Like any city, Salé and Rabat took a few weeks to release their secrets;

I have ventured into many individual parts, looking for a place or service and after a while started stitching together the layout of the city as a whole. It reminds me of weaving – first lay down the warp, then slowly add the weft, watching the patterns emerge.

I’ve discovered a few cultural things along the way; firstly, opening and closing times in the medinas are not really based on the clock – they’re more along the lines of open a few hours before midday prayers, closed till the middle of the afternoon and then open again until early evening. I have noticed that if I’m in a market as dusk appears, the call to evening prayer wafts over the air from the local minaret, and the shutters start to close.

Another aspect of life here is that people do their very best to be helpful. I was looking for an electrical clip the other day – and each person I spoke to referred me to someone else, if they weren’t able to help, they’d suggest another person. One kind man wrote the name of the clip in Arabic, so I could show others what I wanted. I didn’t end up with the clips, but I ended up with a conversation with a young woman studying Arabic literature and a better understanding of how things work.