What is real caramel?
When heated, sugar will caramelize and turn into caramel. No other ingredients are required. 

According to Harold McGee in On Food and Cooking published by Scribner, 2004, p. 688:


  Caramel is first of all the brown, sweet, aromatic syrup produced in caramelization, which may be used as a coloring and/or flavoring ingredient in many preparations. But cooks use the same word to mean the combination of caramelized sugar and various milk products, ideally cream, which are mixed while the sugar is still hot so that the milk solids are browned and generate color and aroma as well.