Getting pampered in Marrakech, Morocco

It is a truth universally acknowledged that there is nothing - nothing - better than a good massage.

Armed with this truth, I was looking forward to my first ever experience in a Moroccan hammam. A Moroccan hammam is roughly the equivalent of the Turkish bath, which is in itself a type of sauna. While a sauna in Moroccan heat doesn't seem like the most expected combination, it is a spa and relaxation after all - why not?

Medina Spa is tucked away in a back alley, a couple of turns away from the main square in Marrakech. It takes me a while to find it - you have to keep your eye out looking for the sign that points toward the spa, but it's actually surprisingly near the square.

Upon entering, I am greeted with a haven that is welcome respite from the rest of Morocco. Although I am enjoying the grit of the Marrakech old-town medina with its donkey carts and marketplaces, a part of me has been longing for clean, white tiled floors and just-enough decorating rather than the excessive fabric swathes that I've seen everywhere here.

The atmosphere in the spa is welcoming and calm, and couldn't be more different from the hustle and bustle of city life just outside its walls.

After changing out of my clothes and into a bathrobe and slippers, I am first led to receive a manicure and pedicure from a lady named Habi. She files my nails to perfection, trims my cuticles and applies an argan oil-based cream to moisturise my nails.

I like talking to people when getting massages and treatments, but I'm finding that talking to Habi is really testing my knowledge of French from one class two years ago. She doesn't speak any English, and I speak very limited French, so conversation isn't the easiest. Still, I find out that she's been doing mani-pedis for two years and massages for eight, so I'm in pretty good hands.

I don't usually do anything at all to my fingernails, preferring to keep them short and unvarnished - a habit from when I played piano as a kid - so getting my finger-cuticles cut for the first time does feel a tad painful. Still, I appreciate the attention to detail that Habi's giving; she even goes away for a while to switch her cuticle clippers for a smaller pair because my fingernails are too small for her usual pair!

Afterwards, I'm led to the hammam. The first thing I'm hit by is the wave of heat. It's hot and humid, and every bit as you might expect a sauna to be - except that the Moroccan hammam places an emphasis on water rather than ambient steam.

My attendant helps me out of my bathrobe, and although I'd always thought of myself as a pretty confident woman I'm still a little bit embarrassed going completely in the nude. I wish I'd known this before going in, but when visiting hammams you're supposed to bring a pair of dark underwear for wearing inside the hammam and a pair of dry underwear for changing into afterwards!

Imagine the embarrassment when I found out afterwards that unlike in Finnish saunas where you go in the buff, you're supposed to keep your underwear on in Moroccan hammams. Eep! Still, the attendants are good about it and, if they're at all uncomfortable about my being entirely nude, don't show it.

I was led to stand under a torrential shower of hot water, scalding and almost too hot to stand under. I lie face-down on a mattress and relax for a while while my attendant leaves to let me get used to the heat and humidity. There are moments of confusion when I don't know what's going on, though - I was the only person in the room just then and was left wondering what was supposed to happen.

After a while, the attendent comes back and starts applying a body mask. While waiting for the mask to work its magic, I wondered if I should try to start up a conversation - but with only very limited French, decided against it.

The last part of the hammam experience involved an all-over wash with Moroccan black soap and a scrub glove. My attendant showed me little bits of dead skin that collected on the glove as she scrubbed it over my arms - a little disturbing to think that much grime had been on my body in the first place, but oddly satisfying to see that it had now left my skin! After a shampoo, it was on to the massage.

As I stepped out of the hammam, the air felt almost air-conditioned after all that heat inside!

While I'm in the massage room, Hadi comes back and, as I'm lying on the massage table, applies a coat of deep red varnish on my nails ("Nails painted after the hammam," she'd said earlier. "Or the colour will run when you're bathing.")

Afterwards, she moves on to my massage - "En force," I tell her, because I like my massages almost painful (yes, I know I'm a masochist with massages, ha ha!). In between the soft sounds of meditation music and Hadi's oil massage, it's easy to drift off into a peaceful state. In no time at all, I've fallen asleep, enjoying the massage and music.

It's too soon when Hadi wakes me up and tells me that it's time to go - really, is there ever such a thing as 'enough' when it comes to massages? - and she leads me out for some mint tea. It's a nice end to a good few hours at the spa, a part of traditional Moroccan hospitality, and it's become a rule of mine by now - never turn down mint tea.

Changing back into my own clothes feels unfortunate after I've been washed and massaged to shiny new perfection. After the spa's calm and tranquility, I almost don't want to step outside back to the hustle of the Marrakech marketplace.

Medina Spa, www.medina-spa-marrakech.com
Lalla Care
Quartier Kennaria, derb zaari N°27
E-mail: contact@medina-spa-marrakech.com
Phone: +212 (0) 5 24 38 50 59