The Moroccan hammam, explained for first-timers

The hammam is older than Morocco's cities. It came with the Romans as the public bath, was adopted and reshaped by Islamic culture for ritual purity, and became the weekly ritual of every neighbourhood — a place to get clean, to be scrubbed by someone who knows how, and to talk. Most Moroccans grow up with it. Most visitors have never done it and are slightly nervous about the idea. Here's what actually happens.

The three rooms — or one, that gets hotter

A traditional public hammam has three connected rooms: warm, hot, and hottest, with the heat coming from a furnace beneath the floor. You move through them in order, letting the body adjust. A private or hotel hammam is often a single tiled room where the temperature is brought up gradually.

The heat is humid, not dry — this is not a sauna. Think of a very warm, very steamy bathroom. Ten to fifteen minutes in, the skin softens and the pores open. That's the point of the wait: everything that follows works better on skin that has been steamed.

The sequence

Savon beldi. A soft, dark paste made from olive oil and crushed olives — “black soap”. It's spread over the whole body and left for several minutes. It doesn't foam. Its job is to loosen dead skin.

The kessa. A rough glove, traditionally woven, used to scrub the body firmly from neck to feet. This is the part first-timers remember: the amount of dead skin that comes off is startling, and the scrub is vigorous — it should feel like being cleaned, not hurt. If it hurts, say so.

Rinse. Warm water, poured with a bowl from a basin. In a public hammam, you bring your own bowl; in a private one, it's provided.

Ghassoul. A mineral clay from the Atlas mountains, mixed with water into a smooth paste, applied to the skin and hair. It draws out impurities and leaves the skin unusually soft. Rinsed after a few minutes.

Rest. The body is warm, the skin is new, the shoulders have dropped. Traditionally, this is the moment for mint tea. A massage after a hammam is the natural continuation — the muscles are as receptive as they'll ever be.

Why surfers in particular

Salt, sun, wetsuit rubber, sand — a week of surfing leaves the skin dry, tight and faintly raw. The hammam removes all of it in an hour. And the heat does for the shoulders and lower back what a hot bath would, with a deeper reach: the humid heat relaxes muscle that has been contracting for three hours a day against a paddle stroke.

What to bring, what to know

• Swimwear — in a mixed or private hammam. Public hammams are single-sex and people are typically in underwear.
• Nothing else. Soap, glove and clay are provided in a private hammam; in a public one you buy them at the door for a few dirhams.
• Hydrate before. You'll sweat more than you expect.
• Say what you want. A gentler scrub, a hotter room, more time — the attendant adjusts. This is a service, not an ordeal.
• Leave the phone. Steam, and it's the one place nobody is looking at one.

At AMANAR

The Wellness package includes one hammam session and one massage per week — taken together, in that order, the way the tradition intends. The hammam is at a partner establishment close to the house; the massage follows. We'll walk you there the first time.