Arabic Baths (Los baños árabes)

Last Thursday, my three friends and I finally made it to the Arabic Baths. For those of you who don't know, the baths consist of three rooms: the cold room, the warm room and the hot room. In the cold room, you'll find the cold bath, in the warm room, the warm bath, and, in the hot room, (yes) you will most certainly find the hot bath.

To better blood circulation, you are supposed to begin in the warm pool. You can sit there for as long as you want, getting used to the water and the smells of the bath, drinking tea and leaning your head back against the marble floors. Then, you move on to the hot bath... which is really, really...really hot. You're only supposed to stay here for 5 minutes, and honestly, after three minutes, my head was spinning. Then, you move back to the warm bath, which after the hot bath feels 10 degrees cooler (at least) than it felt when you first when in. Then, on to the cold bath... Unfortunately, I don't ACTUALLY know how cold the cold bath is because, well, I wussed out. I put my hand in, it went rigid from how cold it was, and that was it for me. No cold bath for Samantha. I could hear my friends shrieking a little as they dipped into the cold water...and I was very glad that I had opted out.

So back to the warm pool I went, waiting for my number to be called by a massage therapist. (Massages are optional. You can just take a bath, or you can have a bath with tea, or you can watch a show and have lunch...there are a lot of options to say the least.) When we went last week, there were four massage therapists working. And of course, one was a young, hunky Spanish man. Awesome. We were all placing our bets on who would get him, and I assured my friends that with my luck, it would most certainly be me. And shocker...it was. So off I went to get my massage from the hunky Spaniard. He kept telling me to relax, and I really did try. But it's kind of hard to relax when you think your massage therapist is cute, he's using orange massage oil on you, you're pretty sure he's MAYBE only two years older than you are, you have a boyfriend, and oh yeah, he's massaging your bum.

Anyway. It was all very relaxing for the most part, and I can't wait to go back. I'll post the link below so you can see pictures and what not. If it doesn't post in English, I apologize. Just click on the little British flag right above the text, and it will switch to English.

http://www.hammamspain.com/cordoba/