Morocco’s happy valley – the wilderness that lies just beyond the souks of Marrakech | Marrakech holidays

I hadn’t even noticed the distant specks in the skies above the city, but now I count more than 20 of them, wafting eastwards on the dawn breeze. The realisation that even the skies are crowded makes it easier to picture the ruckus that reverberates through one of the world’s most vibrant cities each morning.

I’d fallen in love with Marrakech during my first assignment there three decades ago, and it’s still one of my favourite cities. For the moment, however, I’m immensely grateful that I’d decided to base myself in Ourika valley, where the only sounds this morning are the sizzling of my Berber omelette and the braying of a mule from the mountain trail behind the house.

Abdelkarim had guided me on a hike into those mountains the previous day and I’d been astounded that such pristine wilderness could lie so close to a city of a million people. The son of a blacksmith, Abdelkarim now works as a mountain guide, leading tours and expeditions throughout the High Atlas and beyond. He shows me carob trees with their chocolate-flavoured seed pods and cypress seeds harvested for what French colonials called le poivre des pauvres (the poor man’s pepper). “Mountain people place dried oleander leaves on a fire to create antiseptic smoke,” he tells me.

From the ravine below comes the sound of a wild boar cracking through the vegetation. She emerges from the thicket with five striped piglets hurrying to keep up, but fortunately we are downwind and she remains unaware of our presence.

In the distance, patches of snow glint on the peaks of Toubkal national park. It has been four years since north…