We arrived in Essaouira last night. Crossing the main square from the taxi rank, the contrast between the unhurried atmosphere and the lively soundscape was striking; the crashing Atlantic vied with the clamour of the wind, gulls, and Gnawa music, while large family groups milled serenely around the city walls, to watch the sun slowly set. The mellow mood of the people was contagious; just the short walk to our apartment freed me from our travel stresses, and, with my ear catching the call to evening prayer, my mind stilled.

We wandered through the souk, whose stores were beginning to close for the day, and chose an alcohol-free restaurant in a wide square, where cats wound in and out of the tables, waiting for morsels of food. We ate chicken tagine with prunes, and almonds that might have come straight from the tree, so fresh and buttery were they.

Eddy is my son. He is extravagant and generous by nature, and at the beginning of the year, spent three weeks organising a surprise birthday party for me. Prior to that, he had repeatedly pestered me to do something to celebrate it, so when his chivvying petered out, I guessed that he was hatching a secret plan.

‘I get the feeling you are up to something for my birthday, Ed. I know you. When you stop fussing about something you want, it’s because you’re figuring another way of getting it. I am telling you again, I hate surprises, and not so keen on parties.’

Accounts of his research, contact with friends, and organisation for my party, moved me to tears, and was, as I told him, the most affecting present I could ever wish for. Ultimately, however, I got my way, and here we are in Essaouira. He is twenty-seven now, and my only child, so opportunities to make memories together are fewer and further between.

However, our pace of living is not always compatible, so memory-making is not without challenge. Our morning routine, for example, is generally marked by a battle of wills; I would rather get out early to see our new destination, whereas he prefers to take his time. Today, though, he surprises me.

‘Happy 60th birthday Mum!’ With arms outstretched, he is standing in the doorway when I return. ‘How are you feeling at this grand old age? Happy, I hope. Today you are going to do exactly what you want, ok?  I won’t insist on anything for me, I promise.’

‘Well, that’ll make a change, darling! Let’s get going then!’

We take to the medina, and its sandy cobbled alleys which cut through tall white buildings with blue shutters and doors, the hues of which mirror the sea and sky. The height of the houses bring shade to the passageways, and block out the wind, so the atmosphere is still and sleepy. Aside from the vast population of cats, barely a soul is out, just the odd shopkeeper, in no rush, leisurely displaying his goods, between stopping to chat to a colleague.

Only one is ready and open for business - a fine-boned man in turquoise turban and silver jewellery, cross-legged outside his shop. Pointing at the design on my bag, with a request to copy it, he beckons us inside. Eddy is hungry, and shakes his head in frustration, when I follow him in. With a perfect English accent, he tells me to sit, and immediately starts sketching the floral pattern on my bag. Eddy rubs his temples when he peers at the drawing; the curl of his lip tells me that there is neither skill nor enthusiasm there, so it comes as no surprise when the merchant puts his pencil aside, and replaces it with handfuls of silver. With a necklace draped over a wrist, he leans forward, and taps both my cheekbones. ‘You have the face of a fine Berber woman,’ he claims. ‘And this here, is just the necklace for you.’ 

I make a gesture to leave, but Eddy’s attention is caught by a silver bookmark, at an exorbitant price. Although, after some bartering, the man finally settles on less, the euros he gives me as change, we later discover, are fake, and, buoyed up by a good sale, he rests his hand on my knee, and turns to Eddy.

‘She is good and beautiful. I will take her for a thousand camels.’

I spring off the stool, and with a sharp tilt of my head towards the exit, I make a quick getaway. In the doorway, Eddy stops. ‘Thanks for the offer, he says. ‘I’ll think about it.’

On the corner of a sunny blue and white square, kitted out with red tables and chairs, we order a Moroccan breakfast: pots of mint tea, fresh orange juice, yogurt with rose essence, and piles of Msemen (pancakes) with Amlou (an almond paste with argan oil and honey). A couple of other Europeans, in tatty shorts, tuck into the same. So familiar are they with the servers, that they know their names. We wonder if they live in Essaouira, and if so, what they do with their lives here. Lost in contemplation, the town awakens slowly around us; tourists pass through with maps and suitcases, cats stretch under tables, locals - deep in conversation - amble in pairs, wearing neutral and vibrant djellabas, and delivery men pull carts of eggs, oranges, and fresh bread.

