We Climbed the Highest Peak in North Africa!
19th July 2023
Fourteen students, having finished their GCSE exams, took on a massive personal challenge to round off their time at Carrington School, travelling to Morocco and climbing over the course of one day, the highest peak in North Africa - the mighty Toubkal in the Atlas Mountains. The trail was over 16 miles long up (and down!) rocky and rough terrain. The first four hours we hiked in the dark, having set off at 3am, to avoid the hottest part of the day and hoping to reach the summit around sunrise.
Another highlight of the week was visiting a Reforestation Nursery, run by the High Atlas Foundation, which works with communities to restore the landscape as climate change is wreaking havoc on traditional agricultural ways of life. Nearby a Women's Cooperative enterprise makes and sells beautiful and useful items to travellers and tourists in an effort to supplement their families incomes and to empower women within these more traditional communities. These women hosted us for a delicious lunch on the hottest day of our stay, where temperatures reached 46 degrees, and helped us to understand the work they are doing and why.
Touches of luxury during the week came with consistently delicious and plentiful meals of fresh salads and marinated meats, and the swimming pool at the Riad in Marakesh where we began and ended our journey. It was also exciting to visit the Souk in the city on our last night and practice haggling with market traders in the twilight, to secure some lovely souvenirs to bring home.
