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13 May 2011
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HUBB regular
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Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Johannesburg, South Africa
Posts: 72
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The Moroccan Hammam
Ok, here's another travel related story with no reference to my motorcycle.....I'm going to get banned from this forum very soon 
The Hammam
For those fortunate enough to have visited Morocco, you’ll know what I’m talking about. For the rest, it’s the Morocco version of a Turkish Bath, or at least what I perceive as a Turkish Bath since I’ve never been to one.
The mere thought of another man bathing me makes me cringe, but it’s said that you only get this feeling the first time. Well, I’m not so sure. I’ve been to a hammam before. The one I went to was recommended by my classy friend who lives in Fes. It was up-market with facilities and prices that would make a good country club proud.
When it’s your first visit to a hammam, you don’t just show up there unprepared. First of all, it requires careful mental preparation. Once you convinced yourself that the benefits will outweigh the humiliation, you have to enquire about the dress code (naked or bathing suit). After that you have to go shop for a hammam glove. No, it’s not like a baseball glove. In fact, you don’t even get to wear this one, the guy who scrubs you wears it…… go figure! The glove itself is like a mild version of a pot scourer shaped like a glove. Well, they sell these things everywhere in the markets. I was staying in the medina so there was no shortage of old women selling gloves in the alleyways. After negotiating a good price with the help of a passerby, I suddenly realized that my classy friend already told me what a reasonable price was. The old woman couldn’t believe her eyes when I paid her the substantially higher amount, but I wasn’t going to bully her into a lower price just because I could. Besides, the hammam gods were watching and they might take revenge on me later when I’m in a precarious position on their terrain.
I got there and after completing the front desk formalities was directed through a door that led into the change rooms. This was still ok because I’m used to men’s change rooms from my sporting days. It was when I entered the basement section when it all became very strange. In the movies you see a bunch of fat guys in a steam bath wrapped in towels or robes talking politics or something. This place wasn’t like that. It reminded me of a carwash, but for humans. Some were in the showers, some were in the sauna, some were in the whirlpool, and some were lying on marble slabs being scrubbed or hosed down. There was water in some shape or form everywhere.
My personal carwash attendant was already waiting for me, also dressed in a bathing suit and wet from head to toe. He pointed to the shower and I got the idea. I was still enjoying my shower when he unceremoniously opened the door and beckoned me to follow him into the sauna (not a small wooden sauna like in the rest of the world, but a huge marble one). Here he rinsed the bench with one of the hoses hanging from the walls and pointed for me to sit, which I did for about five minutes before he came for me again. This time I was instructed to lie on one of the marble slabs while he dressed his right hand with my glove as if he was about to give me a colonoscopy. I was still wondering if this was such a good idea when I was hit by a stream of hot water from yet another hose. After that he attacked me with soap and my glove, slapping me on the closest body part every time he wanted me to turn. Although it was all done in a very manly way, I kept a distrusting eye on him all the time, imagining that he was enjoying the scrubbing part just a little bit too much. A good thing we couldn’t understand one another, because I wasn’t going to make small-talk with a guy who’s doing this kind of stuff to me. It all ended ok, and for the next few days I couldn’t help but sing the praises of a hammam. No wonder girls get all excited about a little exfoliating.
Two weeks later now and I’m seriously considering my second visit to a hammam, this time it’s going to be a cheap public hammam in Sidi Ifni. It’s a small coastal town in the south of Morocco, and I can just picture me sharing the intimate surroundings of a hammam with a couple of toothless fishermen. Well, they say it’s better the second time. I pray they’re right. Again some research…….which is the best hammam in town; how much does it cost; how much do I tip; now what did I do with that darn hammam glove again; etc. All indications are that this one will cost me less than a tenth of the ‘country club’ one and it worries me.
In Fes I took a taxi to the ‘country club’ hammam. The taxi driver knew exactly where it was and even commented on my financial status for going there. There are no taxis in Sidi Ifni so I walk, asking directions from everybody who looks helpful (In Morocco it’s usually every passerby). I eventually stop at a hole in the wall that I thought was a convenience store to ask again. The guy smiles and tells me I’ve found it. It’s a convenience store all right, but doubles as the reception desk for the hammam. He takes my money and points at a steel door. The first thing I see when I open the door are the three sweating guys sitting on crude benches, clad only in their underwear. They immediately noticed I was new so they pointed to the pile of buckets in the corner and the next steel door. I got it… get a bucket and go there! I quickly changed into my bathing suit, making me the best dressed guy there, grabbed a bucket and headed for the second door. I was called back by one of the guys who held two fingers in the air. Aha, I need two buckets!
Already knowing that this isn’t the ‘country club’ type hammam, I was expecting the worst when I opened the second steel door. I wasn’t disappointed. No marble this time. There were three largish rooms, all tiled from top to bottom, and guys lying on the wet floors everywhere. Not surprisingly they each had two buckets of water and a glove. Unlike the ‘country club’ patrons who were all trim and fit, radiating breeding and success, these guys were fat, looking like beached whales in their underwear.
