Within three minutes, Morocco has somehow achieved it.As we drive slowly into the ancient medina, the world outside the car windows begins to unravel into a carnival of colour and noise. Narrow, dusty streets are crammed with people in long turquoise robes, pink scarves, blue and red and green hats, embroidery in white and grey and purple. Cars are everywhere – beeping at each other and parked willy-nilly in streets while drivers talk to each other, yell, laugh and shout – and scooters weave nonchalantly in and out of the traffic.Dotted here and there are animals: horses, trotting along the road drawing little green carriages; wild-eyed ginger cats, streaking down alleyways; brown donkeys laden with brightly woven bags and camels chewing patiently in little huddles.And as we get out of the car and start wheeling our bags through narrow, cobbled streets, it intensifies yet further.From uneven peach and yellow walls hang fabrics in every colour of the rainbow; red and yellow bags, silver jewellery, rows of sparkling slippers in greens and oranges, glass lanterns, carved wood and painted ceramics.Sunshine stripes the walls and floors with lines of yellow, and the smell changes every few seconds: from fruit to incense to flowers to a faint scent of urine mixed with leather.Sounds are blended – French, Arabic, English, American, laughter, music, shouts – and piles of food lie glistening on tables: pointed mounds of musky spices, trays of figs, mountains of oranges in carefully constructed pyramids.Every time I turn my head, there’s something else to see, something else to smell.Finally, the driver stops outside a small, heavy wooden blue door and knocks on it.With a loud squeak, it swings open.And the world transforms yet again.The chaos has abruptly disappeared.A long turquoise pool stretches across the floor, lit from below.
