Morocco: mysteries, magic... and my roots

I was lost, deep in the labyrinth of narrow winding passageways, somewhere within the ancient souk of Marrakech. Closing in around me there were stalls heaped with unfamiliar wares -- dazzling crystals and aromatic plants, snake sloughs and lizard skins.

There were falcons fluttering in tight rusty cages, chameleons blinking in the shafts of light, and leeches floating in dark liquid-filled jars. The lane in which I was almost trapped, seemed to narrow further with every twist and turn. I was moving forward along with everyone else, worried how I might ever escape to the outside world again.

All around me there were people and their shadows. Hundreds of them. Old wizened women furled up under heavy hejab veils, men in hooded jellaba robes matted with grime and dust, and children scampering fast through it all.

My map was no more than a scribble of lines on the back of an envelope. It wasn't any good. So I crumbled it up, closed my eyes, and let my senses lead the way. Twisting and turning through the pink telescoping alleyways, I arrived at a spice market where saffron, paprika, cumin and mint bombarded my nostrils and overwhelmed my eyes. There were mountains of green, purple, black olives glistening the sun, and barrels of precious Argan oil -- from the tree found only in Morocco.

Unable to resist, I bought a bottle, rubbed a little on my lips and wiped the sweat off my brow.

There was no time to stop. The current was driving me along with it.

Suddenly, the lane turned sharply to the right. Unable to move freely, I was swept on and on. It was as if I were traveling back through time. I found myself in a slender lane, its walls adorned with exotic ingredients, the air pungent with incense and the distant fragrant of fresh mint.

Beside me, a cluster of women were huddled over a stall. They were oblivious that an outsider was among them. The stall was packed with dried roots and turtle shells, fragments of tree bark and jet-black ointments, jars of sulfur, amber and antimony. I watched discreetly as they mumbled to the vendor. With great care, he measured out the required ingredients -- a few grains of purple powder, a sliver of dried bark, a little dried chameleon, wrapping them in a twist of newspaper.

His assistant caught my sense of confusion. In a whisper, I asked where I was.

He grinned. "You are in the magic market," he said.

Travel to Marrakech, Morocco's most mysterious desert city, and you can't but help be affected by the sense of folklore and tradition. It's all around you, seemingly random, but at the same time an ancient African backdrop to life.

For centuries, Marrakech has been a trading post, a crossroads on the caravan routes, linking the stark Sahara vistas of the south with Cairo, Mecca, Baghdad and Samarkand. It's the kind of place that changes you deep down. And it's true that there are luxury hotels and high-fashion boutiques there now, mixed in with it all, little "Riad" hotels nestled in the medina, favored by the international jet-set. But that's very much the story of Morocco.

It's a crossroads -- but one where nothing is what it seems.

To the south, the unending desert sprawls out like a vast pink sandbox, reaching down toward tropical Africa. And to the north, the colossal snow-capped Atlas Mountains loom down, visible from the searing heat of Jemaa al Fna, the central square. All of this in a kingdom that's just nine miles from Europe, across the Straits from Spain, its Atlantic coast staring westward to our own land.

Setting foot in Morocco for the first time is something charged with almost electric anticipation. Mystique beckons the brave to jump in at the deep end, to ride the swirling cultural currents where East meets West, and where ancestral blood runs thick.