The souk, by now, is a bustling, colourful world filled with aromas of perfume, spice, baking bread, and tanneries. Rugs of all colours line the walls amongst bags and clothes, whilst pottery, tagine pots, lanterns, and argan oil line the street floors. Despite the crowds, the atmosphere is friendly and un-intrusive; only the enthusiasm of one herbalist makes us back away. He sells remedies for every bodily ailment under the sun, and displays pyramid-shaped mounds of spice, amidst baskets of roots, barks and herbs. Between the constipation, arthritis, and ‘get-thin-quick cures’ the ‘Viagra for femme’ label stops Eddy in his tracks. 

‘Mum,’ he digs me in the ribs, ‘look! Does that mean what I think it means?’ 

‘Pour la faire grimper aux rideaux? To make her climb the curtains. Yup. That’s exactly what that means.’

The herbalist takes our giggling as a sign of interest; he homes in on me, presuming, I think, that I am too shy to ask about it, and starts explaining the necessary dosage for someone of my age.

‘Merci, mais non, non, non, ça m’intéresse pas,’ I say, smiling politely. I tug the hem of Eddy’s t-shirt, but he is lost in an internal debate about whether to buy a dose, as a jokey present for his girlfriend.

‘Oh Eddy, for goodness sake, no! First of all, she might be insulted, and secondly, we only have carry-on bags, and airline security might haul you off, as a drug pedlar.’

‘Catastrophising again, Mum’, he says, with an eye roll, reluctantly following me to a stall of argan oil, where the women are grinding argan nuts and almonds into the thick brown paste that ends up as Amlou.

En route for the old port, the bitter wind is fierce enough to whip up the spray from the sea. We stop to wander around the Squala du Port, the defensive tower that juts out into the Atlantic, and as we walk through the Bab El Marsa, the ornate 18th century marine gate, depicting inter-faith harmony between Islam, Christianity and the Jewish faith, we leave the laid-back vibe of the town and enter a hive of noisy activity. The sky teems with squawking gulls, and the port is crowded with people, bellowing and pointing at incoming trawlers.

Bright blue fishing boats bob on the water and trawlers have to jostle for places to dock. The stench of fish is pungent, and for Eddy, overpowering. He retreats to the customs building, and lights a cigarette, while, I, not wanting to miss a trick, stand with my toes on the edge of the wharf, to scrutinise the fishermen’s procedure on a double-parked trawler. To an untrained eye the confusion seems frenzied, but as I watch, I see that their coordination is well-rehearsed; dozens of them, shoulder to shoulder, in overalls streaked with blood, haul iced cases of sardines, from the depths of their boats, or from the towers of crates on the sterns. Like a human conveyor belt, they pass them to one another, shouting orders, whilst gulls fill the sky overhead, and dive down to snatch their haul. Using a long plank, they push the crates up onto the pier, where others rush them, first to customs, then to the waiting refrigerated trucks or port-side merchants. All the while, children, with plastic bags, compete with cats and gulls, to scavenge for fallen fish. 

We turn to the stalls that line the quay, filling up quickly with the morning’s catch. Eddy finds choice problematic, and his hemming and hawing makes me tetchy, so I leave him to it, and go sit on a wall, to watch the hubbub. He returns - after much dithering, he tells me - happily swinging a bag of lobster, giant shrimps, and sardines, which he takes directly to the grill-master, fanning the coals of a long grill, at the harbour’s entrance. It is midday, and seems as if we have only just finished breakfast but still, grilled fresh fish, taken at the port with the local people, and eaten with tomato and onion salad, oven-warm bread and a bottle of Coca Cola, turns out to be one of the tastiest and most atmospheric meals of our lives. 

We get the exercise we need by walking to Essaouira’s long crescent beach. ‘Half an hour’s walk to the top and half an hour back’ said the grill-man, but we outpace most people, me because I walk as if I have a train to catch, and Eddy because his legs are meters long. We cut the time in half, and rent sunbeds for a while. Whilst we sip sweet mint tea, sold to us, by an elderly hawker, we watch the kite surfers harnessing the power of the wind - travelling at speed across the waves, then soaring to astonishing heights. 

I am now sixty, I remind myself. Sixty, my God. It hits me like a thunderbolt. In my fifties I could still pretend I was young, but at sixty, with free bus passes and old age as my future, my glory days are unquestionably behind me, and not even a life in exchange for a thousand camels could rekindle them. What a fool, I was, to have not enjoyed a more daring youth. I could have been one of these kite surfers, for instance, and experienced delirious highs, flying like a bird from feral waves.

