Morocco had been on our short list for new places to visit for a while (Peru and Turkey now top the list), and so, when we saw a spring break "trek" to Morocco advertised by her school's Outdoors club, we jumped at it. We usually like to plan and organize our own trips as opposed to doing group tours, but neither of us had time to do any planning and we were very glad to take a 'plug-and-play' vacation.
Getting there: We flew from Boston to JFK where we caught a Royal Air Maroc flight to Casablanca and then caught a connecting flight for the 45-minute journey to Marrakech. Royal Air Maroc was a fair experience -- I've been on airlines that are worse and ones that are better. The food wasn't bad on the way there (worse on the way back but by no means inedible). My biggest gripe about them is that, while they code share with Delta, there are no miles to be earned on any frequent flier program except theirs.
Royal Mirage/Marrakech: We checked into the Royal Mirages hotel not very far from the center of Marrakech. It used to be a Sheraton and bills itself as a 4-star hotel. It was nice and very comfortable, but not comparable to a 4-star in the States. For instance, they had a continental buffet dinner in one of their restaurants, which had a lot of different dishes all of which were exceedingly bland. We caught a nap and then went into town to get some fresh air and get our bearings. We ended up in the world famous Djemaa el Fnaa square. What a scene! There is a huge square filled with spectacle -- snake charmers, acrobats, musicians, and these storytellers, who were these particularly fascinating older ladies that would tell elaborate stories to crowds of onlookers (unfortuntely we couldn't understand them as they spoke in Arabic). Besides the performers, beggars and tourists (western and moroccan), there are all sorts of vendors with stalls selling freshly squeezed orange juice, dates, nuts, kabobs, tagines , fish and even goat head and brains. 
Mt. Toubkal: After the aforementioned bland hotel dinner and a good night's sleep, we set off the following morning for the Berber town of Imlil, which has become a base for people going to climb Djebel Toubkal (Mt. Toubkal), the tallest peak of the High Atlas mountain range, and, at 4,167 meters, the tallest peak in Northern Africa. We had received a trip packet containing information on our itinerary and what to pack. Based on the way it was written, we thought we'd be in for some active sightseeing, if a bit strenuous at times. Well this perception completely changed as soon as they started fitting us for crampons and handing out ice picks to us at Imlil! They put our bags onto some mules and, after getting our first taste of the famous Moroccan mint tea, off we went. The trail wasn't bad as we navigated around the valley, across a dry riverbed and to the other side. As we climbed higher, we were rewarded with gorgeous views of the valley dotted with Berber villages. It had been a fairly wet winter and their terraced plots of land for farming were a luscious green.
We stopped for lunch at the marabout (or tomb of a holy person) of Sidi Chamarouch. The white dome in the picture below is the shrine/mosque with the village around it. There were some shops selling snacks for the trail, and we loaded up on some Mars and Snickers bars for the journey ahead. It was a good call! 
After hiking a couple more hours, we came upon the snow line, which is where the mules stop and the porters take over. We kept on going and, about an hour later, we got to the Toubkal Refuge towards the end of the day. We had climbed to quite an altitude and my wife was feeling it already. Here she is sitting outside the house looking pensive in a sign of things to come.
From the outside, the refuge looked very inviting indeed -- almost like a ski lodge made of stone. Inside, it was quite a different story. The Toubkal Refuge is basically an indoor campsite. It had rooms with wall-to-wall, floor-to-celing bunk beds, common mess rooms to take meals in and bathrooms below. Given the number of campers that pass through, let's just say it wasn't the cleanest of places. The other groups at the refuge consisted of what seemed to European mountain men -- tall, grizzled, and with all the right skiing and camping gear.
Our guides cooked us some buttery pasta (carbo loading before the big day), and, after a fitful night's sleep, we awoke to climb to the top. Our goal was to set off at 7:30 am. By the time everyone finished breakfast, got their crampons on and we were actually able to leave, it was more like 9 am. In the meanwhile, our European roommates had all set off, except they climbed the surrounding slopes on skis, which seemed ultra hard-core to us.
Off we went all bundled up for the cold, with our crampons and ice-picks. About 15 minutes in, after we traversed a little ravine, we took a break. We continued zig-zagging up the mountain in single file. 
It was tough going as the incline was quite steep and we had to be deliberate hiking on the snow. As we neared the top, I could feel the altitude -- it was harder to catch my breath and I felt a headache coming on. But we made progress and we finally reached the summit where we took the obligatory pictures.
As usual, the descent was as painful as the ascent, if not more so. It wasn't as bad on my knees as the scree in Kilimanjaro was, although it was slower because we were on snow. It was cold, my head was throbbing and I was feeling faintly nauseous but we all made it back to the refuge in one piece.
We were craving hot showers but the refuge was NOT the place for it. Yes they had hot showers, but no one wanted to brave this. So we had a hearty dinner and, the next morning, made our way back down towards Imlil retracing the steps we'd taken 2 days earlier on the way up.
On the way down, our fearless guide, Mohammed, pointed to the trees in the hills 
and said that's where we'd be headed in the afternoon on our mountain bikes. I cheekily asked if this was the Tour de France or something, which he and our other guide, Abdul, found really funny.
We got to Imlil and checked into a local Berber guest house with a warm reception from their owner. They served us a lunch of "kefta" tagine, which is basically an omelet with meatballs and veggies, and we ate up every last bit of it. We ate so much that they must have been embarassed for having run out and so made us a huge dinner that night with lots of leftovers.
That's it for Part 1. I'll cover the biking and camel riding parts of our trip in Part 2, and then Marrakech and general impressions in Part 3.
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