Mules pass by, carrying ridiculous loads. One brushes our table. An exuberantly costumed street musician prances towards us, beating a tambourine, and pauses as he passes, hoping for a tip. He would have demanded one, too, if we’d even twitched a camera in his direction.

I  have to ask her. ‘Nuss-nuss?’ ‘It’s Arabic. It means half-half,’ she explains. ‘ I want half coffee, half milk, that’s all’.

This is Day One for us in Morocco. We’re just a couple of hours by air from France, but generations (centuries, even) away. I don’t realise it then, but we are soon to discover that nuss nuss can apply to much more than just coffee in this country, for Marrakesh itself is a dichotomy.

Late in the afternoon we head for Jeam Elafna,the city’s main square. Nothing could have prepared us for this. The jarring noises, the mingled smells of horse dung, mint tea, incense, smoke – or the aggressive marketing: snake handlers, dazzlingly dressed dancers swivelling to frenzied

Berber bagpipes, water sellers, acrobats with bells, henna artists, tarot card readers – even a little man seated on a square of pavement feeding teaspoonsful of milk to a hedgehog and scattering crumbs for his tamed pigeons. Oh, and the denture man on the ready to supply upper or lower sets immediately!

Part carnival, part bedlam, this mobile mosaic is threaded through with a swirl of camera-toting tourists, robed locals, motorbikes, donkey carts and horse-drawn carriages, the latter ones inaudible in the general hubbub.

‘It’s a zoo!’ says our guide, Abdellah, laughing like a proud father showing his children a special treat.

It’s a photographer’s paradise, too, so long as you pay the fee. Our guide keeps negotiating rates and feeding low denomination dirham to each group so we can attempt to capture the colourful acts and characters.

WATCH this video to really get the feel of the country:

Finally, he leads us up several flights of stairs to a terraced rooftop café overlooking it all, where we join other tourists sipping mint tea. Long shadows lace the gyrating dancers and promenading crowds. Now, visible, on every mudbrick rooftop, are clusters of white saucers – satellite dishes. Like cups to gather rain, these are set to capture the moods and modes of other worlds. Other cultures.

Our senses on overload and ears buzzing with the drum-thumps and strident horns, we are at last free to check in to our accommodation – a riad we had been told. I’d informed my friends it would be a Moroccan B&B.

But again, this underlines the contrasts. Leaving the square we dodge cars and carts, bikes and buses, then our guide disappears down a suddenly silent dusty alley. Halfway along, a heavy door, knobbed with iron studs, is the only indication of our destination. We press the tiny bell, the door cracks open, and a veiled eye surveys us.

Inside we discover a palace. Riads were originally the gracious homes built for the nobles of the court. Close to the palace, they afforded luxury and privacy. This one is no exception. The inner walls are covered with lacy filigree and etched mosaics stretching three storeys high. The open central courtyard allows just a peep at the indigo square of evening sky.

In this serene interior there is no hint of the chaotic medina just a few blocks away. The only sound is the tinkle of the water fountain ­– the badge of a true riad – surrounded by plants in the centre of the tiled floor, and the welcome clink of our mint teas arriving on a tray.

Just as Marrakesh has several faces, we discover soon that so does the rest of Morocco.

(Our guide, Mohamed)

One day we drive inland to the Atlas mountains. This range extends for hundreds of kilometres as a spine separating desert from coast. We shiver when we realise that the fabled Sahara is within reach. Here, though, the mountains from a distance are spotted with low scrub, and rough red when closer.

The hike through dusty rugged terrain looks familiar. Of course! We’re told this area was used as the set for parts of Salmon Fishing in  the Yemen. Several blistering kilometres later, it ends at a settlement of a few homes and we dine hungrily on a simple feast prepared by our guide Mohamed’s family. The vegetables and chicken in the tagine were raised and grown just metres away, as were the fruits for dessert.

Mohammed, Ahmed, Abdellah. We learn our mentor’s names along the way, relishing the harsh back-of-the throat accent of some. Islam is never far away. The muezzin’s call wakes us until we become used to it; our driver has an app on his mobile that reminds him when it is time to pray.

We grow to appreciate this gentle collision between old and new. Islam seems to sit easily with many. While we quickly learn to respect the wishes of the women, turning our cameras away from them, our guide is equally devout, but easy with his observance, taking private opportunities to pray when he is waiting for us, but remaining relaxed if the itinerary requires him to drive on.

