4 hrs, 7.5 kms



Next day I've got less than half a day for adventure, which will definitely not be enough to finish the 28 kilometers of Paradise Valley, so I’ll have to leave that for a later trip—and I absolutely must do it. The Agadir Superhike will not be complete without it.

Today I’m just going to connect another suburb to my Superhike: El Kolea. It’s going to be a boring hike, but it will be short, the weather cool, and part of it will be in an urban area, so it shouldn’t provoke the why-the-hell-am-I-doing-this feeling of my Oulad Teima hike. So I catch a collective taxi to Inezgane, then a bus to El Kolea… much more modern bus now, run by a Spanish company, with a machine that prints out your ticket and everything—but the people are still the rugged working class folk of 1996 when I first visited this town.

 I get off the bus in the middle of town and start the 7 km hike back to Ait Mellioul. On one side of the road there’s farmland and orchards, on the other side streets are being laid out for a new development. Soon there will be nothing but city from Agadir all the way to El Kolea. I wistfully remember when coming here was coming to the "countryside", where I’d go with a fellow I met here to pick fruit straight off the cactuses.

Soon I reach the large industrial zone of Ait Mellioul. I come across some suspicious looking fellows smoking dope in a car by the side of the road—which sets me a little ill at ease… but it’s not too bad of a hike… worth it just so I could count today as an “Adventure Day”—and connect 2 towns to my Superhike.