Hot Times in Tepoztlán

Even for a jaded spa-goer like myself, the pyrotechnics are a first. When Andreas, our ponytailed and puka-shelled temazcal leader at Hostal de la Luz tells us to stand very still with our eyes closed at the edge of the plunge pool, being my usual amenable self I simply go with the flow, assuming the clear liquid he’s pouring around us is water. But with the strike of a match, I’m surrounded by a ring of fire. 

Like other cleansing rituals such as the hammam, the Russian banya, the native sweat lodge or even the men’s shvitz at the Jewish Community Centre, the temazcal is a steamy public forum where very private things happen. In ancient Meso-America, the temazcal was part of a curative ceremony used to purify the body after battle, but today it’s experiencing a high-end resurgence as Mexico City’s moneyed weekenders make the two-hour drive to Tepoztlán following a tough week at the office. The ritual is being recreated at a host of resorts, including the new Misión del Sol, La Buena Vibra, Sitio Sagrado and Hostal de la Luz, which was declared a peace zone by the Dalai Lama. Though I doubt they poured butane around him. 

But first: Let’s go back a few days earlier, when Don Pedro Margarito Barrueta greeted my friend Ivy and me as our taxi pulled up to his bare-bones mountainside barn done up like a bathhouse. Don Pedro’s father led traditional temazcals, as did his grandfather before him. Now it’s the diminutive, grey-haired and mustachioed Don Pedro collecting the wood for two days prior to our arrival in order to heat the 52 lava stones used during his Mexican sweat. His morning was spent gathering herbs from the surrounding mountains – 14 varieties in all, among them wild thyme, lavender and citronella.

Don Pedro’s temazcal, like most, looks like a clay igloo, or an oversize pizza oven (depending on whether or not you’ve had lunch). Inside the dark dome, we can hear cattle lowing as we hit ourselves with ocotillo leaves, as per Don Pedro’s instructions. The steam heat rising all around is cleansing and calming; it would be hard to duplicate this ambiance in a city day spa. Especially the lowing.

After an hour, we climb from the clay womb as limp as noodles, and Don Pedro helps us into two horses’ troughs full of warm 14-herb-spiked water. It smells great and feels so good, I almost start neighing. We drink sweetened herbal tea and then lie down on the covered barn floor to rest alongside a happy border collie.

Back at Hostal de la Luz with Andreas, the pyromaniac, topiaries and Buddhas dot the elegantly manicured grounds. Since the owner of this exclusive spa is one of the country’s top plastic surgeons, many wealthy Mexicans check in following a nip and tuck in the city. I spot several shuffling about in spa robes and coiffed hair looking rather “refreshed.” 

The temazcal is experienced in small groups, so a newlywed couple from the city is joining in, he sporting designer eyewear, she a big-name bikini. Together they helpfully translate much of the proceedings as we crawl into a clay dome that’s so dark, I can’t tell whether my eyes are open or closed. The heat coming from within is hotter than any sauna or eucalyptus steam room I’ve ever been in, combined. 

We sit tightly clustered on low stone benches while Andreas occasionally swats our backs with ocotillo branches. (I prefer this full-service flagellation.) Over the next two hours, he blows into a conch shell and a ram’s horn, and sings and chants and gives us pieces of fresh aloe vera to rub on our bodies. And we chant along and do rhythmic breathing, which becomes like a chorus to his singing and drumming. “Breathe deeply and release your heart,” says Andreas in Spanish, as translated by the Mexican newlyweds. “Ask the earth for what you desire!” As a general rule, I don’t buy into the new-age side of spas. Yet there’s something about this particular clay dome that sweats my cynicism away. 

It’s nighttime when we finally crawl from the belly of the temazcal. We settle into our personal nooks in the mystically tiled plunge pool while tiki torches blaze around us. The newlyweds are clearly changed – they smile like sleepy kittens, their shoulders now resting a good two inches lower. I wonder what I must look like. (A sweaty sloth?) Andreas comes around and massages our temples as we lie blissed out. And as I sip my sweet tea while the tepid water and night air cool me down, I realize that this is a rare instance of the spa not losing the spirit of the original.

And then the Jacuzzi bubbles kick in. 

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