This morning we woke up to a tray of tea cups and a thermos of mint tea waiting us at our doorstep. With the exception of both our usual 4:00 am and 4:20 am alarms going off (our usual wake up time in Angola), we slept through until about 8:00, as the shutters in the room as quite effective at keeping the daylight out.
We lounged a bit then got ready for the day. We had a great breakfast on the terrace with three kinds of yummy Moroccan pancakes, fresh yogurt, fruit salad, and orange juice. We then met Rashid who took us to les Jardins Majorelles; Yves Saint Laurent's beautifully serene and seclusive hideaway, and walked throughout the Berber museum, which is very tastefully put together.
We walked the shops around Les Jardins, and then headed back to test out the Souks on a quiet day for an hour or so. We then had a lovely lunch of keftahs (meatballs in a mint tomato sauce), potato wedges with delicious hummus, and some pan seared shrimp on a bed of cucumbers). All this was washed down with a nice glass of crisp white wine and a Casablanca beer for Paul.
Then we got ready for the ultimate spa experience. If you haven't been to a hammam, then get your booty to one... At least once. We started in our room with BIG terrycloth bathrobes with big hoods, terry slippers, and two baskets with instructions to bring them, with their contents to the spa to start our "East - West Adventure." I had the massage first, Paul had the hammam, we met in the middle for a snack, and then swapped. My grades for massages are mostly based on how many times is am awakened by my own snoring throughout the experience. This was a whopping three times in 45 minutes. A+. Paul was the daring one and tried the hammam first. Neither of us had done this before, so it was something fun and new in the diary of spa experiences for us. So was wearing paper undies for Pablo. You can ask him he details on that.
The hammam is a spectacular event of washing and scrubbing. I'm not going to give away the details, but try it. It involves buckets and buckets of water, scrubs, mud, more scrubs, loads more water, and a lot of relaxation.
We finished up, and I went upstairs to "no poo" my hair. (A side story, but I'm now one month or more without shampoo...who knows if it's working, but the argan oil that the hammam lady put in my hair can't hurt as a bit of extra natural conditioning!). Paul went up to the terrace to chill out, while I did that, and he successfully locked me in the room in doing so; two big brass deadbolts lock the room from either inside or out, and P was on autopilot when he left the room a bit earlier than I. After my escape, I joined Paul on the terrace, and I was consoled by our hostess that the only other couple that did the same was the leader of the BBC and his wife, but he locked her out... At two in the morning.
And so, here we are. Relaxing, publishing these little stories, and enjoying a nice glass of white with a few ice cubes in it, and thinking about dinner.
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