Category Archives: Morocco

The Joys of Camping

The Chaima – Big Tent

Sometimes there’s no other way to get to those off-the-beaten-track places. Sometimes there’s just no substitute for sitting out under the stars, on a hand-made stool, by a wood fire, eating fresh-baked bread and listening to the muleteers or cameliers singing call and response songs accompanied by a motley assortment of improvised percussion instruments. (“Where did my big soup pot go?!”, shouts the cook, Samir – “and where’s the big washing up bowl and my best wooden spoon, for goodness sake?”

Yup, sometimes you’ve just got to let go of fear of insects, face your apparently dyspraxic inability to master tent pitching (or just let a crew member do it!) and take the plunge. It’ll be fine. Really. You’re not the first, or will be the last, to find the idea of a few nights under canvas daunting. But you’re about to join the club of I-didn’t-know-I’d-like-it-till-I-tried-it. Welcome! مرحبا Marhbaa! Think the sunniest Glastonbury you can imagine with far less people and no mud. Think Berber kilims and cushions, tajines and mint tea. Think of waking up to the sound of the sea, the chirruping call of the bulbul or goat bells tinkling on the hillside. Oh, alright, you might get woken by someone tripping over the end of your sleeping bag if you’re sleeping in the chaima, rather than tucked up in a one/two person tent – but then they may well fetch you a cup of coffee or tea to sip while you gather your thoughts ready for the day.

Our camps are managed with typical Berber panache – these people have been nomadic or semi-nomadic for millennia – and it’s an unbeatable experience of this ancient way of life, as well as a means of getting to those before mentioned off-the-beaten-track places.

If I’ve inspired you enough and you want to give it a go here’s some information on our easy Morocco trek (with some moderate bits). Quote Marhbaa (welcome in Moroccan arabic) and we’ll extend the early bird discount to you…. Go on! You know you want to!

Bismillah! Increase your word-power!

Taking a draught of water in the Jebel Siroua – bismillah!

Bismillah! – if you’ve trekked in Morocco you’ll have heard it – it’s used like bon appetit in French or ¡que aproveche! in Spanish. In reply people often say hamdullah or alhamdulillah. These are all terms expressing thanks and gratitude for what we’re about to receive. Bismillah, meaning “In the name of Allah” or “In the name of God” is the shortened form of the Basmalah. This is a full Arabic phrase: Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim meaning “In the name of God the Most Gracious the Most Merciful“. Alhamdulillah, translated as “All Praise and Thanks to God” is used so frequently in Arabic-speaking countries that it might better be understood as meaning “thankfully,” “thank goodness,” or “thank God” as used in English. Which is to say that not all Arabic speakers who use the phrase are consciously praising God when they say it. Hamdullah teams up so naturally with bismillah that it swings in like bitte after danke, and prego after grazie.

The Basmalah rendered into arabic script

Cool or what: The Iranian authorities permitted an album of songs by the English rock band Queen to be released in Iran in August 2004, partly because the song Bohemian Rhapsody contained several exclamations of the word Bismillah. Freddie Mercury (known by the snappy moniker Farrokh Bulsara to his family) was born in Zanzibar to Indian Parsi parents and was proud of his Persian ancestry. Other rockers and rappers have also used the Basmala – from the Wu Tang Clan to Mos Def at the beginning of each of his albums, Lupe Fiasco in Food and Liquor and Rakim on his track from the 8 Mile soundtrack. On a more controversal and irreverent note Busta Rhyme sampled the Basmala in the chorus of his single release Arab Money.

Here’s another one for you – insha’Allah: “God willing”. Any European asking for specific weather prediction, precise times of departure, or just what might exactly be happening when we arrive at… will often be delivered an insha’Allah as part of the possibly hazy reply. We have a version in Spain – ¡ojala! – which paired with mañana gives you some idea of the relaxed cultural attitude you can expect both in the Iberian Peninsular and in the Maghreb.

Here’s some information about the next Siroua Trek 2018 and the easy Atlantic Coast Trek 2018 from Essaouira

¡Hasta luego! Ma’a salama!

Camel caravan near M’Hamid, Morocco

It’s Not A Jeep

On the way to Midelt, Morocco. Land Rover Defender Tdi.

“How’s your old jeep?”

“it’s a Land Rover”. I reply flatly. “And it’s only fiftee… um… nearly twenty (gosh!) years old. Well yes, alright, it’s old. But it’s not a jeep!”

Like calling a chocolate torte a ‘carob cake’, or referring to marmite as ‘vegemite’, or to a Dyson as a ‘hoover’ (for goodness sake!): a Land Rover is not a blinking jeep!!! (Or a bus or a truck, although I think I can accept these two as being more in the spirit of friendly ribaldry rather than blatant misrepresentation. Initially called the Land Rover Ninety and Land Rover One Ten (ie. short or long wheel-base) the Landy Defender was developed from the original Land Rover Series launched in 1948. Does this make it a Baby Boomer? With the aluminium body it was certainly born out of rationing .

Seen in a Welsh wood. Off road? Mud? Dim problem, bach!

The Land Rover was designed to only be in production for two or three years to generate capital to bump-start (hmm) up-market Rover car production after the second World War. However, the off-road Land Rover just outsold all the other Rover vehicles and emerged as its own brand. In October 2013 Land Rover announced that production of the Defender would end in December 2015, after a continuous run of 67 years. (Nooooooo!) As Paul and I often tell people (and if you’re reading this, we may well have mentioned this to you personally, but forgive me for labouring the point) over 70% of all Land Rovers ever produced are still on the road, and, we add, the other 30% have no doubt been cannibalised into that 70%.

