Auberge Atlas Tichka Imlil

... I adore mountains. I wish I had the opportunity to hike to the summit, but I had to be satisfied with the shrine. Apparently single women are supposed to go up there if they are in need of a husband, so I stuck my hands in the water and hoped the djinn liked me. It was a beautiful walk, regardless.<br><br>After lunch we walked back down to the village before our hot, hot drive to Essaouira on the coast. <br><br>

... the first morning wandering down to Imlil to explore. We chat to a local who teaches us how to say,"no thankyou" in arabic to Berber rug sellers, although the vendors are not as pushy as I thought they'd be. Maybe its different in the bigger cities. Imlil is quite small - really just one long street. The everyday shops are more interesting than the ones for tourists. The butcher has his meat hanging up out in the open and at cafes tagines sit on pots of ...

... off when entering), put on dry things and headed downstairs (with blankets and sleeping bags) to the only room with a fire. We stayed there (Mike hogged the fire but at least we got some of our clothes dry) for dinner and played some hilarious games (Celebrity Head where we stuck our names to our forehead with chewing gum and Abdul's crazy card game Bonjour Monsieur which I lost), then into bed and tried to stay warm and sleep.

... not be much of a problem but once again we found ourselves without a ride and nothing but outrageously high private charter offers. This time a staggering nine hundred duhrams which was more than both nights of our splurge lodging. There is some truth to the phrase good things come to those who wait -- or can wait in these instances. Once they see you are serious about waiting, the dollar signs start dropping. This time it was another hour but at ...

... da Zara com sola mega gasta. A paisagem, gostaria de ter paciência e vocabulario para a resumir, mas não tenho essa capacidade saramaguista, espero que as imagens falem pelas palavras que nunca vos direi eheh. Dormimos na montanha, dei uso as minhas calças, casaco e cachecol e mesmo assim rapei frio. A tenda abanava por todos os lados, pensei que fosse voar. Acabei por não subir ao pico com os outros. Dormi mal e não ...

... in some places which didn't look too good - its a long steep droop down over the edge! We got to the top safely and it was bloody freezing and blowing a gale - in everyones pic it looks like they are going to get blown away... Thankfully i had a spare jumper in my backpack. There were plenty of rock selling men who would approach you up here - I felt like I was back in Egypt as they man-handled you - most of us retreated to the safety ...

... We all witnessed the horror of Rus' ankles and I understood why he took that little bit longer to get up - he had blisters the size of postage stamps on the back of each heel, the blood from them had soaked through 2 pairs of socks he'd been wearing. The worst part was he had to hike 5 hours back down to Imlil too. The hike down was a bit harder than I thought it was going to be - the paths seemed harder to negotiate, a fair bit rockier than they were the ...

... into the side of a mountain, some 50m above the raging waters below us. Climbing steadily up a muddy mountain side strewn with small rocks, we crested the Tizzi Oudite Pass at 2650m, which provided birds' eye views of the beautiful valley below. After another picnic style lunch on a grassy green meadow just below the pass, Eric and Jerome decide to climb a nearby mountain peak. Ahmed packed up the remains of the lunch and loaded his mule, to join us later at ...

... around and meet people and be as Morrocans rather than tourist. We went back to the hotel and dropped our bags off. We hit the streets and immediately started eyeing down Morrocans looking for a change at conversation. I didn't care if it was guys or girls at this point, just to converse about Morocco, America, or anything would be nice. First person we came in contact with was a Berber named Yousef (we basically had the same name) He talked with us for a good 30 ...

... and a contact number in case we "needed help" (this sounded ominous coming from two people who have lived and traveled in Morocco; hmmm...). We thanked them and ran into the bus station, then turned around and ran back out after realizing we had no Moroccan money, hoping we wouldn't run into our free-taxi-friends and look like totally unprepared idiots. No such embarrassing reunion happened, and we returned to the bus station, fistfuls of dirham in hand. We got hustled onto a bus ...