Morocco
“If you could flip Norway over itself, so the Southern tip was now the most north, the Northern tip would reach Morocco”. This statement is courtesy of Mr Tom Parker and is actually true! This highlighted to me two things; Norway is a pretty tall country and Morocco isn’t really that far away.
In saying that, the cultural differences could not be more different. Morocco and Turkey are the closest Islamic states to the UK, and the trip in April 2008, to the Atlas Mountains in the middle of Morocco, was my first time to such a country.
Armed with a road map of Morocco and scribbled river notes from a number of sources, a group of 8 UK boaters hired a minibus and drove around looking for adventure. My first real experience in Marrakech was an orange juice from the market in the Djema el Fna, after all night driving and all morning flying, it tasted so good!
We didn’t stay in town more than two hours before heading to the hills and the region around the Bin el-Oudane lake. It was here we got our first taste of the continuous white water over the sandstone bedrock which is typical of the Atlas Mountains. It was great! The river was fed with milky snow melt, few eddies and very continuous at its class. The Ahansal starts in the shadow of Cathedral Rock and has beautiful deep gorges, some great camping spots and is not necessarily too challenging but great scenery and well worth the multi-day trip!
The mini bus then headed out further north to paddle the Oum er Rhiba. This river has an amazing start to it. About five small underground springs meet within 50m and create a sweet steep section of class IV. What makes this original is the village that is built on top of the harder section. To paddle it, I had to seal launch out of someone’s house!
The party bus then headed near Fes to the River Sebou. This is where the sketchy river notes caught us out and we struggled to find the section we were looking for. In a token effort to get on the water, we jumped on what we thought would be 10Km of easy class II, actually turned into 25Km of good quality class IV. This turned into a steep long bouldery gorge and was great fun! And of course any visit to Fes would not be complete without some hat buying!
This really ended the adventures with the minibus and the 8 people I came out with, but the start of a different sort of trip. Stu, my partner in crime from Tibet, came out so we both got to explore some more of the country’s white water.
We were relying on public transport to get about, which got us into a few sticky situations, towns with no buses, or no hotels all added to the trip expedition experience and always worked out somehow! Stu and I headed to the famous tourist attraction the Gorges of the Dades to paddle the 60Km through the 3 main gorges. The white water was continuous but not hard, the trickiest part was getting past the low low bridges across the river! This was another quality experience, made all the better by the atmosphere created by the local people living and working on the river side.
The friendliness we found on the banks of the Dades was no different to what I found in the rest of Morocco and is, in my experience, unequal to any other country. They ranged from a friendly smile to the offer of tea, as well as a floor to sleep on!
We rounded the trip off with a second descent down the Ahansal, Stu’s first, with the raft guides and kayak coaches working on the river. Their aim of the trip was to take the local hotel owner and his mate down the river and to have a gin fuelled 3 day boating trip! This was a great laugh and a great way to end my Moroccan adventures, looking forward to returning next year!
The level of development in Morocco is increasing and the demand for water for irrigation and electricity from hydro-sources has led to more and more dams being built and although the rivers are not in instant danger of being lost, it is on the cards in the near future so get out there!
If you are interested in a Moroccan adventure, I am running a trip over the Easter Holidays 2009. Follow this link for more information.
