Day 5: October 5

And we drink coffee and drive on… Leaving the cockroaches to starve.

We pass Agadir, a fairly large city. There are a lot of cars on the roads here. Moroccans are terrible drivers. Their favorite little trick is to drive in the middle of the road instead of in their own lane. And they also change lanes completely unpredictably right in front of you.

Outside the city, we stop at a supermarket. We buy olives, tuna, expensive but very appetizing-looking sweets, mangoes (yaaay), raisins, and mint for tea. That’s what mint means to Moroccans — it’s sold in supermarkets and costs next to nothing. I’ve never seen such a huge pile of mint before.

Right there in the supermarket building, we go into a shoe store. After half an hour and about 5 pairs of shoes tried on, we finally buy Wolf two (!) pairs of Cat boots — one pair of yellow winter boots, the other gray summer ones. There’s a 50% discount on all shoes here; the boots look high-quality and really cool. Too bad the women’s ones are way too bulky and far too unfeminine.

Today’s road isn’t very scenic. It stretches along some half-abandoned villages. We’re looking for a place to stop and have a snack. We specifically bought buns and a couple of slices of ham in the supermarket for that.

Finally, the endless buildings end and it turns into a stone desert. We drive a little way off along a dirt road and have lunch sitting on the rocks. Hot wind carries sand. You can see the air shimmering.

We remember that we forgot the tasty French mustard, a bottle of olive oil, and the leftover wine “at the cockroaches’ place.” Sigh. Today we’ll be eating salad without oil and washing it down with mint tea.

We arrive in Mirleft around 6 p.m. We check into our apartment, which we booked yesterday on Booking. Today we have a kitchen again. But this time everything is so clean and new!

20 km from Mirleft is Legzira Beach with arches created by nature. That’s why we came here. We decide it would be better to go see the arches tomorrow morning. And today Volchiy suggests going to the fortress.

There is very little information about the fortress in Mirleft. I didn’t even know there was a fortress here.
Some say it was built by the French, others say by the Spanish. But they seem to have agreed on the date — 1935.

We climb up a dirt road to the foot of the hill. The fortress is very picturesque, a bright brick color. But it has been preserved poorly; after all, just a little over 80 years have passed. And medieval fortresses still stand to this day… Maybe the building material here is poor? It is crumbling right before our eyes.

At the entrance, we are accosted by a “guide.” As soon as we step inside, he starts rattling something off in French. We try to explain to him that we don’t understand anything, but he persistently follows us and tries to tell us about something. Sigh. The fragile harmony has been broken. We so wanted to wander around the fortress alone, but instead we’re running between the walls from the guide. In time, though, he finally understood that there would be no use from us.

We head down into the town, and then drive to the beach. By the time we get there, it’s already completely dark. The beach here is beautiful; we’re planning to come back here again tomorrow.