Marrakech - ten years on

Our last time in Marrakech was ten and a half years prior.

Layla and I took the FRS ferry from mainland Europe (Farifa) to North Africa, mooring in Tangiers before travelling down the north east of Morrocco, through the beautiful blue city of Chefchaouen to the country's cultural capital, Fez.

We then hitchhiked to Marrakech via Merzouga for a night in the Sahara and a Lawrence of Arabia-esque sunset camel ride into the famous Erg Chebbi dunes.

In Marrakech we stayed in a beautiful, traditional riad called L'Orangerie, before trekking into the Atlas Mountains where we summited the 4,167 metres of Jebel Toubkel.

Sounds peculiar even writing that. In fact, I hate the 30 year old me, he's a right tosser!

I'm saying this, here in Marrakech with mum, dad, brother, wife and two kids (8 and 6) celebrating my dad's 70th. A very different adventure, set with very different challenges.

It would have been very easy to constantly try and compare our previous visit to this. There was the danger of time exaggerating the experience we'd enjoyed in 2009 through rose-tinted Ray Bans. However, our start typified domestic, family life setting off from Birmingham after resolving a plumbing issue and refereeing a sibling boxing bout on the back seat en route to Manchester airport.

All this seemed inconsequential as we mazed through the Marrekech Medina, escorted by our host through the rabbit warren of alleyways to the door of our riad. A modest set of doors with the name Dar Damana above it opened up to an incredibly ornate palatial retreat.

After picking our jaws up off the beautifully detailed porcelain tiled floors, we ventured out, escorted initially by our amazing housekeeper Saida. First a pep-talk. Dos and don'ts (mainly don'ts) explained in French and translated through the art of hand gestures. She then helped identify six key landmarks which would help us navigate back from the iconic Jamaa El-Fnaa square to our riad.

Then we were thrust into the Medina lanes. Teems of people made up of Moroccan locals, daytrippers, street traders, tourists, bikes, scooters, motorbikes, tuk-tuks, trailers, were all bustling in, around, weaving and bobbing within the width of a street pavement. And it sort of seemed to work...if you stuck to Saida's rules of course.

Once we arrived at Jamaa El-Fnaa, we were delicately released into the wild by our kind housekeeper, into the main square where we waved, turned and got hit with chaos - and chaos it was - utter carnage in fact. But in a good way.

The kids faces were a picture as they were faced with snake charmers, monkeys on leads and all sorts of artefacts thrust upon them for 'very good price'. Add to this the smells of spices wafting and the sounds of the pungi echoing around the square, they were mesmerised.

A circuit of the square before a coffee overlooking said square must surely be THE first morning thing to do in Marrakech. We did this before successfully ticking off each Saida inspired landmark on our orientation challenge back to the riad.

Yves Saint Lauren was never my brand of choice. More of a Fred Perry man when it came to polo shirts. However, the fella sure knows how to pick a garden. I can say this now I've visited Jardins Majorelle - gardens the former fashion designer used to own.

It was definitely full of the Marrakech hip-brigade. The gardens had 'great Insta-fodder' written all over them. In fact I caught Tom Bowell say: 'Beautiful spot though and incredible use of the Majorelle blue which flowed through the whole experience.'

Once the gardens were ticked off the Lonely Planet Top Tips list, we headed back for food on the infamous rooftop of Cafe Arabe. The Casablanca beer didn't hit the sides and the tangines were to die for. The bill was also to die for, but we justified it as our 'premium brand' day.

Day two saw us part ways with my folks and brother. They hit the Badia Palace and we ventured out of the city walls to waterpark Oasiria. Only, there was one problem realised upon arrival - it was closed for the winter.

Fortunately there was a large heated pool we could pay to use, and this kept the kids content. There were six visitors to the park that day...and we were four of them. I'd never visited a closed slide park before and the kids had a ball with free reign using the water slides as normal slides. I'm pretty sure I had dreams of this sort of scenario as a kid.

Next day was a full day tour into the Atlas Mountains. Accompanied by our amazing driver Khalid from Trendy Travel, we ventured up into Berber villages where we got to witness the making of Argan Oil used for cooking and cosmetics.

