We have spent the last two days doing excursions outside of Marrakech. Yesterday we went to the coastal town of Essaouira. It was a welcomed change of pace from the big city. The weather was beautiful, the noise was minimal and we had room to walk along without dodging donkeys, scooters and shoppers.
When we got back to the city we had what I might call an awkward couples hammam. If you are long time readers of our blog you may remember a post I wrote about a rather awkward, yet amazing Turkish bath experience… See ‘Bloggle Bloggle” for the full story. Consider this hammam experience to be along the same lines. If you don’t already know, a hammam is when you, a consenting adult human, allow an adult stranger to wash and scrub your almost naked body until your top layer of skin comes off. Sounds pretty normal so far, right? Well, the place we are staying at has a hammam so we thought after a nice day at the beach, we would come home and get a good scrub down. We booked it and at the time I wondered, if the hammam was in our place, does that mean one of the 3 staff members gets the lucky job of hosing me down? Would it be bachelor number 1? The manager with a twinkle in his eye? Bachelor number 2? The guy that can’t speak English but is fluent in all things French? Or the lady that has been cleaning our room for the last 3 days? I had convinced myself that they probably hired outside help for that job. Well what a jerk I was. Not only was it the lady that was up to the task, but she was taking us both on in the same room. Now I’m not sure how a threesome is supposed to go, but I’m certain what I saw in that room was not a show I ever need to witness again. When she was washing one of us, the other one was sitting on the smallest stool in the world I’d like to call the stool of the scary truth. It was so hot. Like temperature hot. We were down to our underwear and she was wearing pants. The most awkward moment for me was when I was getting scrubbed a bit too vigorously and I made a face, revealing my comfort level all while locking eyes with my wife of ten years who looked like a freshly washed hot-pink convertible with her top down. And the most amazing part? The lady didn’t even get her pants wet.
Today we took our clean selves to Ouarzazate, a city south of the High Atlas Mountains. It has been featured in many films and even has its own movie studio.
We also visited Aït Ben Haddou which can be seen in Lawerence of Arabia, Gladiator, and Game of Thrones.
DawnO and I have a bucket list. While Dawn adds things to it well in advance, I find it hard to add items to the list. I usually see or do something and then afterwards say, “That goes on the bucket list! Check!” What I saw on the way to Essaouira was put on the list once we knew it was a thing. We actually only booked this trip because we heard we might see this mind blowing sight. Ladies and gentlemen, we give you goats in a tree:
Props to Peggy Nelson for telling us that this was even a thing.
Apparently the goats climb the trees to eat the nuts that grow on them. Bucket list item, check!
Wickedly kewl stuff….
Haha! It's like RB and I getting an 'Ex-con beat down' Thai massages.