The Atlantic Ocean first meets Africa in this country, its pale green waters splashing onto beaches the colour of couscous. Essaouira, its Portuguese name is Mogador, was established in the 16^th century by the Portuguese. 

The city has seen much over the centuries, but now snoozes under a seething canopy of gulls that wheel and shrill over the fishermen squatting on the rocks at the edge of the sea as they clean their writhing silver hauls of eels and fish.

Their black and blue boats are herded into a marina at the dock beside their drying nets and a pathway of stalls selling the sea’s riches. Tourism and local life exists side by side. Wares are made for sale,restaurants serve seafood caught by local fishermen and the travellers' dollars are exchanged happily.

After all this country has been on a trading route. The Carthaginian navigator Hanno visited in the 5th century BC and established the trading post of Arambys. Around the end of the 1st century BC or early 1st century AD, the Berber king Juba II established a Tyrian purple factory, processing the murex and purpura shells found in the intertidal rocks at Essaouira and the Iles Purpuraires. This dye colored the purple stripe in Imperial Roman Senatorial togas. A Roman villa has been excavated on Mogador Island.

Further north at Oualidia, the tempo changes again. Here La Sultana, a luxury hotel, beloved as a retreat for Morocco’s Queen Mother, offers style without compromising culture. Our cool shaded room has a stone outdoor patio with views over the meandering inlet where small ferries take visitors on tours, and a steep staircase reveals a private rooftop where we can relax under the stars, later.

We learn the intention of the major colours used in the ubiquitous ceramic tiling – green white, black, ochre, blue – each linked to an attribute of the world, but that is just the alphabet of one part of the language of tradition.

Later, in Fez, we see those same colours (and a rainbow more) used in mosaic-tiled tabletops patiently created near the kilns that will fire them into permanence. We join the ant-like stream of tourists, nodding without enough comprehension of the meticulous skills needed.

It is too simple to categorise Morocco as an ‘East meets West’ destination. The intersections and counterpoint of the culture is as intricate as the carvings on many buildings, thick with historical and spiritual meaning and dense with symbolism.

In this city’s confusing maze of alleys and lanes we discover more artisans. Tin, wood, painted friezes and frames, cactus silk, silver, chiselled tombstones, nougat, marzipan, cheese – and leather.

Ah, yes, the leather, created in stinking outdoor vats where men, stripped to the waist, dunk skins over and over into lime pools, then baths of colours laid out in the searing sun like some witch’s palette. From the windows of the bag and purse and slipper showroom, glowing in a thousand colours, we press sprigs of mint to our noses so that we can stay long enough to watch the process far below.

Like a hall of mirrors, just as you think you have captured the essence of Morocco, you turn a corner and are surprised by your own reflection – or by another series of images.

Although the French rule was relatively short-lived, ceasing in 1956, the imprint remains. Street signs are in both French and Arabic. Most people can respond in either language, or at least know as much as most visitors do. And there are hints in the  food, in the breads, in the pastries – although the Arabic cuisine has traded recipes with Europe too. See more on Moroccan bread here under March 2nd.

Everywhere we travel, from Marrakesh in the south to Rabat – modern, forward looking, administrative ­– in the north, we find our preconceptions and evolving opinions, constantly upturned.

Even the animals surprise us. Knowing that Islamic countries are not fond of dogs, we are not surprised to see only the occasional wagging tail in villages; but the corresponding crowds of cats, especially in Fez, fascinates us. They pop out of doorways, sun themselves languidly on finely knotted rugs at shopfronts, lap water from public fountains.

Oblivious to the heat and tramping crowds, they sit politely at meat counters in the food lanes, and (mostly) avoid the imminent danger of lumbering donkey carts. Half tame, half self-reliant, they too seem to embody the ambience of this ever-changing unchanging land.

Nuss nuss. In religion, tradition, even the light and shade – boisterous and tranquil – mixture of squares and riads, Morocco’s magic counterbalance is as delicate as the silversmith’s scales, as rich and varied as the stands of jewelled sugar soaked pastries.

And as seductive as those snake charmer’s pipes.

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For more information on tours: Morocco by Prior Arrangement and see also 2014 Moroccan tours.

 

Find out how to make the local crumpets at World Baking on March 2.