Range Rover, Child of the Seventies…

The Range Rover isn’t a jeep either, although some might be forgiven for thinking that neither is it really a land rover. First sold in 1970, this child of the Glam rock era gave birth in 1989 to the Discovery, aptly nick-named the Disco (teenage pregnancy?). Luckily the company decided not to include the Conran Design Group’s nifty custom sunglasses holder to be built into the middle of the steering wheel. They did include now collectable items such as the Land Rover-branded cloth fabric holdall in the front centre console which could be removed from the vehicle and worn over the shoulder – a landy handbag, Terence???

Our Land Rover Defender is called Evita. Our sunglasses sit firmly on our noses or pushed back on our heads when glaring at maps while bumping along dusty tracks. Our branded holdalls have Lidl or Carrefour printed on ’em. We hoped naming her Evita would mean less repairs, evitar in Spanish being to avoid (ho-ho….). Conforming to Spanish law she takes two MOT’s per year to make sure she’s fit for purpose. She’s stoutly borne us south to the Sahara and north to Galicia, speeding along motorways, tracks and mountain trails. She’s provided us with bedroom, kitchen and shelter from winds and rain (does leak a bit!). We love her –

AND SHE’S NOT A JEEP!

Primarolo of Morocco

Resting by the mule-track down from Mount Amlal, Jebel Saghro

Hmm, thinking about Morocco – here’s an interestin’ article that a friend sent – Morocco: Lost in the Atlas. The Ait Atta tribes mentioned here are the folk of the Saghro region who we’ll be meeting and walking with in Feb/March this year on our trek with Mohamed Yaacoub of N’Kob and his team. Last year we were fortunate to be invited for tea at one of their nomad camps near the impressive cirque of pinnacle rocks which feature in the FB album of that trek (see Dreams of Morocco).

……unlike Lawrence of Morocco, we won’t be charging over £2400 for our Saghro excursion, but then you won’t get an ensuite tent, beaten brass bowls (unless you pick up one of your own in the souk before we leave Marrakech), or white linen table-clothes and I note it’s still a bucket wash, however much you pay – ooooo, how delicious that first post-trek shower! Still, I second the last line of the article:- “the real privilege of this journey is not the luxurious linen, but the sense of complete escape.”

Lighting-up time in the chaima – all-purpose dining/sitting/sleeping tent

As for meeting the Ait Atta with Bootlace and Mohamed Yaacoub: the camp is run with Berber panache and is an experience of the semi-nomadic life of the region as well as a means of getting to places where the indoor accommodation, to be frank, makes a tent look very attractive! You do get your tent put up for you, unlike many other treks. The crew are lovely: kind, friendly and helpful in a genuinely heart-felt way – the best we’ve worked with in terms of authenticity and natural organisation. (Oh, and musical – there was singing and dancing most nights, singing on the march with the mules – they love to sing!). Here’s some information about the up-coming Siroua Trek 2018 and the easy Atlantic Coast Trek 2018 from Essaouira

Maroc through my Little Black Box

One of the Asilah murals 2013

I’ve been walking and exploring Morocco at least once a year since 2006. As a good friend observed, it’s the nearest place to be somewhere else. It’s clearly Not Europe: don’t drive at night! see camels used for ploughing, flash past unfeasibly large-looking men on unfeasibly small-looking donkeys, dice with death contra-flowing behind a charioteer/baggagiste in Marrakech Sunday evening rush-hour. All the thrills of another continent. As a Muslim country it’s got to be the most liberal, with sufi-accented Marabout Shrines dotting the countryside and cascades of the call to prayer enchanting this jaded Euro in small cities like Taroudant. I’ve seen stars right down to the horizon in the desert near M’Hamid and wandered many a happy hour with my little black box through the delightfully delapidated alleys of Essaouira and the mural encrusted streets of Asilah. I’ve shooed wild tortoises off the flat place where I want to pitch my tent and had hysterics trying to buy a magenta pouf in Tangier. I’ve discovered scorpions in the Wrong Place and tried to make Berber bread be round, thin and flat, causing merriment to the trek cook.

Berber farmyard gate – Alpujarra or Morocco

The Berber connection with the Alpujarra intrigues me – so many words, so much architecture and agriculture in common. The heart of the Berber Moroccan like that of Alpujarra friends is generous and wide: share food, water, music, visual humour and Jenga. They’ve got us out of many a pinch – fixed my landy gear box, bargained down the tow-truck man, dispensed tea, sympathy and local-knowledge-based solutions. It’s not home but it feels like somewhere very familiar and loved. I’ve been liberated in the use of colour in my life by my travels in Maroc: absorbing the feel, the taste, the style and textures of Morocco from chic boutique hotels, opulent fabrics, blue neela, stained and polished plaster tadelac, to cruddy municipal campsites, fabulous wild camping in desert, mountain and coast, to medersas hidden at the centre of mazes of alleys, fishermen’s nets on wide sandy beaches, wooden boat houses, mosque towers, etched pise mud walls…

You’ve probably guessed by now – c’est vrai, j’aime Maroc! Here’s a link to just a sample of the images of Morocco which emerged from the eye of The Little Black Box more-or-less as my eye saw them (!) and found their way into an exhibition in Orgiva from 13 – 20 September 2013. I’m proud of my first public photo outing, but best of all for me it warms me with memories of time spent close to that great and generous Berber heart.

If you’re inspired to explore Morocco with us, with or without a black box of your own, here’s some information about the next Siroua Trek 2018 and the easy Atlantic Coast Trek 2018 from Essaouira.

Photos from the Exhibition Afrika Afrikana –

Sunday footie, on the way to Ait Ben Haddou

The Bootleg Files

Walking in the Alpujarra