We moved from the warm room, through the hot room, where the majority of the women were sitting around on the tile floor, and into the very hot room.  Here I could see where the women filled their buckets; on the far wall there were two openings where water was falling from somewhere above into a catch basin way below.  As it fell the women would reach in with the buckets to fill them up with water.  One opening had very hot water falling down and one had cold.  Here the ladies had us lie down one at a time, to give us a massage.  While waiting for my turn, I was so hot in the room, that I stood next to the opening where the cold water was rushing down in order to get some relief from the steaminess all around me.  Standing with me was a lovely woman with beautiful henna all over her hands and feet, my sister and I agreed that she must have just been married.  When it was my turn for massage, my lady motioned for me to lay face down on the tile floor.  It was hard for me to find a good position to lie on the floor where I felt that my “soft” spots were protected and my “hard” spots were comfortable.  As she started to press down on me, the floor was bitingly hard on my knees and face.  This was not a gently relaxing massage, but a workout to get your blood flowing throughout your body, and to open you up to let the heat of the hamam soak into your muscles.  So, after letting myself relax, and trying to ignore the small places of discomfort, I appreciated the rough and thorough massage.

Collecting our things, we moved to the outer room, where we dried ourselves and sat on wooden benches that were along the walls in order to cool off.  We put our clothes back on, and Layla handed out scarves that she’d brought along for us to wear on our heads.  I was confused about the necessity of this, since we were not Muslims and were not going to a holy place.  Layla explained to me that a woman cannot walk around outside with wet hair.  Wet hair means that a woman has just washed which means that she was recently naked, and that she may have been washing from necessity after having had relations with her husband, to keep men’s minds from this train of thought, and therefore, for modesty’s sake, it is necessary to keep one’s hair covered. 

The two ladies had donned their kaftans (Moroccan dresses) again and joined us in the outer room where they helped us with our things, collected their payment of approximately $5 for each of us, and a tip, as we were sure that we received special treatment.  They told us that they hoped we enjoyed our day there with them and they wished that we would return, not just to their hamam, but also to Morocco.