The next morning we piled into the van and drove on highway and then up narrow winding roads to the town of Imlil. There we stored most of the luggage in an inn, had a Moroccan coffee called nousnous, and packed small overnight bags which were loaded on donkeys. We hiked for just over an hour up a steep hiking trail, through little villages of the Imlil valley.
We hiked until we reached a larger, Berber village called Aroumd, where we were to spend the night at an inn run by a Berber family. Our tour leader was Berber and she was enthusiastic about teaching us about her life and culture.
We had a lunch of mint tea, salad, chicken skewer, rice, and a Berber egg dish. After lunch we went outside and saw a woman cooking bread in a stone oven, and we all had a piece.
Then, some of us did a hike up a steep trail into Toubkal Park, passing lots of sheep and once in a while a donkey coming down. Vegetation was sparse grass and Spanish Juniper. Great views of the valley, a creek below with green around it and a couple of waterfalls. After a couple of hours we reached shrine called Shamrush, which had little coffee houses that are used by mountaineers on their way to climbing Mt. Toubkal, which is over 4000 m high. While we were there, we met a group of Moroccan mountaineers on there way down.
It was interesting to think we were in Morocco, compared to my preconceptions of it, when the scenery around us could have been from the Himalayas.
On the way back, we had views of a flat, dry river bed which had green patches for grazing animals, and a soccer field.
Back at the inn we had tea and then dinner of tangine - meat and vegetables cooked on a ceramic plate with a conical cover which is typical in Morocco.
There was no heat in the inn, and the temperature in the mountains dropped below zero, so we slept with several blankets and sleeping bags.
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