We continued on, welcomed into a Berber home. Whilst slightly uncomfortable and a tad contrived, the lunch they cooked us was sensational with views from 2,000 feet down to the lake. Paragliders were in their masses hovering over our heads, offering lunchtime entertainment as we tucked into charcoaled chicken skewers, cous cous, lamb tangines.

Next up we wound down the hillside to the lake, before heading for a sunset camel ride. My camel aptly named Matthew had had 15 wives, our guide informed me. 'How many wives have you had Matthew?' our camel handler asked me. How we laughed!

Sunset was a photographer's dream as we enjoyed dunes with the backdrop of the snowcapped Atlas Mountains. We then drove back to Marrakech having had an amazing day outside the city walls.

The final day was spent shop-shop-shopping. We'd been eyeing up our purchases over the course of our trip - each Medina venture further refined our shopping list. The day was therefore spent converting our purchases through the art of haggling. The routine was haggle, have a breather and then haggle some more. Rugs, lamps, throws, belts, shoes, drums, we got the lot.

Full of adrenaline and excitement about our home mimicking a poor man's riad, the highlight of the day was in-fact landing on a value lunch option where we clambered up to an attic-like rooftop to be served Moroccan scram that filled the ever-expanding belly for £15 for all the family. Take THAT Harvester!

The ladies enjoyed some spa action on the morning before our flight at Hammam De La Rose. Scolded and scrubbed down in the name of pampering. They loved it!

The last task of the trip, blagging our ridiculously inflated baggage as hand luggage onto our EasyJet back home. We did it! Where we're going to put it all is a job we'll worry about back in Birmingham.

How did our trip compare to 2009? Totally incomparable on so many levels. But what a place to take kids. In fact, tear up every preconceived idea you have about Marrakech and give the sucker a go.

Toubkal Refuge - Toubkal Summit - Toubkal Refuge - Ilmil

Day 71
Sunday 6th September 2009

The all time low point of the 4167 summit climb would come around halfway up where we discovered we'd forgotten our bag of food, we were walking in a cloud unable to see anything ten yards in front or ten yards behind and our legs felt like alien objects.

What is it with us and summits? Both our Kinabalu and Toubkal ascents were clear blue skies on Day One but just when we needed a clear day to be rewarded with views from the summit....clouds.

Back on Day 19 and 20 of our trip we climbed the 4085 metre summit of Mount Kinabalu in Borneo. Both this and Jebel Toubkal were two day hikes, both were over 4,000 metres in altitude but this is where the similarities ended quite abrubtly.

Whilst Kinabalu offered a walk with unforgetable moments and sights completely unique to that part of the world and that mountain, Toubkal did feel a more natural experience. It was quite simply a mountain in a range that you could climb - no guide, no signage (other than that of towers of boulders left by previous climbers), no steps and no frills.

We started at 5.15am down at breakfast. Many had already taken off but we waited for a slither of light which came through around 5.45am. The first part of the climb was scrambling up big boulders before hitting a more caring path but no less caring in gradient. To put this into perspective yestrday we walked 10km climbing 1467 metres. Today whilst only walking 2-3km we were climbing a whopping 960 metres.

Legs we weary just an hour into the climb which wasn't a good sign. And things got worse as the caring path turned evil with small stones zapping the energy from your legs like sand and causing a few slip sliding issues. The only motivation was having sight of people resembling ants in the distance marching up the final ascent after negotiating the quick sand track we were horrified to discover but not all together surprised to learn that the ants were climbing just one part of the final ascent. This was ridiculously steep and where moral was at an all time low - we discovered we'd forgotten our bag of food, we were walking in a cloud unable to see anything ten yards in front or ten yards behind and our legs felt like alien objects.

But we soldiered on hungry, hammered and halfway. It was here that things started turning for us. We pushed through the tough ascent and the pain barrier and were told by the first 'descenter' that we had only thirty minutes to go. Even though we had much longer to go the climb started feeling easier psycologically but the track was starting to level out comparitively. Eventually we saw the Majorca couple who slapped our hands and congratulated us. Slightly delerious from pain, hunger and the altitude we looked up to see the pyramid that represented the summit just 10 seconds from our grasp. It felt like a great achievement and everbody was feeling it shaking hands and slapping backs. The weather had even momentarily cleared for us rewarding us with clear blue skies and fantastic views of the high atlas mountain range. We were given some nuts and dried fruit and the energy started coming back to body and legs.

