"I'm fine," I smiled politely, pointing out there was nowhere to sit and no shade from the 48 degree sun.

But as if from nowhere he pulled up a mattress usually used for sleeping on the roof. "Then let's sit and talk," he smiled. Not wanting to be rude and desperate to shake off my conservative Englishness, I perched on the edge of the mattress. We talked about Morocco, about my life back home and, of course, the weather.

It was a stupid thing to do in retrospect but, like the rest of the group I was travelling with, I had been encouraged to talk to as many people as possible. We had all sat in the airport on departure and criticised our friends back home for booking flimsy holidays to beach resorts where they absorbed themselves in a novel by the hotel pool and never ventured further to experience the true heart of a country.

With four months off university to look forward to, I had spent the last two terms saving up for my secret escape. I wanted to leave the worries of work at home along with my keen-to-settle-down boyfriend. I needed to be reminded that there was an amazing world of people out there to whom the word 'deadline' meant nothing.

So I booked myself on a two-week organised backpacking tour to Morocco with a group of teachers, a Greenpeace activist, a divorcee, an accountant and a family.

I had read plenty of stories about women who had flings with mysterious Moroccan men and had the times of their lives. I was no Shirley Valentine, but I was equally determined not to appear the frigid westerner.

It is hard to tell whether a Moroccan man is just being friendly or whether he's after something a bit more. In Marrakech a man coming up to you whispering "one thousand camels," is a chat up line, in the Draa Valley of the south it's a fully pledged marriage proposal. So when Ahmed bought up the offer of a "Moroccan massage just for the arms," ideas of ancient mystical healing powers filled my head and I honestly believed it would be rude not to accept. Ahmed, seeing all systems go, flung me on to the mattress, rubbed my arms to a red glow and made a pass for my legs. I panicked, bolted straight up and Ahmed plastered a big sloppy one on my lips. It must have looked something like a Carry On... film as I leapt up, half laughing, half gasping for air, and legged it to my room.

I realised that unravelling the mysteries of Morocco should, at times, be undertaken with the same caution you give when being approached by suspect men who chat you up in the bars back home.

You can feel tremendously welcome in Morocco. People will smile say "Hello", chat to you and help you find your way, but if you're a western woman with pale skin, blue eyes, blonde hair and generous in the hip department then you can also feel quite isolated. Local women will stare at you with curiosity, and many men will stare at you with a less innocent kind of interest.

But it wasn't going to put me off my quest of unearthing the 'real' Morocco.

"I am a traveller not a tourist," I mumbled to myself and -- on a large-scale social kind of a way -- I was going to mingle.

I mingled with the carpet seller in Meknes, the barman in Moulay Idriss and the archaeologist in Erfoud. It was becoming more and more apparent that my mingling experiences were somewhat heavily male based. It is unlikely you'll talk to many Moroccan women and it's very rare to see them sitting in cafés, manning a stall or working in public.

It is a man's pleasure to talk business, politics and chitchat with you. Nearly 99 percent of the population is Muslim and it is believed that women are naturally gifted at bringing up the children so they tend to take control of the household. However, at around sunset when all the housework is done it is refreshing to see gaggles of women sitting in the street, exchanging gossip on the neighbours and laughing and joking, most likely at their husband's expense. They may even be following the scores of the national women's football team. Another place for a good old chinwag seems to be the hammams, the community baths found in every town. Here sturdy women with huge pendulum breasts bent, stretched and scrubbed me to within an inch of my life until my skin looked shiny and new, whilst the locals stole shocked glances at my sunburnt bits.

Morocco is a progressive country and, although men can marry more than one woman, a law passed in 1999 meant that the first wife could refuse other women from marrying her husband if she didn't approve.

And not all women stay at home. I met a female infant school teacher whilst walking through the old quarter of Fez. She ushered us off the street and invited us into two small stone rooms where children sat in small rows behind old wooden desks. Their teacher counted them in and they sang to us at the top of their voices. Around us the walls were covered in paintings of blue and yellow stick figure mothers and fathers, and flowers. On leaving it was made clear that a small financial donation was politely obliging. Tipping is regarded as charity, one of the five pillars of Islam, and is taken very seriously. If you want to remain on people's good side then always give what you can.

As well as encouraging singing, I realised that from an early age, parents probably educate their children on the benefits of the tourism trade as well, and it was one subject they'd learnt pretty well.

