Al Hoceima is where the Rif mountains finally run out of road and tip into the Mediterranean. The town curls around a bay under dry cliffs, with a small Spanish-held rock, the Penon de Alhucemas, sitting just offshore, and beyond the harbour the water goes from green to a very deep blue. It is a lively, slightly shabby, thoroughly Moroccan resort, and the people who fill its beaches in August come mostly from Morocco itself and from Moroccan families living in Europe.
Getting here by bike is the whole reason to come. The mountain road from Chefchaouen climbs through Ketama, in the heart of the Rif, a country of steep terraced hillsides, cedar and pine, and fields of cannabis that locals no longer bother to hide from curious riders. Corners are tight and constant, the tarmac is variable with patches that have slumped or broken after winter rain, and trucks and shared taxis take the middle of the road with confidence. The coast road from Nador is gentler, hugging the sea through headlands and dry valleys, with wide views and little traffic outside summer. Spring is the best season. Midsummer is hot and crowded, and winter brings snow in the high Rif.
The Rif has a proud and bloody modern history. In the early 1920s the local leader Abd el-Krim defeated a large Spanish army at Annual, founded a short-lived Republic of the Rif, and held out for years until a combined Spanish and French campaign, including a Spanish amphibious landing at Al Hoceima in 1925, broke the rebellion. The memory still carries weight in the north, and many locals speak Tarifit, a Berber language, in preference to Arabic. In 2004 a powerful earthquake struck the area, killing hundreds of people and wrecking villages in the hills, and the rebuilding is visible along the coast.
Nature is a big part of the pleasure. The national park of Al Hoceima protects a stretch of rugged coast with cliffs, small coves and some of the clearest water in the western Mediterranean, and offshore the sea is home to dolphins and rare birds such as Audouin's gull. The air smells of salt, thyme and diesel.
Fuel is easy to find in town, along with seafood restaurants where you point at the fish and they grill it. Carry water on the mountain roads, since services are sparse, and plan to arrive before dark, because livestock and unlit vehicles share the road.