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