Fort Bou Jerif

Bou Jerif stands on a bluff above the Oued Assaka in the stony country between Guelmim and the Atlantic - a rectangular fort with corner bastions, barrack blocks, stables and a courtyard, built by the French in the 1930s to control the routes through this district and abandoned in 1957. Nothing was done with it afterwards, so what is there is a shell: roofless rooms, doorways, walls with the render off, standing in open hammada with the river below and Plage Blanche somewhere west. There is no fence, no sign and no staff. A campsite and auberge operate nearby and are the reason most travellers know the name, since the fort is a stop on the four-wheel-drive routes between Guelmim, the coast and the desert. The setting - hard flat country, a green line of tamarisk along the river, and the ruin on the bluff - is the point rather than the architecture.

What you actually see

• A 1930s Legion fort - bastions, barracks and stables, abandoned in 1957.
• A shell - roofless rooms and bare walls left exactly as they were.
• A river bluff - tamarisk along the Assaka below the fort in dry hammada.
• No protection - unfenced and unstaffed, on the desert piste routes.

When to go

October to April. Half a day, as part of a desert route.

Honest expectations

Access is by piste and high clearance is advisable. The ruin is unstable in places and unsupervised. There is nothing at the site itself - the nearby auberge is the only facility. Summer heat is dangerous.

Nearby

Plage Blanche is west; Guelmim is east.