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| Relaxation Room before entering Steam room. |
We spent another day experiencing a Moroccan tradition. We went to a Hammam Spa. There are two types here in Essaouira and I’m sure in other parts of Morocco its the same. There is the tourist type of Hammam and then there is the one that the natives enjoy and invite you to attend for about 1/3 the price of the spa. They say this is the real Hammam.
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| Changing rooms inside spa area. |
A hammam is described as a middle eastern type of steam room bath experience intended as a frequent ritual for cleansing the body. What I read in several places is that it is very intense so we prepared ourselves. After speaking to others and reading on several websites, the Hammam starts out as a 15 minute hot steam room in which the women are either naked or just wearing a bikini bottom and the men must wear shorts or a cover up of some type.
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| Soft padded lounge chairs with candles and rose petals to sip your tea and relax |
Next they come in and pour very hot water over you and spread black soap all over you. Then, you’re put on a table and exfoliated with a very rough sandpaper like sponge to pull a layer of skin off. You are then rinsed and oil applied. Takes about 30-40 minutes. The natives have women and men in separate bath’s.
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| Inside steam area. You lie on two marble benches on each side |
The Moroccan women are usually fully unclothed, men are required to wear some type of cover up. The Moroccans help bathe each other. It’s a communal and social gathering for them.
So, expecting something very intense, this is what we received at the spa. Two young ladies came to get Chuck & I. One didn’t speak English, the other very little but we were able to communicate. French is the common language here.
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| Two marble tables in two separate rooms where the first layer of skin is removed! |
They led us to a room to change clothes. Chuck was provided a pair of paper shorts (he looked so cute!) and I was provided a paper thong. We both brought our swimsuits but decided we would use theirs. We were given heavy thick robes and slippers. We were taken to the main room where we disrobed and walked into the steam room.
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| The walls were decorated and soft music playing. |
The room has warm and steamy but not too bad. The girls poured lukewarm water over both of us, not the intense heat we expected. They then rubbed our bodies with a silky liquid that we thought was oil and instructed us to lie down on the marble benches, almost naked and not a spot that wasn’t covered was missed as they finished the covering of oil.
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| Most of the Medina is outdoors. Like a city within city walls. |
The marble was nice and warm so that helped. We stayed in the dome shaped steam room for about 15 minutes. After 15 minutes the girls came in and rinsed us both off with buckets of water poured over us. She was good enough to warn us before pouring over our heads! I noticed then that it was soap and not oil. It came off too easy.
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| Leaving the spa, it was a little dark until we exited to the outdoors. |
I was disappointed it wasn’t the black soap everyone said it would be. But, that was my misunderstanding. Apparently, at this spa, it’s black OLIVE soap. I’ll try to do a better job in reading/listening next time. I really wanted to see what Chuck looked like all covered in black soap!
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| You can buy pretty much anything here. Cute baby shoes. |
This is where we were separated. We were led into separate rooms with a marble table about waist high in each room. The table was warm and had a drain with water running. After we saw each other again, Chuck said he felt like it was an autopsy table. LOL! She rubbed us down again with more black olive soap and began scrubbing at least one layer of skin off.
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| These little girl dresses were so cute. |
I thought it felt pretty good. It was a little intense, not as much as I expected. I must have set myself up for a bloodbath! She showed us the skin she was sloughing off. It was unbelievable. After she finished, we were rinsed off, soaped up again and rinsed again and then some oil (really this time) was rubbed all over us. Chuck said his skin burned.
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| A gentlemen was on a stretcher waiting to be put in the ambulance. To demonstrate how we don’t quite get how the ambulance got in the alleyway, you an only walk about 4-5 people arm in arm. Tight squeeze. |
I didn’t feel anything but pure pleasure! We were put back in our robes and led to a relaxing lounge with Moroccan tea. Chuck was burning up in the hot robe and towels. I was wanting a nap! The whole experience was about 35 minutes.
I left and went to have an amazing massage while Chuck got dressed and went to pick up the laundry while waiting on me.
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| The outside of the Medina is being renovated. He is actually making the smooth part rough by chipping away with a chisel. Can you imagine the amount of labor to do this? |
They even gave us the mitts they used on our skin to take with us. Cool! They’ll come in handy and small enough to stick in my luggage! The entire experience to include my hour long massage was 750 dirham ($80 USD) It was very much worth it and more. I’m already planning another massage next week!
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| All the landscaping is being cleaned similar to “spring planting/cleaning”. This is a before picture of the palm tree. |
We tipped the traditional 40 dirham for the entire experience (which is about $5 USD)
When we left, we walked back through a dark alley to get to the outside view, inside the Medina. We wanted to find some more of that delicious bread that Mustafa made for us. We walked around many alleyways, all filled with vendors of anything you want. We found someone cooking the bread so we bought 5 for 10 dirham ($1 USD).
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| This is after the layer of bark removed. Guess it went through a hamman cleansing too! |
They were still warm and we couldn’t wait to get home to eat with butter before they cooled. They weren’t the same as Mustafa’s but still delicious. We had another great day and a great experience to add to our list.
It’s been a wonderful week so far. Supermarket shopping tomorrow. We’ll be here in Essaouira two more weeks and then off to Marrakech.
May Gold bless you as much as He has us and more!
Chuck & Lea Ann
WorldTravelReynolds 