Imlil Warnings and Dangers

It’s difficult to find good maps of the Toubkal region anywhere, and the best ones available are in Imlil. For a price though. We were quoted 150 Dirhams for a copy of the 1:100,000 map in our hotel. This was the same cost as room and breakfast for the night. So instead we took a digital picture of the map when the owner wasn’t around. In fact, we didn’t really need a map as there were many people doing the climb at the same time as us and it was fairly easy to find the path. Even if you are here at a quieter time of year, it’s possible to get by wit Hough maps. Most guidebooks have a description of the route from Imlil to the Toubkal refuge and then on to Toubkal itself.

We were planning to spend 3 days in the Atlas mountains and we assumed we’d find a bank in Asni or Imlil. Hence we only brought what Dirhams we had with us to Imlil and we got a bit of a shock when we discovered there was nowhere to take money from and that we had about 700 Dirhams between the two of us for 3 days. Luckily we had 30 pounds in Sterling and the guy at the CAF information point in Imlil changed them for us. This only brought us to 1150 Dirhams and it was still a struggle to manage on this for 3 days. I’d advise anyone coming to Imlil to take money out in Marrakech. And always take a bit extra too, as costs can be surprisingly high for certain things in Imlil and the mountains and you never know how long you might have to stay, especially if you’re planning to climb Toubkal.