Do you know what a hammam is?
Well, neither did Nicole.
I have always wanted to go to a Turkish bath and I love a spa...a hammam is a Moroccan version of this. It is their traditional bathing ritual where women go to wash during certain hours and men are designated different hours. Traditionally, you go with a friend and scrub each other down. While I wanted a traditional experience, I wasn’t really interested in scrubbing each other and I thought going to a real hammam might be overwhelming. We ended up booking at The Baths of Alhambra in Marrakech- a good balance of traditional and yet likely made for tourists. For about $50 you get the “traditional hammam” plus an hour massage afterward.
We went to the spa and booked our appointments for the following day. After the camels and cold, it was a really nice way to end the trip with a spa visit.
If you have never been to a hammam, then the next bit may shock you. If you know Nicole at all, this will definitely shock you.
We arrive on time, they put us in a small changing room where we are given a robe and sandals and told to take off everything but a bikini bottom. Covered up in our robes, Nicole keeps on her bra in her modest way and we are escorted into a little room made of black marble that’s about 4 by 10 feet with a bench to sit/lay on and a huge shower head. There is an older Moroccan woman who waits for us in the room. We walk in gingerly and in one swift move she grabs our robes off of us, turns on the shower, pushes us both in and says “shower now”. The lady is super confused as to why Nicole still has a bra on, takes it from her, and pushes us into the water while we both are laughing hysterically and uncomfortably because we are literally showering together in a little black box with a Moroccan woman helping make sure we are both in the water. I will note, the shower head was very large so thank goodness we were both in the water without being in danger of touching one another.
I volunteer for the first round of scrubbing, I am instructed to lay down on the black marble while the Moroccan lady lathers me up with “black soap”. It smells wonderful very herbaceous with a bit of a eucalyptus scent. The soaping up is not rough or gentle, it is probably they way you might clean your dishes. We switch spots and then the lady leaves us in the room for 10 minutes to let the soap absorb. As soon as she leaves, we laugh and laugh and Nicole starts yelling at me (in what I hope was a joking manner) for taking her to a hammam. That’s when I realized Nicole did not google “hammam” in advance and had no idea what we were in for. Hahahahaha.
The lady said to relax but it was like a steam room in there so I am mostly concentrating on trying to breathe. I have my eyes closed for most of this but when I open them, I see Nicole covering herself which made me laugh again. I let her know I wasn’t interested in looking over.
The fun has only just begun! After our ten minute break, I get the glove. Now this scrubbing process is to get off all of the dead skin and wow this lady was quite successful. The scrubbing was upgraded to how you might wash your tub…a little more detail and a little more elbow strength. I would say that this part would classify as mildly painful. She made me touch my stomach to feel all of the dead skin coming off…gross. Nicole went next and I don’t think she enjoyed the harsh scrubbing. But then we showered again and felt our beautiful smooth skin and I think this was definitely worth it.
The lady washed our hair which gave me flashbacks to being a kid in the tub, rinsed us off, and gave us back our robes. The hammam is complete.
The massage was upstairs, we are escorted into a room where two women are waiting for us. As we walk in, they take our robes. Modesty is not a thing here. There are two massage tables and we both go to pull back the blanket and get under the cover but nope! We are instructed to lay face down and then they covered us up. I thought it was a very very good massage but I guess Nicole’s person was not as good. They used a lot of oil in this massage which included getting a good amount of oil in our clean hair.
Cleansed and refreshed, we returned to the busy streets of Marrakech with our oily hair and smooth skin. What a unique experience! Definitely a strong recommend on the hammam from me! Though I can’t be sure Nicole would say the same! I am sure we will laugh about this for the rest of our lives. Cheers to adventures and memories :)
Understandably, there are no photos in this post. Hah.
