Hiking in early october

15 October 2008
Lots of it! I have been hiking all over the Middle Atlas these past few months. They’ve been pretty intense hikes, all done with two second-year volunteers, Sarah and Nate, or with the rais (president) of the herders association I am working with. They’re all fun people. Sarah and Nate are ambitious in their hiking plans, and they like to move quickly! I’ve learned to walk quickly carrying quite a bit, and to find my own trail. When hiking with the rais, we move still more quickly, aided by a mule carrying our bags. My favorite hike so far was one with Sarah and Nate. They planned an ambitious 7-day hike that included summiting Bou Nacer (highest peak in the Middle Atlas, I believe) and then traversing close to 100 km. I decided to cut the hike short and leave at the midway point, because of 1—my kittens, and 2—my need to be in site.
We started with Justin, my closest PCV neighbor, at his site. He walked with us up the mountainside and then returned that same afternoon. We camped in a dry riverbed and prayed for good weather the next day. As it turned out, those three days were the only good weather days for a couple of weeks. A good thing, it was freezing cold on top of Bou Nacer even in the full morning sunlight! The view from the top was great, I could see all the way to High Atlas in one direction and Tezzka in the other. It was an abnormally clear day, gorgeous! We then faced the descent: some 1000m of unmarked, steep scree slope riddled with gullies cut by recent storms and surprise cliffs, some over 100 ft in height. And my boots decided to start to fall apart. Duct tape to the rescue! We made it down after a stop for lunch, and found a herder’s trail to the village we were hoping to stay the night near. It’s always an adventure trying to find water sources, usually you have to ask directions, and this was no different: we asked an old Berber herder, who was most helpful! The good thing is that Sarah and I speak Tamazight and Nate speaks Arabic, so between us we can communicate with everyone in the Middle Atlas. Except for French or German or Dutch tourists, I suppose… anyway, we found the water source at sunset. What a spring! Freezing cold, clear, fast running and high in volume! So constant that grass, grass! is growing all around it. The next morning we set out to find a TaHanut (little store) to resupply in Ait Maqabl, the nearby town. They do not get foreigners very often: we had 30 kids and 12 young men following us by the time we got to the TaHanut! Too funny, it reminded me of Tanzania. They were very helpful, showed us the way and picked up a water bottle that fell out of my pack. I met an incredibly striking Berber women, too. Most women wear semi-Berber-style headwraps or the traditional hijab of Islam, but she was wearing her hair in the super traditional Berber style: Two long braids with fabric woven in and crowned with brightly colored fabric. It’s regal and beautiful. I had never seen it before; more evidence of how isolated that town is! As we left town to find the riverbed we planned to walk down we got a lovely surprise! The riverbed was revealed as a huge, wide canyon! Gorgeous, and very difficult to get in a picture. It took us almost an hour to get from the canyon rim to the canyon floor (not a straight descent, but still!). We then walked down the river, passing the most truly Berber villages, meeting more women in traditional dress and having grapes pressed upon us by a nearly deaf older gentleman. Who watched us eat lunch, kept us company (even though he was fasting for Ramadan!) and then sent us on our way with an invitation to return for fast-break that evening, and went to pray. Sitting there cross-legged, for all the world like a Buddhist meditating, but chanting Allah Ahkbar… We got another surprise later: the canyon narrowed to huge red cliffs on either side of us, the river twisting and turning over the rocky bed. And, still, anywhere open was a tiny Berber dwar. We also found an offshoot, so beautiful… the cliffs were even higher here, some trick of geology left harder rock there, but the back of the offshoot (box canyon??) was a huge, dry waterfall. You could see where the water had carved channels in the nearly vertical rockface and where it lept off of overhangs to fall down and then run over a slope of rock shaped like a wide, curved staircase. We stood there in awe, looking over ferns and moss and beauty… brought Led Zepplin’s “Stairway to Heaven” to mind. On our way out we raided a few fig trees of late figs: DELICIOUS!!! I LOVE figs. Especially perfectly dried ones. We hiked out another long day, and made it to Berkine, my drop-off point. Sarah and Nate continued on through rainy weather and unknown territory all the way to Taza. Check it out on a map, that is no small distance!
I have come to love the land here, in its own way, on these hikes. The mountains are endlessly majestic, full of character and sadness. The rock is all that’s left in places, the dirt all eroded off for lack of trees. On one mountain you will find a thriving cedar forest, on another, a cedar graveyard. And one can witness cedar logs being smuggled out… they bring good money for people strapped for cash with few good ways to make more money. So hard to see… these majestic forests disappearing. The healthy cedar forests here rival the Northwest rainforests for majesty. I wish people would come to enjoy them, and pay the Berbers for the privilege!