When we reached Merzouga, the scorching sand sea desert of the Sahara, I decided to take a walk by myself over the dunes. I felt an amazing sense of solitude, the soothing orange sand mesmerised me. In the distance I could see something dark wobbling on the skyline, probably a mirage. But within a few minutes I heard a rustling sound behind me and an exhausted boy in a Nike cap thrust a box of small marble camels in my view. "Twenty dirum?"

Like most countries, Moroccans have obviously realised that where there's beauty and history there's money to be made.

Disappointingly only a quarter of the Sahara is made up of sand (the rest is rock), but to encounter the classic desert experience you can book group camel treks from the 'sand sea town' of Merzouga into the dunes where you camp in Bedouin tents for a night. In the darkness of the evening, our hosts slaved over oil cookers preparing chicken and vegetable tagine, on which we feasted by lantern light. Surprisingly, beer and wine was also passed around. Alcohol is not illegal in Morocco, but many don't drink in public. I was told that there are two versions of the Qu'ran, an old copy which states that man can drink but in moderation, and a modern version that claims no man is capable of drinking in moderation and so he should not drink at all. Unlike more fundamental Muslim countries, many of Morocco's inhabitants are happy to follow the original.

After supper we were invited to participate in traditional dance and song while the men played drums. Moroccans love music and appreciate an enthusiastic audience who will participate. I'm still not sure if they enjoyed us hollering "Rock the Kasbah" at the top of our lungs, but an offer of football, another national pastime. made up for any injustice.

Morocco is diverse: the wide expanse of the desert, the bustling bazaars, souks and colourful spice markets in Marrakesh, the western style beach resorts of the north and the barren Atlas mountains. In the spring the countryside is covered in enormous green carpets of lush plants and flowers, but by the time summer arrives the land dries and the continuous greys and browns and reds really makes it more rock, more rock, Morocco. Carved into the hillsides and the mountains everywhere is 'God, King, Country' in white chalk, with the green star of Islam and the national flag below. With no visible life around it's as if the writing is the work of Allah himself. With few reminders of western capitalism I found myself forgetting my stubborn cynicism and effortlessly liberated my mind to contemplate my existence in the great scheme of things.

I was soon brought back down to earth by my fellow backpacker Neil, an overweight, under-washed teacher from Mexborough who, when he wasn't trying to convert the tour guides to Christianity, was giving us regular up-dates on his diarrhoea. In fact by the end of the week most of the group had come down with the bug and descriptions of breathtaking scenery, exotic foods and inspiring culture soon turned to distributions of Imodium, avoiding spicy menus and hasty exits behind the nearest clump of bushes.

The second week of our trip sent us trekking, (with many toilet stops) through the Middle Atlas. Here we stumbled on many small stone villages, old men suddenly opened up their front rooms to reveal small shops selling unidentifiable boxes of food and old dusty glass bottles of cola specially bought in and sold to the western trekkers. As soon as I stepped outside, an army of wild-eyed children dressed in a mixture of traditional cotton trousers, dresses and Disney T-shirts smiled insanely at me, desperate to investigate my purchases. They sat impatiently waiting for us to finish eating, girls stood like old fishwives, hands on hips clucking their tongues on the roof of their mouths.

It is advised to ignore them for as long as possible and prolong the ambush, humour usually works, in fact it can get you everywhere in Morocco. Blonde jokes, bald jokes, they work with even with the youngest of inhabitants. Not to be intimidated by my watchers I took up the young girl's pose, which automatically resulted in a burst of childish giggles. I brought out the sweets and hands flew everywhere. They finished the dregs of my drink and took the bottle back to get the few dirum Coca-Cola offers for recycling. Then they marched with us to the outskirts of the village and further to the point where their homes were mere dots on the side of the mountain. Here they waved goodbye and raced each other home.

Throughout my trip, no matter where I went, I couldn't find a Moroccan translation for 'lie-in.' As soon as the sun rose, people were up. It's such a lively country, people's practices are often described as medieval but they are full of youthful spirit and life; there's a pulse throbbing like the beat of a drum, right through the land from Casablanca to the Sahara. I could convince myself I experienced the real Morocco, I met the locals and took part in a completely different way of life -- but if I discovered one thing it was the existence of a universal pattern of human behaviour that rises above all cultural barriers.