Just before we arrived, Mirleft received an extraordinary amount of rainfall, turning the usually-Mars-like landscape into a sea of green, then yellow thanks to an explosion of wildflowers.
Then, a cold snap swept in and we were told it was Mirleft’s chilliest February in over a decade. There were a few sunny days in which we had high hopes of heading to the beach, only for the fog to roll in and temperatures plummet in the afternoon.
Our Euro-African Journey (So Far...)
But by week three, the weather finally began to cooperate. Sunshine and highs in the upper seventies. Not Nayarit warm, but we’ll take it!
Off to Saturday morning brunch at our favorite little French brunchy place in town, ZanZan.
Noe, being French. Actually, Noe, just being himself.
Then, off for a little hike in the surrounding hills to soak up some sunshine.
We heard that there was a historic spring-fed pool somewhere in this valley. It’s not marked on the map, so we just had to go poking around to find it.
Seems we approached it from above. We could spend 20 minutes walking around, or just climb down the rock wall. We chose the latter.
We hear that in the hot months this is a popular place for local kids to cool off. It’s still a little too cool to consider that, but was an interesting find, nonetheless.
I think Tafugla might be our new favorite place in town, at least for Moroccan specialties. Good prices, delicious food, nice outdoor ambience, and “quick” service.
In Mirleft, quick means around 30-45 minutes for the food to come out. If you need quicker food, you can get “tacos” at a place like Fein Burger in about half the time.
The view from the rooftop terrace of our apartment. I came up here to hang sheets from our laundry and realized I definitely don’t come up here enough.
Today, the hub kids were invited to Tilila Pizzeria to learn how to make pizzas. They had a blast and even picked up a few insider tips for Moroccan pizza-making.
That afternoon, the kids visited the local Hammam (traditional community bathhouse), where they learned about the traditional washing rituals still in use today, and got to have fun sliding around on the sudsy floor.
The hammam is an important social space in Morocco, with separate times (or spaces) for males and females.
Later, the moms in the group organized their own private hammam experience to a smaller bathhouse in town.
According to Lori, they were ushered into a steamy room where they were rigorously scrubbed and doused with alternating buckets of warm and cold water. After being put through the wringer, so to speak, they got to enjoy some fluffy-bathrobe, tea-sipping social time, followed by a relaxing hour-long massage.
With the warmer weather upon us, we’ve been hoping for a few more sunsets this week. The days start blue and brilliant, but around 4pm, the fog roles in, dashing our hopes. Today, we thought we’d head out into it.
In some places, the fog is so dense, you can’t see the ocean 50 meters in front of you. A minute later, it clears out briefly before rolling back in.
On our walk, we discovered a small beach at low tide only a five-minute walk from our place. Two weeks in and we hadn’t noticed it before.
The hub’s Moroccan facilitators had waited all week for the tide timing to be right for octopus hunting. On Wednesday, the stars (or moon, rather) finally aligned and the kids all got to go down to Aftas Beach to try their luck.
No octopus today, but they had no problem making a fun day out of it.
The holy month of Ramadan is due to begin after sundown tonight, and the whole village has been in a frenzy all week making last-minute preparations (more on Ramadan in the next post).
One of those preparations involves making Fanous (Ramadan lanterns), which the kids got to take part in.
They even got to bring home their very own to light after sunset over the next 30 days.
We’ve been curious all week as to when Ramadan will start. Initially, we were baffled as to why nobody could give us a straight answer. Our understanding was that it is connected to the timing of the new crescent moon, which would make it easy to figure out for any year into the future, right? Well, not exactly.
In our age of technological and scientific precision, the actual process is fascinating. Ramadan’s start is actually determined by the physical sighting of the new crescent moon. If observed (and that’s a big “if” in a lot of places), Ramadan begins the next day. If not, Ramadan starts the next day.
Who’s responsible for the sighting? Religious leaders or committees at local or regional levels, at least that’s how they do it in Morocco. In other countries, they use what’s referred to as ‘unified sighting’, taking their cues from Saudi Arabia.
This year, there was a big controversy regarding this, in that Saudi Arabia proclaimed the 18th to be the first day of Ramadan, even though the international astronomical community determined it would be “astronomically impossible” to see the moon on the evening of the 17th.
So, in one half of the Muslim world in 2026, Ramadan started on the 18th, and in the other half (including Morocco), it begin on the 19th.
Not being Muslim, ourselves, the controversy didn’t really affect us. However, we couldn’t help but wonder how all the other limitations and expectations surrounding Ramadan might start to affect our daily lives in the next several weeks.
It’ll be a new experience being in a traditional, Muslim-majority country during the entire length of Ramadan.
Just after sundown, I stepped out onto the terrace to see if I could, by chance, catch a glimpse of the crescent moon. And sure enough, there it was, hanging in the sky for all to see.
Tomorrow, Day One…
