We all started to go down together (with a guide, Mustafa) but I let other people go ahead of me because I had a lot of images in my head of people falling like dominos, and I decided that I would prefer to be the initial domino. I was behind a man who was kind of slower, but was pretending to be a gentleman and wait for me... He tried to help and like hold my hand, but I was NOT having it. Even if he was trying to be nice, it was futile because it was his first time up the mountain and we were basically in the same trial & error position in terms of which path to take. I did not want to walk down with him, but we made it about half way down together. It was MUCH harder to go down than up. I was happy that I had never trekked before because now that I know that little fact- I probably won't trek again. If I had known that the return would be harder than the trek up, I probably would have turned around before I made it to the top. I was literally CLIMBING for some points on the way up- I didn't think about having to get DOWN from those rocks... The rocks were very small and driveway-like. I tried to stick to the bigger ones, but there were a lot of places that only had VERY small rocks on a steep hill. *eye roll*. It was so hard and by that time in the day, the sun was RIGHT above us and I kind of just wanted to get back to the refuge... The "helpful" man started to REALLY annoy me. He would stop frequently in terrible spots and ask me to take pictures of him, and THEN the moment that put me over the edge happened...
He asked me to hold his camera, I thought he wanted another picture, BUT no no no... He said he had to go to the bathroom... okayyyyy......................THEN he asked if I had TOILET PAPER. IIII know what that means. I said "no" and took that as my escape route. I asked if I could go ahead ("because I am slower than him") and have him catch up.. I proposed this in a way that he couldn't really refuse and then I was happily on my way. SO ridiculous- I laughed out loud with myself- ESPECIALLY because we were in the MIDDLE of decline of a HUGE mountain!! I asked where he was going to go and he just pointed to nowhere haha.. ooooooiiiiii.
Navigating down was not easy, so I did a lot of trial and error. my "friend" caught up at a ledge and loudly asked me which way he should go. I tried both ways and they were equally hard, so I just told him which way I ended up going. I passed the boy seen below, and he told me that he was resting because it was too loud down there ....? (I didn't ask...). I kept on going and then the Moroccan caught up to me while I was resting. I told him to go ahead, and he shrugged and did. THEN the guy (who is from Poland) caught up to me (I was still resting...). He sat with me and I gave him some of my cliff bar (he loved it) and we talked a lot about nothing (& terrorism). His name is Lukas and his eyes were bluer than the sky above... ahhhlala I think we ended up talking for much longer than I realized. We started going down together, but he was going "the boy route" and was NOT paying attention to the rock structures serving as markers to help trekkers like me get down.... NOT EASY, but he was funny about it. At one point in our conversation he asked me "why are you so slow???" :O Funny, and true, but RUDE- I don't think he was trying to be funny or rude....
Anyway, we are ALMOST at the bottom when we saw Kate. Lukas pointed her out bc we are wearing the same bright green shirt... She met up with us and said that she was worried bc all of the guides were back (which everyone was very mad about- "they left [me] up there alone, and that's the opposite of their job...") but I wasn't. She greeted me with a bottle of water and a twix bar-- total angel. I also forgot to mention this, but I not only did I forget my iPod- I did not bring ONE dirham on this trip.. I was under the impression that we had to pay for the refuge ourselves (turns out we didn't have to), and what if I wanted snacks or something??? IDK what I was thinking! It turned out to be okay, EXCEPT the water at the refuge was not good to drink (the Moroccans drank it, so I prob would have been okay--- I AM Moroccan afterall.......) but luckily I had my chlorine tablets!! (thanks Mom & Paragon). I shared a lot of them- it was great. I didn't even finish one of the twix bars before we made it back to the refuge. Everyone had already eaten lunch... woops! But there were a lot of leftovers. I MOWED down on yum yum salad and lentils then I finished my twix, and Kate stole a big bottle of h2o fr me. THEN it was time to clean the mountain.
