Morocco

The 12th October was my wife Sian's 50th birthday and earlier this year it was planned for us both to travel with 4 other friends to Morocco and climb up to the top peak of the Atlas Mountains Mt Toubkal. I had travelled to Tangiers during my time in the submarine service 30 years ago, but this was my first trip to the Marrakech region.

Our first stay was at the Kasbah du Toubkal. A breathtaking locale with great food and hospitality. The downside of this was the obvious inaccessibility for anyone with impaired mobility, but that's certainly not an issue that is exclusive to North Africa. My wheelchair-using friends can't get off the tube at Willesden to see me at home because of a flight of stairs that are just as inaccessible as the final footpath to the Kasbah. The short ascent to the accommodation was via foot over a steep rocky path. Our luggage was transported from our taxi in the village via mules for the last 500 metres of the journey.

Kasbah du Toubkal

The venue runs, like TPS, as a workers cooperative and a 5% levy is applied to the food and accommodation bill to support the local village. The site is decorated with stunning images taken by Alan Keohane whose work appeared on the walls at almost everywhere we went in Morocco. Both the Kasbah and Alan's photographic work are linked to another project that funds education for all in the country. By the time we'd left the area, our group were already planning their own fund raising events to support the education initiatives there.

At 4AM on the intended day of our final 900 metre ascent to the summit of Mt Toubkal, we encountered 85 MPH winds and snow. As the primary reason for climbing this was to take some panoramic images from the Toubkal summit (at 4165 metres, it's Morocco's highest peak) we decided that staying in our bunks at the refuge would be a better option.

In retrospect, this was a very good idea and later that day we walked back to the Kasbah. My blood glucose meter which had been in a bag, within a bag, within a bag was soaking (that horizontal rain gets everywhere) and gave me error messages instead of recording my blood glucose levels. One of the real problems with diabetes in cold climates is that if someone suffers a low blood sugar (hypoglycaemia) one of the additional difficulties encountered is that in order to save depleted energy/glucose, the body automatically slows things down when hypoglycaemic. The really dangerous legacy of this is that you involuntarily stop shivering. Hypoglycaemia can therefore be quickly followed by hypothermia. In lieu of a working meter and despite having really quite good warning signs of low glucose I decided to top up with sugary snacks on the way down as a prophylactic measure. My resultant glucose level on return to the Kasbah and a dry working meter was 25.6 mmols/L (this is far too high - normal range is 4- 8 in people without diabetes). This was particularly annoying as I had remained in homoeostasis (normal levels) throughout the previous day's strenuous ascent. Still - worse things happen at sea.

On the two day trip up and back down the mountain we passed a number of small isolated shacks and refuges where people from the village would trek to each day in order to make sufficient money from passing climbers to support their families. Improvisation and business acumen seemed to prevail everywhere here. Below is a home made refrigerator for cooling soft drinks - the water supply hose is pressurised from a stream above.

We left the Kasbah du Toukbal on Sian's actual birthday and returned to Marrakech where we stayed at the best "hotel" I'd ever encountered. The Dar Zemora is more of a small palace than a hotel and if they ever introduce a category of 6 star, based on the attention to detail and customer service, then Dar Zamora will qualify in my somewhat less than humble opinion. Their web site just doesn't do the place justice and it was luxurious, friendly and relaxing. The venue has been reviewed by so many high profile travel publications from UK national broadsheet travel supplements via Tatler to Conde Nast.

We spent a couple of days walking through Marrakech city centre, a sharp contrast to the decadence of our accommodation about 3Km away. Any traveller who's been to Morocco will know of the street hassling and abject poverty. Tourism is the mainstay of income for most people there, so hopefully our small contributions made a bit of difference.