As part of living in Africa; we’re sampling the food, learning about the culture, learning the language, etc. To that end, Kate had booked us a traditional Moroccon Hamman experience. In theory, this is a combination wash, massage and steam experience.
For $36, you first get told to meet at the wrong place. Then after many messages, you are redirected to another place ten minutes away. After walking there, you meet a guide who takes you to the women’s Hamman which is another ten minutes away and then I was taken to the men’s Hamman which was yet another ten minutes away.
After putting on your bathing suit, you are led back to a warm room and told to lay down on a wet, stinky concrete floor. After five minutes, an attendant rubs you down with a stinky oil. Then you are left to lay on the stinky floor for a half hour. Whenever someone leaves the room, they toss a bucket of water on the concrete where the person had been laying down. I was thinking that this smelly room just didn’t seem that sanitary to me.
After the first room, I was led into another room and told to lay down on another wet concrete floor, this one not quite being warm. After laying there for five minutes, an attendant comes and scrubs off your top layer of skin. Then he washes you with a soap that surprisingly smelled good. Then he dumps some buckets of warm water that only smell a little over your head.
Finally, a day or two after it’s all done you get an upper respiratory infection.