Preface, and arguably good timing
I don‘t really mind the winter, but there‘s definitely something to escaping the cold to a warmer place, even if just for a week and a half. (Un)fortunately, the stars weren‘t in a favorable constellation before I left Basel, since I had contracted covid just a week before leaving. This put a whole lot of worrying on my plate, since I didn‘t really feel like passing it on to my travel companions. So additionally to the usual luggage I had a good amount of FFP2 masks, some cough suppressing candy, nasal spray for my eardrum and a bunch of covid test kits with me. The plan to spend the first few days at a separate Airbnb and to just see my friends outside was greeted by frowns and disbelieve by a couple of people we met on our first evening in Agadir. They were flabbergasted by the fact that we believed covid existed, much less that we took some precautions in the first place. Well, different country, different approaches we thought to ourselves. At least we wouldn‘t have any problems with authorities or the „moral police“ that way.
Mirleft never left…
When you travel, how do you choose where to go? Do you look at the flight prices, the things you can do and see in a particular place or perhaps the seating of the particular country on the human development index? Well, in our case we went with my brother’s advice for the perfect place to escape to in winter: Mirleft, Morocco. I am quite proud to say that my brother is kind of a Guru/role model at investigating and finding some of the niftiest travel hacks and places around us. The thoroughness with which he goes about it is quite astonishing, and so here’s what Mirleft is really good at:
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Getting there: Mirleft is this sleepy town located on the coast of Morocco, some 2 hours south of Agadir. Flying to Agadir is quite easy as it is a popular touristy place to go. But instead of staying there, those who rent a car (we payed around 15€/day) or take a bus (~3 hrs, dirt cheap) to go down to Mirleft, get all the benefits of beatiful beaches and hot weather without the tourist rip offs and overpriced tourist packages.
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Temperatures: On paper, Mirleft will show you temperatures averages of 15-18°C between November and March. But don’t let it fool you. You daily highs are easily in the low to mid 20’s. On top of that, you can expect little to now rain and clouds as this part of Morocco is close to the Sahara.
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Acommodation: You can find Airbnbs and other accomodation easily for 10€/night in Mirleft. It pays off when you are traveling as a couple of with 2 or more people, since you can book entire apartments very cheaply. Expect a lot of empty houses and apartments in Mirleft between November and March, since Moroccans usually go to Mirleft in the hot summer months, when the heat elsewhere is overwhelming, but is “rather cooler” down in Mirleft (still something like 30-35°C). In winter, those houses and apartments stay mostly empty.
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**Ghost Beaches: **In summer, the beach in Mirleft was described to us to be overflowing with Moroccans. In the winter months, you will barely see any Moroccans except for the locals. Some Europeans will make their way down their, but all in all it is very relaxing and you will have most of the beach to yourself.
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**Culinary experience: **we found the culinary offering in Morocco to be quite pleasant. At the beach you can get fresh vegetable salads, tea and coffee throughout the day. If you fancy a warm meal, you will have plenty of offerings in town, from the typical Tajine to fresh fish and even European food in some places. And all of that you can get for a knickle and a dime.
Moroccan mountain adventures
About 3 car hours and 1000 meters up into the savanna east of Mirleft, we hit Tafraoute, a town with 5000 people lies at the foot of the Jbel Lkest, a 2300m high mountain, majestically overseeing the region. Exploring the local culture and speaking with the people from Tafraoute we found out that the town hadn’t seen proper rainfall, much less a rainy season, in more than 3 years. The local river, for which the infrastructure can still be seen running through the town, apparently has been dry for more than 5 years. This is not surprising when you look at the landscape around Tafraoute. On our 3 hour drive there, we didn’t see a single source of water apart from the ocean. In fact, we found it quite astonishing that there were so many people living up in the planes without water. We deduced that the mild climate further up in the mountains must be one of the reasons why.
On our second day there it was time to tackle the Jbel Lkest. Driving to Tagdicht (yes, that’s right) via Laln (also true), we started our 900m ascend to the giant of the region. It took us about 3 hours to reach the top where, surprisingly we found remnants of caves and structures that must be there to support life up there, even if only sporadically. Up there, we also found a small puddle of water that was protected from the sun by stone structures. With 8 degrees being the high temperature of the day, it was quite a relief from the burning hot sun we had encountered at the beach and even in the planes at 1000m height.
More beach please!
After our adventures in the mountains, it was back to Mirleft to enjoy more days of sun, lazing around at the beach. There was really not much more to our days than to go down in the morning, drinking coffee and tea all day long, enjoying the sea and its sight and playing anything from Kniffel to other games. We just let our soul dangle in the sun until it was time to go home.
One thing is for sure though: I’ll definitely be going back to Mirleft at some point.