A conversational YouTube travel vlog by Nate and Kara Buchanan documenting a day in Marrakesh: walking the busy market, trying local fruits (including cactus), visiting a palace and tomb, then experiencing their first traditional Moroccan hammam. The hammam segment is detailed and vivid—they describe gender-separated facilities, the use of a coarse exfoliating glove and "African soap," vigorous scrubbing that removed visible skin, hair washing, and a concluding massage. Tone is personal, humorous, and observational.
Chapters
And he scrubbed like no man has ever scrubbed.
He's so mad.
It just hurt. Like, I was, like, burning, maybe. He probably pulled it all out.
I think he did.
Sorry if that footage was a little shaky. I was shooting from the hip the whole time, trying to be discreet. Just to give you a feel of what it's like for us to walk to the square. Very fun, stimulating to all of the.
Senses all the time. This market is here all day long, every single day. We're loving Marrakesh, starting today with another juice from our favorite juice guy. I'm trying the local fruit. It's called. I have no idea what it is, but it's only. This is what it looks like. It kind of looks like a tomato.
This is really good. I love keki. It's like a orange mango fusion. Yeah.
We wandered away from the square and found the city's oldest and tallest minaret.
What do you think? Unless I'm getting that one confused with another one Michael was talking about the other night.
So informative on this vlog.
Thank you.
I'm eating a cactus.
I have, like, 10 seeds in my mouth in that tiny bite. You think I eat the seeds?
I don't know.
They said I could eat the seeds. Oh, it's super hard. I don't think I can.
Thank you. This whole process has been very confusing. I'm not sure what we paid for and what we haven't never had cactus before. This one kind of like watermelon with way more heart seeds. I've been watching. I think people are just swallowing because there's no way you can bite them. It's like a mix between a cantaloupe and a watermelon with tons of really hard seeds in the middle. After having a little cactus for dessert, we are now heading to check out one of the most famous palaces in the city.
Starts with a B.
I don't know if you can hear the birds chirping, but this palace is like an oasis in the middle of the craziness of America.
The palace was all right. It's not that old or that big. Like the 1890s. It's empty. No one lives there anymore.
Bless you.
Thank you.
It was fine, and there were a lot of people. I say take it or leave it. If you're into palaces, go check it out.
And go to the grave Tomb. Yeah.
Yep. All right. Now we're going to the tomb. Been doing a lot of following you around today. Thank you. Only a dollar.
Are these the tombs?
I don't know. Kind of looks like them, you'd think they'd be marked, like, with their names.
Maybe they're too old.
So the tomb and the palace were both, like, really pretty. But there's some days where we just don't necessarily feel like doing the big touristy things, but we kind of force ourselves to because we're here. And I feel like today was one of those days.
It was fine.
Yeah, they were both.
You're only like, a dollar.
Have fun.
That sunset was amazing. Kara just got taken away by a nice lady who came to pick her up. We're both having our first hammam experience tonight, so. Which is, like, some combination between a bath and a massage. From what I understand, it's a very local experience, but the guys and the girls are completely separated, like, in different buildings on maybe the other side of town. So Kara got taken off by her, and then I'm actually going with our Airbnb host. I think he's going to be the one doing the massage tonight. Could get interesting. I'm just hoping Kara's going to be able to find her way back because she's not the best at navigating. Also, I'm going to take the GoPro in hopes of capturing some of this, but I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to film because, yeah, I can see this being really awkward.
I am home from my bath experience. Nate is not here yet. I have no idea when he's gonna get back. Neither of us had our phones while we were gone. I'm gonna wait to tell you about my experience for when he gets back. So I only have to tell it once because it was insane.
That was quite the experience. I'm not gonna say anything else until I see Kara, and then I'm sure we'll have a spirited debrief together.
You're back.
You have a headscarf on?
I do. Where's yours?
Hey, give me one.
How do you feel?
I feel. That's still hot. I need to take this off.
Do you want to go first?
I just think we haven't talked about this at all. I just think we need to have a conversation about what happened.
I know. Do you want to go first, or do you want me to go first? Okay, I'm just going to start at the beginning. After my lady took me by the hand out of our drug you down the street.
I saw that.
And she speaks no English. Like, not a single.
Like, halfway through, I asked Simone if your lady spoke English, and he was like, nothing. He was like.