We waited around and had the summit to ourselves until we were ready for the descent. This was really tricky in patches. You'd lose concentration for a second and you were on you arse. The slippery small stones and the large boulders we'd encontered on the way up offered their own different challenges going down whilst all the time the steepness perplexed us on how we'd managed to get up the bloody thing.

We were accompanied by a dog for much of the descent who we whistled over when we spotted her scaring mountain goats into a huddle on the edge of a cliff. This dog was phenomenal tackling the ascent and descent everday. However, we were later to find out that this was nothing compared to the guides who took the trek five to six time a week during Ramadam meaning no food or water during the day.

Back at the refuge at 11am and we were greeted with a lunch which was more than the doctor had ordered. Layla had 40 winks and we were back at it on the 10km descent from the refuge to Ilmil. Body already beaten this was another four hour walk.

The walk would prove extremely tiring and tough especially when Layla' knee started playing up. 'Nothing a couple of painkillers can't help' she said striding on, big grin and eyes the size of dustbin lids.

We also had rain and thunder and lightening to contend with and when we though that was bad it started hailing huge pieces of ice. The hail hitting you felt like being the stag at a paintball activity centre.

But we made it back to Ilmil and YES the shower was good and YES the tangine was better and YES the 7.40pm to bed felt like heaven.

Imlil to Toubkal Refuge

Day 70
Saturday 5th September 2009

In Marrakesh we had been quoted 2400 Dirham to do a package tour to Jebel Toubkal. We opted out of that and were extremely glad when arriving in Imlil we realised we could do things a whole lot cheaper. We didn't need to stay in the riad, we didn't need a guide, and we certainly didn't need a mule.

So off we went early doors guideless and muleless on our lonesome with Toubkal refuge our destination at the foot of the summit climb and 10km in distance and 1467km in altitude away from where we currently were.

A couple of hesitant turns and directions from locals (Toubkal then point usually got the desired response) and we were on the right track to the refuge.

We past the town of Amound walking across a huge rocky riverbed before traversing steadily up into the high atlas and stunning scenery with Toubkal continuously our backdrop.

We pushed past the temptation of snacks in the last chance village and found salvation from the sun in the shape of an overhanging rock where we tucked on some fine Laylamade sandwiches.

This provided the energy to crack on and negotiate the toughest and steepest part of the day. After here the valley opened out and from this point on it was only distance rather than gradient that was going to kill us.

Highlight of fellow climbers had to be a group of oldies who persuaded us to stop and share some fresh orange juice with them. Brits, they'd met at a mountaineering club in the 70s and had become good friends visiting amazing places ever since.

Eventually after five hours of walking, legs getting tired and body getting weary we caught a glimpse of the refuge. This was enough incentive to push on and reach our first day destination with the hard work still to come.

The refuge was buzzing with excitement and full of nationalities and ages which was quite strange as we'd hardly seen a sole on the walk. Everybody was happy to chat.

We shared dinner with a couple from Majorca and agreed to start the climb with them the following morning at 5.30am.

The High Atlas Mountains

Day 69
Friday 4th September 2009

Armed with a whole load of information we set off today to Imlil, set in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco and the base of many treks including the two day Jebel Toubkal summit trek that we would start tomorrow.

Jebel Toubkal at 4167 metres is the highest mountain in North Africa so this wasn't going to be easy.

Ilmil was a beautiful alpine village with a sprinkling of restaurants and accomodation. We opted for a budget option that still had views of the range from the courtyard cafe and our room. Alternatives were the riad of Ilmil which was a beautiful old building with roof terrace looking out to the mountains. Next grade up and king of Ilmil accomodation was the kasbah which was a grand building perched on a cliff above the village.

We met a nice English chap staying at our accomodation who had just got back down. He had some great tips for the climb and also gave us his map. Bloody nice bloke.

We wandered the town and I bought a ridiculous hat as protection from the sun. I looked like Hugh Jackman. Not because of the hat, more the build ; )

We had an early night with a big day of walking ahead of us tomorrow.