Our morning started with the discovery of a large seagull trapped in the interior of the tiny courtyard of our apartment building.  We aren’t sure how it managed to get there as there isn’t enough room for a bird that size to fly down into the courtyard.  The only thing we can figure is that it wandered through one of the open hallway doors and walked into the courtyard.  We closed our bedroom window on the fourth floor, which faces that courtyard, in case it tried to fly and landed on our windowsill.  Through the window, we checked on it periodically.  About the third time we looked, we saw that it had flown and landed on a second story windowsill.  At that point, I decided I knew how to speak seagull language, opened our window, and started telling the bird to turn around (as it was facing a closed window) and while motioning with my arm told it to fly up to a third story window.  The bird flew to a third story window after a couple of minutes of coaching.  I repeated the process, which included me encouraging the bird to look up to the sky and telling it to be brave and to trust it could get to a fourth story windowsill.  After about a minute, the seagull took a leap and managed to fly high enough to greet the wide-open blue sky above.  Success!  Now I can add “seagull whisperer” to my resume. 

It is time for our monthly blood pressure check, so we walked to our local Pharmacie and had it checked for free.  Our results were satisfactory.

After enjoying an hour at a lovely restaurant on the beach (called mBeach) sipping unhurried mint tea, reading, listening to the crashing waves, and watching the world pass by we walked to the Medina.  We ate dessert before lunch – small ice cream cones, a two-bite local Moroccan pastry named “gazelle horns” made with almond filling and orange flower, and we shared a chocolate peanut butter ball.  We left Florida with the intent to buy large sunhats on our travels that would pack flat in our bags.  After looking multiple times over the past seven weeks, we finally found some that fit our criteria in a souq in the Medina.  I pride myself regarding my negotiating skills and Moroccan souqs are an expected place to haggle.  As I was perusing the hat options the vendor turned me around to face him, unexpectedly shoved my head into a hat and snapped on the face covering for the hat over (well really into) my mouth.   During the few seconds that this took place, I had multiple thoughts racing through my mind at once.  Although all the products we have looked at within the Medina have been clean, I didn’t have a chance to look at the hat for ME to determine it was clean enough to place it on my head.  Because the face piece that snapped on the front of the hat was basically thrust into my mouth by the vendor, I could only wonder whose mouth he had just thrust it into before me.  And my last thought…why was I the one being tormented and not Mike???  He wanted a hat too! Mike told me afterwards that he wanted to video the encounter as it was happening, but it happened so fast.  After removing the hat from my head as quickly as I could, I asked the vendor how much it cost for one hat.  He told me 200 dh.  I said too much and started to walk away.  He said okay, 150.  I said 75.  He said 100.  I said two hats for 200.  He agreed.  We got the sunhats we wanted for $10 each (half the original price, which is common when negotiating here).  The hats aren’t the best quality; however, they should last long enough for us to get our investment out of them.  We giggled about it for the remainder of the day.  All that negotiating and laughter worked up an appetite, so we enjoyed chicken tacos (which are a cross between a burrito and gyro back home) with fries before walking home to get ready for our spa treatments.

When in Morocco, a person really needs to experience a traditional Hammam.  These baths became popular before plumbing was available in homes.  There are similarities to Turkish and Roman bath houses.  The tradition stays alive in Morocco.  Many locals go to public Hammams weekly to bathe.  The men and women are separated.  A person pays about $1 to enter a public Hammam with their washing supplies.  Users often find a wash buddy or pay $5 for the attendant to wash them.  Women are typically naked, and men wear underwear.  Hammams are a place for locals to socialize.  We did our research before booking our private couples Hammam.  We decided on having our services at https://spa-essaouira.com/en/. We listened to this Morocco Travel Stories Podcast (02): A Turkish Bath in Morocco — Matthew Félix podcast yesterday and laughed so hard we were both crying.  We crossed our fingers that our private Hammams would not be like the author’s public Hammam experience.  We were nervous that if anything reminded us of the podcast we would start laughing during ours. 

We arrived in the main room of the spa that serves as reservation/check-in/checkout, lobby/waiting room, manicure/pedicure station, hair salon, technician office/break room/meeting room, and client changing room.  The room is barely larger than the middle bathroom at our former house (if the counter, toilet, tub/shower, and linen closet were removed).  The room has two chairs, a loveseat, and a hair styling chair.  In the room with us was a mother and her three teenage daughters and four of the staff members.  We barely had room to turn around.  The mother and three daughters were taken into a side room for their services.  The technicians provided us with slip on shoes, disposable boxers for Mike, a disposable thong panty for me, and robes.  The staff exited the room so we could change. 

