The heat in North Africa has its way of permeating into you leaving you tired and drained by the end of the day. Traveling around Marrakech gets the desert dust into your face and your skin. Some travelers see the need to take numerous stops in bars and cafes just to take a breather and refresh themselves. Some take a short nap and a cold shower to rejuvenate their bodies from the heat and exhaustion.

Little did they know that the smartest thing to do would be to visit the traditional Marrakech hammam. Your visit to Morocco wouldn’t be complete without experiencing the hammam or bath house which is what I would consider a genuinely unique cultural experience. It’s the Middle Eastern counterpart of what we know as the spa.

Now, if you’re staying at one of the luxury riads or hotels in Marrakech, chances are, they would have a hammam of their own which is well- private. You could opt to have a scrub down at your hotel which is boring, or go the authentic route and experience the chance to mingle and socialize with the locals and participate in one of their customs at a public bath house. I would recommend the latter.

So, my husband and I went to check out Les Bains de Marrakech which is said to be one of the best Marrakech hammam. The interior was beautiful! I’d say that it was a very fun and unique experience for us. In Muslim tradition, the men and women have different sections so we got separated at the door.

At first, I was a little self conscious with being naked in front of these strangers. We were asked to disrobe down to our underwear. Women may either wear a bikini, underwear, or nothing at all. We were both given a bucket of supplies and were then led to the steam-filled chambers of the ancient Marrakech hammam.

I was then asked to lie down as the lady doused my whole body with bucket after bucket of warm water after which she rubbed black soap (which I later learned was eucalyptus) all over my body and told me to wait for about 15 minutes. The Marrakech hammam lady then came back with this scrubbing mitt that they call a kese and she scrubbed every part of my body. The idea is to scrub the dead skin off of your body and I was watching all this dead skin fall off!

After she finished scrubbing me, she washed me off again and prepped me for a relaxing massage. She used this scented massage oil that felt really good on the skin. I guess this is because of all the scrubbing I got that made me feel squeaky clean!

After nearly an hour of cleansing, scrubbing and kneading, all that was left to do was to rinse me by ceremoniously dumping buckets of water to rinse me off. I certainly felt relaxed and rejuvenated after all that and I was ready for another Marrakech adventure. My skin felt like a baby’s!

Many people Travel to Morocco, but not that many experience this real pleasure which is the Marrakech Hammam. A word of advice though; it's not wise to go to the hammam on a Thursday evening or Friday, which is the Muslim holy day since the place is usually crowded. It would also be a good thing to find out if the place you want to go to have a separate bathing schedule for men and women which some hammam impose.