Marrakesh

I have heard of the fabled city nestling beneath the Atlas Mountains, beyond the vast Sahara, an oasis on the crossroads of ancient caravan routes from Timbuktu. It is a place of hippy pilgrimage and folk tale: a pink city of flat roofs, minarets and mosques.
The sun dapples through carved white fretwork and casts shadows on low burnished metal tables, beaten in Islamic patterns. The screens muffle the noisy drum beats, throbbing in the distance. Strangers in this foreign land, we drink mint tea from little glass tumblers; it is hot, sweet, cloying.
Outside the café in the medina the city heaves; the souk is packed with shanks of thick wool, dyed indigo and magenta and glazed terracotta pots the colour of cinnamon.
Children cluster round a snake charmer sitting crossed-legged; a cobra dances round a small child lying prostrate in the dust. Camels and horses, tethered at the edge of the square, champ the sandy ground while sparrows twitter and splash in pools of stagnant water. Our old land rover with its wonky gearbox is parked nearby.
Smells of roasting chicken, mint and lemons catch the breeze in the lingering smoke; a muezzin calls the people to prayer from the minaret, beckoning them to the mosque with its bare courtyards and geometric tiles. Men in long caftans and ochre-leather mules squat in narrow alley ways smoking pipes, with grizzled hair and shining teeth.
High up, the fronds of palm trees criss-cross the sky; the amber sun is dying on the horizon, darkening the red clay earth. The city glows and fires light up dark corners of the kasbah ready for the story tellers to begin.
My long white shift is crumpled, wide jeans covering flat Indian sandals trail in the dust. A string of beads like dried currants stained the colour of mulberries tangle with long fair hair. A silver bangle and ring shine against honey-coloured skin I barely recognise. The ring is a puzzle of 12 links that fit together in a wide band. It is 1973. I am nineteen years old. We are in Marrakesh.