So we Walk in there, and she's like. So I assume that means take your clothes off. And I know nothing about this. Like, no clue what this bath is. All I knew is that it was, like, an authentic experience and something about, like, exfoliation and maybe even a massage. And then she just disappears. So I'm just standing there, and I have on my bathing suit under my clothes. I'm like, okay, maybe I'll just, like, get into a bathing suit. So I, like, take off my jacket, and then this girl walks out with nothing but her underwear on. So I'm like, okay, nothing but underwear. Got it. Took everything off. Which we've been to Japan. We did the onsen where you wear nothing. So, like, this was oddly familiar and not that weird. And finally, she comes in and gets me. We walk in together. Everyone in there just goes.
And knows that I'm, like, the new girl. All kinds of ages, really old people. Everyone's naked. It's just this big wet room, and it's really hot. There's all these buckets and little mats, like a yoga mat. So she gets her little yoga mat.
Oh, we didn't have mats.
Ew.
Yeah, we just sat on the floor.
Then she disappears. So I'm sitting there, and there's all these buckets in front of me with this little bucket scooper. And I'm, like, trying to, like, watch people without being weird since everybody's naked. And the girls next to me are looking at me, and they're, like, speaking in French, and it's just like, I don't know. And then they pointed, and they're like, okay, my lady's just gone. Who's supposed to be doing this for me? So I started, like, wetting myself. And it's, like, super warm, and I'm, like, trying to fit in, and they're all, like, going like this. Finally, she came back and threw this, like, little package at me. And it was this, like, brown mushy stuff.
It was the stuff we saw on the market.
Yes. Did you have it?
Yeah.
It sounds really gross, but it's really soft, and it becomes soapy.
Yes. Simone called it African soap.
She throws it at me and leaves again. And I'm just sitting there with this brown mushy stuff in this pat. And then once again, the girls next to me are like. I just start rubbing it all over my body and hope that my lady wanted me to do that. And there was this little, like, glove. Glove washcloth thing. And I was like, oh, this is nice. So I took it and I started in there.
I was like, no, no, no.
And so I put it back, and then I just sat there because I was scared. Then my lady came back and dumped a bunch of water on me. And then she sits down with me, and she takes the glove and she starts.
Yes.
I'm looking at my arm, and I'm like, yes. I think the washcloth is coming apart. Like, there's little pieces on me. It was my skin.
I had, like, who knows how many layers of skin I lost, but it was just, like, balled up all. It was so disgusting.
Your skin is literally peeling off with, like.
It feels like sandpaper. They literally, like, basically take a thing of sandpaper that's in the shape of a glove and just, like, from head to toe. I was gonna say my guy did not miss a spot.
Not his.
I mean, like, he's stuck his hand.
On my arm, and she's naked, too. So she comes back with shampoo.
Hold on. Did she exfoliate your face? Yeah. Oh, it hurt. He, like, turned me around and, like, had my head and was like.
I.
Kind of liked it. I like to be exfoliated. So then I turn around and she washes my hair, and then she gets this brush, and she's, like, brushing my hair.
Oh, wait. Was the hair wash fantastic?
Yeah, well, I get my hair washed all the time.
That's amazing.
Yeah. So, yeah, then she rinsed it, and then she disappeared again, and I still haven't water left. And so I got up and I, like, picked out of the room that she had went into, and I was like, is it done? And then she, like, started saying all this stuff, and I was, like, done. And then she was like. And then she rinsed me one more time and then put this in my hair so it didn't get me all wet. And, like, brought me my clothes, and then she gave it to me as a gift. Well, that was nice. And gave me a bunch of kisses on the face.
We had a similar experience, and someone ended with a massage. Quick version, pretty much all the same. You walk into this place, it's just, like, rooms with, like, a tile floor floor. And in ours, there were no mats. Everybody just lays down on the tile floor. You kind of splash some water on it before you start to sanitize it. I guess they threw buckets of water on us. I feel like I washed my body at least 10 times. Like, I kept thinking it was over. This guy came in there with the glove and just. I just laid spread eagle. And he scrubbed. Just hurt. Like, I was like, burning, maybe. He probably pulled it all out.
I think he did.
And everybody's in their underwear, so it's just like, a bunch of.
Oh, so you got to wear pants?
A bunch of sweaty men in their underwear. It was one of those the whole time where I'm like, I'm never gonna forget this night.
I got all those in one bite.
Can I fit them out?
Yeah, I guess.
And then she literally collected all the air in the brush and handed it to.
And then she went like that. And so I didn't know if I needed to, like, hold it because she didn't want it to go, like, in the drain, So I held my hair for a long time.
