Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Kya Travels
Today we slept in. It was a free day of the tour so we weren't really missing anything. Abdul knocked on the door at one stage to let us know that if we wanted to continue with the others on the longer tour it was going to cost us €385 each, even though we would be leaving earlier. So as we couldn't afford that much, we decided we'd have to just do the shorter one, which meant we'd be leaving the next day! That kinda sucked, but at least we wouldn't be alone - the young brothers were in the same boat. So once that was sorted, we hung out in the room chilling and sleeping for most of the day, before meeting up with some of the others in the afternoon to visit the hammam! A hammam is like a special bath that Moroccans visit at least once or twice a week, so we thought we'd go and see what it was all about. We got there, and the three of us girls (me, Nikola - Chris' girlfriend, and David's sister who I don't remember her name!) went down to the women's hammam. It was hard to figure out what to do, as there were no English speaking people there! We got changed into our bathers, then after waiting on the couches, got motioned into the next room, which was crazily hot! We got shown into a sauna, where we sat for a while. It was even hotter! Ridiculously hot! We sweated it out in there for a while and talked to a girl in there who had a little bit of English and was able to explain the process a bit for us. We sweated for a few minutes then covered ourselves in a type of oil, Argon oil, and stayed in the sauna covered in this oil for 5-10 minutes, then headed back out into the main room where we had a quick rinse in the shower before being taken by one of the ladies and made to lay down on a marble bench. She undid my bather top and started scrubbing my back with a type of exfoliation glove. It was a real hard scrub but felt awesome. She got all my itchy spots!! She got me to roll over, and there was no option for keeping the top on, so I went topless like all the other girls in there! She scrubbed all over my skin. It was crazy the amount of dead skin that was rolling off me! The other two girls were getting the same treatment in the other marble benches too! After the scrub we had a quick rinse to get the dead skin off, then lay back on the benches while another one of the ladies rubbed a clay type paste all over us and gave us a quick massage which was awesome. After that we got hosed off by the women, then they motioned us over to the jacuzzi and we jumped in. The water was cold and refreshing, it was amazing! We sat in there for a while, then it was all over! We got our robes on and went back up to the first room with the couches. When we dried off a bit we got our clothes back on and headed back out to meet the boys. With our amazingly smooth skin we all got back into a few taxis and went back to the hotel. We didn't have long until we had to meet up again for dinner, so we quickly went to the room to grab a few things then headed back down. On the way down the stairs, I slipped on the dust (they were doing renovations), and fell down half a flight of stairs! I whacked my spine and my arm, and kind of ruined the amazing mood the hammam had put me in! So feeling a bit sore and sorry for myself we went down the rest of the stairs and met the group. We jumped into some taxis and headed into the medina. When everyone was there we followed Abdul through a little section of the souks to a restaurant called Café Clock. You wouldn't see it if you didn't know it was there! We literally turned into a tiny alleyway between a few stalls and followed it around and up a flight of stairs to the restaurant! There were a lot of different sections within the restaurant and we ended up right up the top on the terrace, sitting on couches with live music drifting up from below. At a certain time, chanting prayers started coming from the loudspeakers at the mosque that was close by, which was pretty cool, and added a bit of atmosphere. We ordered our food, and most of the group got camel burgers! The food was very nice, and I got a nice iced mint tea, and Darren got a warm sweet almond milk. There were more prayers while we were there, and some people got some desserts too. We all had a good chat, and at one stage Abdul was telling us about the laws around polygamy in the Muslim culture. We learnt that you are allowed to have up to four wives, as long as you get written permission from your wives, and a long as you can provide for all of them sufficiently and equally. At one stage Abdul was saying "you have the right to *marry* four wives", but accidentally said the 'F' word instead of 'marry'! That had everyone nearly in tears! When we had finally finished up at dinner, Lindsay, Keith and the sister-whatshername went out with Abdul for drinks and the rest of us bailed and got taxis back to the hotel. We went up to bed and watched some modern family before going to sleep.
- comments