My 70th birthday, March 11, 2023

Lots of greetings from all over the world. And from Assmaa with some pictures from our stay there. 

Omar has some family duties today. His uncle, Amil Hash, is at least 90 years old and not mobile anymore. Omar takes his uncle to the barbers shop and to the hamam for a good, long bath.

I am sitting here in our Air B&B flat and work on the blog. That's actually quite a bit of work.

Omar's uncle in the hamam. He claims to be 104 years old.

So, today will be a quiet day. We have to gather our strengths for the next passage: a ride into the Atlas mountains.

 

Around lunch time, two of Omar's friends visited us. The guy on the left is a pretty a high-ranking politician, the guy on the right is a builder that managed the building of an extension of Omars house.

In the afternoon, we had the surprise of the day. Assmaa called Omar and told him, that she has a birthday gift for us. A hamam session and a deep tissue massage, here in Marrakesh. What an idea! What a gesture of friendship! 

Thank you Assmaa! This is wonderful!

Omar asked me if I want to go for it. - "Of cause!" I said, "that is the best thing of the whole day! I won't want to miss it for the world." So, we drove to that place, curious what it will be like. Omar was quite exhausted from the heat and his caring for his uncle this morning, also in a hamam. "I can't have another hamam, Pete. That's too much. We will be exhausted." That was of cause OK with me. The main thing was the massage. Now, being a Rolfer, a bodyworker, I know quite a bit about massage. Most of these wellness spa places do just that: wellness massage. That is, putting a lot of oil on the body and then sliding with the hands over the body, riding on a wave of oil.

Not this one.

This one was a real deep tissue massage, with structural integration elements. One of the best massages I ever had.

The place looked nice, it's in the basement, pretty dark, with candles all over the place, good fragrances  and a lack of oxygen. We had to wait a while, the place was fully booked. Then a lady in a tight black skirt asked us to follow her. On the right side of the lobby was a stair case to the upper floor. This reminded me a bit of the old Western movies, with a bar and a staircase to the right, leading upwards, to the ladies' rooms, where the cowboys had fun.

Upstairs we found little compartments with one massage bench per compartment. It was very quiet here. The massage therapists only whispered if necessary. Omar and I got separate booths with curtains at the entrance. I received a black, one-way underpants, pretty large, probably also made for oversized XXXL tourists. When the therapist came into the booth, she asked me to lay down on the belly, face down. When she started working, I immediately knew that she was a profssional massage expert. She worked from the feet, up the legs, both sides, then the back. For the back work she climbed onto the bench, kneeling first behind me, then from the front. Also very professional. This is the only way to access the client's back without killing your own back. Besides, you have your bodyweight and the gravity working for you, so that you don't have to work so hard with your hands. She worked a lot with her elbows, going deep. What a pleasure!

Interesting, now that I think about it: she left out the buttocks (gluteus maximus).

Then I had to turn and to my utter pleasure she worked again from the feet and legs upwards, towards the head. Again interesting: she also did the tummy, which is a tricky thing to do, for various reasons. She worked the arms and hands (what a delight), the neck and finally the whole head.

We both thanked our individual therapists a lot and left for the car and for something to eat. We were both pretty mellow. 

We had fish from the charcoal grill, in a very good fish restaurant, prepared only with garlic, salt and olive oil. What a treat! After all that, our only desire was to get back to out flat and get flat ourselves on the bed. Omar has developed a bit or a cold and feels like I did when our trip started.

Good food, Pete is enjoying himself. It was actually more than we could eat. So, I fed the remaining fish to two cats. 

Wanna know where we go next? Check out Omar's travel itinerary, he has everything sorted out and well planned:

We are passed the magenta phase and enter the brown and green phase now.