Plan B

On Saturday morning while dropping the kids off at scouts, I run into my friend Jenny. She had planned a 24 hour girls spa getaway at the beach with our friend Faith. And as luck would have it, Faith was coming down with a bug and didn't think she was going to still be able to go. Now Jenny had already put down a deposit on the room and it was too late to get it back. In enters plan b. I'm a little sketchy on whether I was invited along or I just invited myself. In the end does it really matter? Within 5 minutes I was in and we were on the way to my house to pack.



Bathing suit, toothpaste, camera, flip flops, change of clothes, jammies, underwear, book. Done. Faith calls and she's in. YES.....girls weekend a la trois! Wait, have I now reduced my status from plan b to 3rd wheel? Who cares, they're stuck with me. I'm going on the spa beach weekend and I'm gonna hang with two fabulous ladies and soak me up some hot tub time!



We arrive at the hotel in Skhirat and check in. And then head upstairs to check out the cool room which has an enormous bathroom with separate shower and tub. I, like the dork that I am, must smell the soaps, marvel at the shower caps and ponder who wears those anymore, check out the emery board and q-tips. Wow. I have never been at a hotel that gives you q-tips gratis before. Wow, pretty swanky. We chit chat like 3 ladies with nowhere to go before it's time for lunch. So we head down to the patio where we have a beautiful view of the beach. I'm starving, I think Jenny's starving, but Faith looks green and feels even worse. So she heads back up to the room while Jenny and I finish our leisurely lunch and head out to see what spa-like adventures await us.




Now I'm really not a spa girl at heart. All I really want to do that is sit in the hot tub until I am so soggy and prunnish that I'm at risk of being deskinned and boned when I get out. So we head out to the pool to check it out. And.... it's empty. Oh man! Really? This was all I wanted to do.

Plan b: Let's go check out the actual spa and see what services they have. Jenny is dying for a pedicure. I'm sure I can find something there, like hammam. They have pedicures and massages, but the hammam.... It's closed for repair. So there are no services with hot water. Of course there aren't. Ok, maybe I can massage or have my virgin feet pedicured. We'll go check on Faith and see if she's up to something and come back.



We head back up to the room and Faith is feeling a bit better. We chatter some more and decide we'll download a movie on Jenny's computer to watch tonight because the television at the hotel is in French and Arabic. Having made that decision, we languidly head towards the spa to book our appointments. We check on massages and pedicures. And there is nothing available until 2:00pm tomorrow for anything and by then our 24 hours will have came and went.

Plan b: That's it! We're going to make our own do it yourself spa. We have a big bathroom with a huge tub, 3 cushy robes, some smelly soap, that emery board, a shower cap and q-tips! We can make this work. Now all we need to do is head to a store and find nail polish, a hammam mitt or other such scrubby callous removing implement and a face mask. No problem. We can do this. Except the grocery store..... is closed.



The hanut is open. (A hanut is is the Moroccan equivalent of a 7-11 except way more basic, way stinkier, it has sleazier men hanging out around it and strangely that's not for the porno mags because there aren't any. Ok, so it's obviously absolutely nothing like a 7-11). And oh yeah, did I mention it was open? We will have to find our supplies here. If only cigarettes or sleazy men were great for your complexion we'd have hit the jackpot at this one. Surprisingly the hanut has nail polish remover and big grout scour brushes. Perfect! Wait, I read somewhere yogurt is great for your skin. Strawberry, banana and peach, s'il vous plaît.



We head for a walk on the beach and the sun is setting. We have each other, great conversation, our home made spa kit and a date for a movie. Our night is saved and I can imagine us babbling on into the night. It's like being 13 at a sleepover again. Although, I'm pretty sure my mom wouldn't have let me go to Morocco for a spa night at 13 though...



Now, Skhirat beach has some of the finest sand in Morocco which is amazingly soft to walk on, but next to impossible to get off. And our feet are now numb from walking barefoot on the brisk sand at sunset. And of course the hotel has no spickets to rinse your feet before entering the hotel.

Plan b: Bingo! Shoe shine machine you'll have to do. Just so you know, this is a very efficient sand-getter offer. Come to think of it we should have put the nail polish remover on the shoe shine machine it would have been the most efficient and spa-like experience that the hotel had. Perhaps next time we are trapped in a hotel with no spa services for girls night...



Back in the room we decide on a movie to download. Except that it will take 54 hours to download it. Are you kidding me? Ugggh. Ok, so no movie. We sill have our homemade spa though. But now Faith is feeling even worse.

Plan b: She hasn't really eaten today. Maybe a little food will help, so we decide to order room service. Although probably the worst smell in the world to anyone with a stomach ailment is food. Especially when it is confined to an unescapeable stuffy hotel room. And when you feel that crappy you only want to feel crappy in your own bed. So Faith bails and heads for home. And who can blame her?



Then there were two. Jenny and I had eaten, talked about everything under the sun and resorted to watching the world's worst variety show...in French. The only thing left to do was spa. Now there is something a little weirder about two grown women getting into super absorbent bathrobes as heavy as body armor in a hotel room soaking their feet in a ginormous bathtub with a grout scrubber than three women doing it. I don't know why. That was until I put on the shower cap and we rubbed yogurt on our faces. Then who the freak cares? We look ridiculous, but we now have the softest feet and faces on this side of the Atlantic!



Moral of the story: Slow and steady wins the race. No, no. That's the Hare and the Tortoise. I think it's...never leave home without shaving your legs in case you invite yourself on your friends spa trip you won't have that awkward moment when you're in the tub together with a grout brush and your shower cap on and you notice your legs make you look like a Sasquatch, but what's worse you're acting like one because you figured the benefit of putting drippy strawberry yogurt on your face is if you accidentally lick it it tastes really good. Or something like that...