extreme shortcuts built in. Lexi had unfortunately experienced a nasty fall that left her backside looking like a marbled piece of beef, so she rode down on a mule. We remained a cohesive group to finish off this great hiking trip. This involved spontaneous breakouts in song, specifically “Here Comes the Sun.” Jaouad pulled out his cell phone towards the end, and blasted the tune while Monica and I skipped and sang along. We arrived in Imlil laughing, much less exhausted since the entire trek was downhill, and coated in a layer of dust.

Towards the conclusion of the tour we started to question the guide/cook food choices. Only later did we find out they did not stop for any supplies along the way. Everything was carried from the original starting point, so towards the end, meals resembled prison rations. The final lunch was a giggle fest, mixed with a partial food fight, mixed with gorging on a real meal finally. And with that, our trekking trip came to an exhausted conclusion. And a dusty one… I’m still trying to get all the soot out of my clothing and shoes.

Lexi graciously took my handstand photo.

August 2024