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This was supposed to be to a town called Larache, about 30km North. I booked the hotel for the wrong day, and unfortunately, when I turned up at the hotel, it was closed. I messaged them through the booking app and they notified me of my error. Nothing I could do now, the hotel was closed.

Being fairly early in the day, I thought it better to book a hotel which was on my way to my next stop, Rabat. And the best place happened to be

Riad Des Oiseaux

Or ‘hotel of the birds’. Hotel for the birds it should read. Another shady hotel in the back of nowhere.

This is the reason I’m a day behind. The hotel says, on the list of amenities, it has WiFi, but the owner has forgotten to pay for it. It was survivable though, quite a pretty location, down a 2.5km sand track.

The village was super rural and the host was fairly friendly, unfortunately, he saw guests as a material worth. Not really hospitality as such. More profiteering.

Here’s a short video taken from outside my window at sunset.

All said, I was fairly lucky; there were no insects, despite it being next to a lake. I got an early start in the morning, and by 8amish, I was on my way.

Growing country

Seems like they grow everything down the coast here.

From Tangier right the way to Rabat, it’s one continuous growing operation. Either that or the land is in remission/rotation, waiting for the next crop to be grown.

There are lots of tunnels. From what I can make out, the crops that are being grown are

• Potatoes
• Oranges
• Blueberries
• Tomatoes
• Avacados
• Strawberries
• Bananas

There may be others that I’ve missed.

Trip statistics

A day of two journeys. I turned the GPS off when I got to the hotel, then turned it on again when I realised I wasn’t stopping 😉

Two for the price of one. Anyway, it chopped 33km or so off the following day which would have been 170km +, over 100 miles.

• Distance: 121.7km
• 18.9kph Ave speed
• Max temp 22°
• 952m Elevation gained
• 3,805 calories burned
• Time 6h 21m

Some pictures from the day