We were led into the darkened steam room where we disrobed, sat on the heated tile bench, and drank mint tea in the steam for several minutes to open our pores.  It was relaxing in the flickering candlelight while listening to the lovely spa music playing.  Our technician filled a large tub in the corner with water.  After we finished our tea, the technician repeatedly poured warm water over us, using a small bucket that she filled by dipping into the tub, until we were saturated.  She gave us waterproof pillows for our heads and instructed us to lay down on each end of the bench, with the ends of our feet touching.  She used her hands to rub savon beldi (black soap) all over us and left us to relax for 10 minutes.  Then she used a kess (which looks like a mit and is a powerful scrubbing tool) on the front and back of our bodies to remove all dead skin cells.  She used just the right amount of pressure, it felt firm but good.  Using the bucket and the water in the tub, she rinsed us off.   She rubbed a mask onto our faces and entire body and left us to lay in the steam for 20 minutes.  She returned and washed our hair (she also brushed mine) and fully rinsed our bodies.  As I despise getting water in my face, having my hair rinsed was my least favorite part of the process.  My back was facing the technician so I couldn’t see when she was pouring water over my head and I was caught off guard a couple of times and felt like I was drowning.  Once fully rinsed, she helped us into our robes and put a towel over each of our heads.

We bought the Gourmond package, which included a pedicure, massage, and facial.  After the Hammam treatment, Mike and I sat on the loveseat together and our pedicure technicians sat across from us with pillows covered by a towel on their laps on which we placed one foot at a time.  Moroccans must think dead skin is the enemy as they used two different “cheese graters” on our feet to rid us of everything that could possibly be sloughed off.  My legs got a workout as I had to hold each leg up as my technician worked on each foot.  Plus, I had to put my legs down and back up multiple times to let masseuses pass by as there was no other way to get around us.  The arrangement was definitely different than pedicures we are accustomed to, however, one thing that was similar is that the technicians were all talking to each other in Arabic so we couldn’t understand them.  Just like we don’t understand our nail salon technicians where we go in Sarasota that speak Vietnamese to each other. 

Next, we were ushered into the small massage room, which had beautiful tile and two massage tables with just enough room for the masseuses to walk around each table.  We disrobed and got on our respective tables which had a light that felt as bright as the sun, shining on each of our faces.  Each technician started the facial portion of our package.  They washed our faces and used the (obviously) worldwide blackhead removal torture tool.  I have had many facials over the years, so I knew what to expect from that seemingly harmless little tool.  I was wondering if Mike would survive this part.  I assumed Mike’s technician wasn’t using the tool on him as I didn’t hear him flinch and thought at a minimum he’d be groaning.  Once the torture tool was put down, a mask was applied to our faces, the lights were dimmed, and we turned onto our stomachs for a full body massage on our back side.  My masseuse slapped my feet, which sounded like she was beating me, and I wondered if Mike was curious what was happening on my table.  Two seconds later I heard his masseuse slapping his feet, so I knew if he had been curious, he now knew the answer.  Several karate chops up and down each of our bodies and it was time to flip over to face up.  And just like that, the light of the sun was back in each of our eyes.  The mask was washed off, the lights were dimmed again and a full body massage on the front side started.  Like the Hammam, full body is truly full body!  Everything gets washed and massaged except what’s between the legs.  What felt like cucumber slices were placed on our eyes and we were left to relax for several minutes.  Once our eyes were uncovered and we were instructed not to shower for at least a day to let the argan oil nourish our bodies, we were left alone to get dressed.  The first thing Mike said to me is “we have to come back tomorrow to get my nose” as he felt like it had been scraped from his face with the blackhead torture tool during the facial.  We laughed!  They asked us frequently throughout each treatment if we were okay.  They were very sweet.  Only two of the four women spoke any English (and that was extremely limited).  We paid and Mike told them “see you tomorrow”, as we would absolutely do it again.  It was truly an amazing experience.  For 2 ½ hours of pampering we spent $90 each (which included the tip).

Feeling extremely relaxed with baby soft skin, we walked back to our apartment.  Along the way we stopped and bought boiled chickpeas from a street vendor by the beach to eat as a snack on our way home, which was followed by our left-over homemade vegetable tajine for dinner and washing our new sun hats.