With an air of resignation, I look down at my less than youthful body, and notice that my winter skin is not just burned, but covered in a layer of sand that the wind is blowing up.

Sand is everywhere, in our hair, our bags, on our clothes and skin. There is nothing we can do about it, other than swim, but the temperature of the sea, and the cool wind whipping it up, puts us off. We continue our walk, and soon come to throngs of camels and horses. Their owners, all with persuasive powers to sell us an hour’s ride, haggle with us. We stop, in awe of the riders galloping through the surf, and whilst their exhilaration tempts me to try, I know that I lack the nerve.

To stop him hounding us, I promise one chap that shortly, we will take his camels, James and Cappuccino, out for a ride. But even a camel ride induces anxiety in me, so we withdraw to the fashionable restaurant, on the edge of the dunes there, to dwell on it, with a bowl of pistachio ice-cream. Ed wants to gallop in the sea on one of their wild-looking ponies. I say I will watch him. He says that that’s not fun, he wants me to do it with him. But I can’t, I say. I might fall off. They look too wild, and the last time I rode, I couldn’t even trot. Please Mum he says. I can’t Eddy. And I thought you said you wouldn’t insist on anything today. Yup, you’re right he says. Ok, let’s go for the camels, and go now, before you change your mind. Yes, I keep saying, if I don’t get on a camel now, I never will.

I tend to laugh hysterically, when I am nervous, and as Cappuccino gets up, first with his back legs, I feel myself slipping, like a child down a slide. ‘Lean back, Mum!’ Eddy shouts over the wind, but I am helpless with laughter, and the best I can do is to grip the pommel, and slump like a dead weight, into the padded saddle.

Once we get going, me and Cappuccino behind Eddy and his camel, James, the soothing gait, and steady whoosh of the waves is mesmerising. ‘This is better than meditation, darling!’ I shout. ‘I feel as if I have done it before, in another life. Maybe I was a nomad, a part of a caravan. It feels so natural to me.’ 

‘Sure, Mum. Wait till you get off,’ Ed laughs, turning around to take a stream of photos of me.

He is right. Getting off Cappuccino, or tumbling off him, I should say, reduces me to fits of giggles again, and I stagger bow-legged back down the beach. We are in a rush, because we have hammams booked, in a neighbouring hotel to our apartment. I chose the hotel for two reasons: it offers a private, not public, hammam, and its jewel-like tiled walls and cobalt roof-top restaurant facing the sea, dazzled me when we dropped in to have a look. 

I go first, while Eddy settles at the rooftop bar, to watch the sun cast the waves gold. For fifteen minutes I lie on a hot marble bed in a steamy chocolate coloured tiled room, before the Kessala appears. She starts the process of dousing my naked body in water, applying black soap and clay over it, then scrubs vigorously, to remove impurities. Uneasy to begin with, I quickly surrender to the intimate manhandling, and celebrate, once it finishes, the baby softness of my sixty-year-old skin.

Afterwards, we eat on the top of a fashionable pink and green riad, stuffed with jungly plants and Bougainvillea, excellent lamb tagines with lemon and herbs, accompanied by a band playing infectious Gnawa music. Eddy chooses good wine, and looks more and more cheerful with each glass. In the courtyard below, a mix of Moroccan and European diners scrape back their chairs and dance amongst the towering Ficus plants, whilst the servers clap their hands and tap their feet.

Eddy leans across the table, cupping his red wine. The beat of the music slows, the clapping softens. Like a descant, the call to prayer rings out above their sounds, and brings an imperceptible pause to the restaurant.

‘Mum, I’ve got an idea.’ Eddy whispers. ‘Instead of going back home, how about taking off through Africa... going all the way to Cape Town, through Algeria, Niger, Chad… wait…’ He picks up his phone and googles the map of Africa. ‘Wait, wait, wait..’ He scrolls through the vast continent. ‘Ok, right. From Chad, we drop down into… Cameroon, Angola, then Namibia. Namibia Mum?’ He looks up at me. ‘You’ve always wanted to go to Namibia. Wouldn’t that be the best way to celebrate sixty years? Come on! Think what an adventure it would be.’

I stroke his cheek. I am tempted. Goodness, I am tempted. But I am also boringly cautious.

‘Let’s plan it, my insisting, persisting child. It would be fun. Imagine, we could even do it in a camel caravan.’ My smile is suddenly irrepressible. ‘Now, that is an idea worth thinking about…’