No altitude sickness, only VERY SWOLLEN HANDS!!!!!!
Everyone had already been cleaning for an hour or so before I got down, so there was not a lot left for me to do... WELL there was still A LOT to do, but they only brought 30 BIG bags, and apparently they filled up quicker than Mountain Propre had expected. It was really really astonishing and weird. Going up to the mountain, you only saw the occasional piece of litter (and u picked it up and put it into your reusable sustainable garbage bag) but if you walked a very short way off the path, or away from the refuge, there were PILES of disgusting, rotting trash hidden under small rocks. It was UNREAL. I forgot my camera, but it was probably even too upsetting to post about. Basically what happens is that people litter (I don't want to generalize saying that Moroccans litter bc I am sure other people do too, but I have witnessed some very shocking instances of littering in Morocco and Jordan--- Remember Salem?????). Littering does not have the same connotations here, so people do it openly and frequently. SO instead of throwing out the litter (what a concept) the people who run the refuge make the effort to lift these rocks and cover the trash, giving trekkers the illusion of a beautiful and clean mountain. It's really bad, and IDK how to get people to stop, but events like this is definitely helping- at least by simply getting the word out. I think that the Moroccans who volunteered with us will never litter again, and hopefully they will put pressure on their friends... ** Side note-- Salem (our Jordanian aameia professor) once threw a tiny piece of trash out the window. We were all visibly HORRIFIED- he definitely learned his lesson. He also always apologized to us anytime he saw us afterwards, and made a biiiig speech about it at our 'graduation'** Anyway- this trash thing was mushkilla kabeera, and very discouraging. After we filled the 30 bags we had teatime... I was becoming sorer and sorer by the minute.
Dinner was good tajine. I sat in the middle of the Moroccan table. (our meals and activities have been noticeably segregated this entire weekend- the Europeans with the Europeans and the Moroccans with the Moroccans... unfortunate, but Kate and I made an effort to sit with the Moroccans). One of them took my fork and knife away and challanged me to eat "the Moroccan way". Little did he know, I AMMMM Moroccan- he was impressed. The pain ensued. I could barely walk down the stairs to brush my teeth. We sat on the terrace after dinner and I tried to stretch a little. BEAUTIFUL STARS. I cant figure out how do take pix of them, but even if I could- it wouldn't do the moment justice. We went to sleep at 11 or 12. I woke up a few times during the night (uncharacteristic) because I was in a lot of pain. I woke up at 9 30-- almost missed breakfast (which was supposed to be at 9??) until I remembered that we are in Morocco and are on Morocco time-love it.
The walk back down the rest of the way was a blur. I was hurtin real bad walked very slowly. I don't want to talk about it really, BUT I will say that I did not start cursing in my head until ~1:30 pm on SATURDAY... Bravo Claire!!! I have NEVER been in this much pain, and the final stretch was TERRIBLE. I think Aniko could tell once we FINALLY made it to Dar Toubkal... She threw me into the shower, and I felt like a new person (still SO much pain tho...). We went to a terrace restaurant for lunch- MORE CLIMBING to get to the top. I was a zombie but felt better after brochettes and FFs. I also got two cokes. Regular coke... that's how bad it was. We all went to the insinerator to drop the trash off. Usually we would ship it to Marrkech, but it was already too damaged- all we could do was burn it (I don't really understand that, but I trusted them). We rested a on the terrace and prepared for a great celebratory dinner. Lo (?) wanted to introduce me to the butcher, so I went with him to get the meat for dinner. Lo explained that I am living at Dar Toubkal for the next month and I only want to eat THE BEST meat (true.) He continued to tell the butcher that I am American and know what good meat tastes like- not sure if that was a dig or not.... I also met the veggie guy who was not as nice as the butcher... We had a great celebration dinner (with a lot of leftovers that I am still eating on July 18th).
All in all, this weekend was a total great success. I am so happy, and will fondly remember these three days for the rest of my life.
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