30th of September - Morocco - Polar, altitude and a walk

This day had an interesting beginning. After a nice breakfast with loads of coffee, fresh orange juice and some yogurt we finally got on to some WMT stuff. The main organizer, Barry, held an introduction and started with just getting some of the admin out of the way.

The first talk of the day was actually done by the British ambassador in Morocco, Thomas Reilly. Turns out he's wife has been on the course some time back just previous to their moving to Morocco. He gave us some background information to why Morocco is so much more successful than the neighboring north African countries. When many of the others had revolutions happening that overthrew the governments, Morocco had demonstrations as well. More than 4 million people were out calling for change. The leader of the country, the king, recognized that he would be losing he's position unless he changed something, so he did. He moved some of he's power to a counsel and gave the people what they wanted, more influence. The result - he is still in power, although not absolute. The counsel has some power and works with a sort of democracy. People are content. Morocco more or less thrives.

I must admit, my Africa knowledge has huuuuge gaps.

Next we heard about some arctic expeditions with teenagers, mostly to show us what these experiences can be used for. How to plan, what can go wrong, what to pack, how to screen and when to deny attendance. One example would be someone who will not eat the food that is available when in remote places. What is brought with is what you have. If you don't eat you will slow the whole group down, potentially creating dangerous situations.

The more interesting lecture was about altitude sickness. I find this to be very intriguing. It can hit anyone at around 2 km altitude. You don't know who might get affected before it hits. It's something about the body's response to hypoxia. Some people don't respond strongly enough - don't start hyperventilating enough, or something of the like. The percentage of affected people increases with altitude and speed of ascent. An ascent up Kilimanjaro (about 5,5 km) will cause altitude illness in 70% of people if the speed of ascent is 4 days, but 10-15% if its done in 8 days. Acclimatization is key. If someone gets affected they need to stop and do a rest day until symptoms dissipate alternatively descend if it gets serious.



We had lunch on the roof terrace of the Kasbah. Lunch was couscous, but I asked and they made a special for me. Totally unexpected. I thought they'd just pick some chicken off the couscous and offer me that.
Very kind of them to prepare something for me.

After lunch we had a walk with daypacks and a bit of training outside. We got a little lesson on navigation and map reading, basic trauma assessment and the simplest sort of belaying with a rope, carabiner and sling with only two knots, a regular and an Italian hitch. I enjoyed this part most of all. Rope and knots are fun.

It got a bit chilly and rainy while we were out. We actually had to change the planned hiking route due to lightning (not wise to be the highest point on a bare mountain). I ended up wearing all my layers - t-shirt, merino wool sweater, fleece sweater, shell jacket, two buffs and gloves. Luckily the rain didn't get very bad so there was no need to start pulling on my rain pants.

The weather in the mountains is quite shifty and by the time we were heading back the sun was shining and it was getting quite warm. So layers off again and we enjoyed ourselves. I had a nice chat with two of the girls, Elinor and Naomi. I realized that my mind is not quick enough for the fast English they kept sprouting. Wow! Having English as my third language really doesn't help, hahaha! I had to ask them to repeat several times, because I simply couldn't catch what they were saying ;)

The last session of the day was quite fascinating. It was one of the leaders telling us of all kinds of expeditions and experiences he has had during he's career. Himalayas, Kilimanjaro, Arctic, Antarctic, Australia, Alaska, Iraq war and so on and so on.
So exciting to listen to, but oh my, so much activity. It felt quite distant from what any of us would be able to achieve in our lifetimes.

Dinner was three courses again and by that time we were all exhausted.

Tomorrow our day will start with a long hike. Our day-packs are already packed. Time to hit the sack.