I quickly notice that I was missing something…..soap! Then I remembered that the reception desk is also a convenience store and I fix that problem quickly. I wanted to be scrubbed by a carwash-man again but there was no way I was going to ask any of the squirming guys on the floor if they were him, so I went for it myself, also from a laying position. When in Rome…….
If you’ve ever travelled through Africa on a budget, you’ll know what a bucket-shower is. Well, this was the motherload of bucket-showers. For the next fifteen minutes I took my bucket-shower, squirming around on the floor with the other whales, and decided to chalk this one off to experience. Next time I’m in a small Moroccan town and get the urge to visit a hammam, I’ll go scrub myself in my own shower with my hammam glove instead. In a big city though, I won’t think twice about it. Visiting a ‘rich man’s’ hammam as the taxi driver called it is worth every penny.
I never did find out why I needed two buckets for the fisherman’s hammam. Perhaps I missed something, but I’m not going back there……..ever!
Oh, burn it!
Cheers
__________________
Jo’burg to Cairo (And a bit further): KLR 650
Southern Africa (And still going strong): XT660Z Yamaha
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26 May 2011
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Registered Users
HUBB regular
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Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Johannesburg, South Africa
Posts: 72
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The Necessity of Hammams
When the guy at the hotel’s front-desk told me it would be one or two hours until the water was turned back on….. Inshalah, I should have known. Moroccans interchange the word Inshalah to suit the situation. Inshalah means ‘God willing’ but I’m sure they sometimes use it to say ‘who knows’. In this case I think the guy meant ‘nobody knows when this mess will be fixed, if indeed it can be fixed’ because that was yesterday mid-afternoon and it’s now eight o’clock the following morning and there’s no water yet. I decide to be nosy and walk down the hall to where the plumber was working yesterday. I think we took a few steps backwards because there’s now a gaping big hole in the concrete floor, pipes sticking out from everywhere and no plumber in sight. Even a desk-jockey like me can tell there’s going to be no water for the better part of today, and my sticky body needs a shower badly. Now I start weighing up my options. Move to the hotel a block away or bite the bullet and wait it out. If I move, I have a shower (and a toilet) and Wi-Fi, but no balcony and I also have a lot of luggage to move. If I stay I’ll be sticky and smelly until much later today when the water is fixed…..Inshalah (see third meaning above).
That’s when I remembered about hammams. I’m sure there’s got to be one nearby. Hammams are like cockroaches, you don’t see them but they’re everywhere. A good thing the front-desk guy likes me because I had to wake him up for directions which he did in true Moroccan fashion. Instead of going ‘turn right at the first street, then left at the next and the hammam is across from the pharmacy’ he insists on spending the next half hour drawing a detailed map. I’m now a hammam regular so I know exactly how to pack for this; bathing suit, towel, shampoo and hammam glove. By nine o’clock I’m strolling down the street towards the hammam which is only two blocks away, wondering if it’s going to be a fisherman’s or a rich-man’s hammam.
It was easy to find. It was the door where the guy was sweeping water onto the sidewalk with a squeegee. I strolled in as if I belonged, nodded to the guy behind the reception desk and immediately started changing into my bathing suit while checking out the other guys. My spirits lifted. It was clean, well organized, nobody was wearing underwear, and everybody had teeth. Then I was approached by a scrub-man who was wearing jeans and a long sleeve shirt, holding two empty buckets. Curious as to how he manages to stay dry we entered into an agreement speaking different languages and I just hoped I didn’t agree to anything sexual. With the deal concluded, he directed me through the next set of doors. It was a carbon copy of the fisherman’s hammam in Sidi Ifni but brighter, and the guys squirming on the floor were all dressed in bathing suits and they each had a scrub-man. My scrub-man pointed for me to lie down between the two buckets (now filled with hot water) and disappeared. After a few minutes when he didn’t return I figured he wasn’t a scrub-man after all and started washing my hair. It was while rinsing the soap from my eyes that I noticed this albino in a bathing suit leaning over me. Thankfully I recognized him as my scrub-man before I could embarrass myself. I was pretending not to notice that he looked like an Apache pony from those old-fashioned Cowboy and Indian movies when he started scrubbing and slapping me. I today learnt that there is a special slap for when he wants you to sit. He was a good scrub-man and I ended up as clean as a whistle. Now that I got the hang of this I did the same as the other guys. When he’s done scrubbing you, your scrub-man fills your two buckets again and then leaves you in peace to play with the water and lay there on the tiled floor to reflect on life or whatever (As an ex-finance guy I used this time to calculate how much I should tip him). He then returns after a while and empties the remaining water on your head and you’re all done.
Now I have to go find a flushing toilet somewhere. I wonder if my hotel is going to discount my room but I don’t get too stressed about it. They’re a great bunch of guys. And who says being poor is not exciting…….
__________________
Jo’burg to Cairo (And a bit further): KLR 650
Southern Africa (And still going strong): XT660Z Yamaha
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