Morocco, Days 5&6

After camping for the night in the desert, I was definitely in need of a shower the minute I got back to Marrakech. Unfortunately, getting hot water was difficult there, so the hostel employee directed us to another hammam that he said he used every day. I wasn't sure exactly what he meant at first, since our first hammam experience was a touristy-spa site, and not something you would do over and over again. It was a public one, he told us, and cost only one euro to use it. I would have paid a lot more for a hot water, so I went to check it out. Going in, I immediately realized this was a real Moroccan hammam. There are two chambers--one for men and one for women--where you go in and dress down to either boxers or swim shorts. Then, there are three connected sauna rooms that get hotter as you go in further. I'm pretty sure there's some method on how to use the rooms, but I didn't really understand the instructions they gave me. They provide you a bucket, and then you go in and can fill it up with hot water to bathe yourself. The real "hammam" part is to get one of the workers to scrub you down for a full cleansing, but that costs a few dirhams extra and I was on a budget. Plus, it wasn't even necessary. The other people in the room were happy to scrub their neighbors back if they needed help. I looked like a lost idiot in there, since I didn't have shampoo or soap, but luckily after a couple of minutes of just rinsing off, someone pitied how pathetic I looked and came over to lend me some. It was a community experience, and this is the way that people in the city bathe. Most houses don't have hot water and showers, so they all go to hammams. Personally, I really enjoyed it, and went back the next day to clean off again.


Mountains of spices in the souqs



Gardens in the Palacio Bahia






Our last full day in Morocco was spent sightseeing around Marrakech, shopping for spices, and enjoying the delicious food while we still could. We went out to eat in the Square again with some new hostel friends, and then ended the night with a little hashish and watching a meteor shower in the African sky. Morocco was, without a doubt, one of the best trips I have ever taken in my life. Before coming to Spain, it was a country I knew I wanted to visit while I was studying in Europe, but I wasn't sure if I would ever actually make it there. Now, when traveling in the future, I'm going to have to resist the temptation to keep going back to Morocco so I can try and see new places instead.