Mount Gourougou

Jbel Gurugú is an 892-metre volcanic massif in the eastern Rif Mountains, rising immediately south of the Spanish exclave of Melilla on Morocco's Mediterranean coast. Its jagged basalt ridgeline commands sweeping views across Melilla, the Mediterranean, and on clear days the Andalusian coast. Historically the mountain was a contested theatre during the early 20th-century Rif Wars between Spanish colonial forces and Berber fighters; in recent decades it gained a different kind of prominence as a staging ground for migrants attempting to cross into the EU, lending it a charged geopolitical present. Hikers ascend via rough scrubland trails through classic Rif maquis, with the volcanic geology exposed in the rocky outcrops throughout the route.