Temazcal and the International Space Station

Last night we went to a traditional Temazcal: a type of sweat house which has been used in Mesoamerica since Pre Hispanic times for spiritual and health reasons. It was in Ejido de Tirado (see a previous post) on the outskirts of San Miguel. When we got there, after driving over dirt roads parallel to the railway tracks, it was pitch dark already. It's so dry here at the minute that there is grey white dust everywhere and it was like driving through low lying fog. We could see nothing when we got out of the van apart from the vast sky and the vague shapes of buildings. With no light pollution the sky was amazing: stars, planets, constellations, galaxies and maybe the international space station which was due to appear at 19.34 for 4 minutes. We saw something which we wanted to believe was the space station but, in truth, it could equally have been an aeroplane. We're hanging on the auspicious notion that we saw it.

We picked our way down a dirt path, past cages of gobbling turkeys which frightened the life out of us, to the dimly lit back of someone's house. The Temazcal was right there: an igloo like construction made of bricks or rocks. We stripped off down to our swimsuits and I got to be first to enter, backwards. feet first, on my knees, low down as the entrance wasn't far off the ground, through a wet hessian type curtain. When I had righted myself in this dimly lit tiny space imagine my surprise at seeing three very hefty men already sitting there. If we hadn't been with Miguel I think I might have got straight out again! Anyway, by the time the other four girls and Miguel had got in, it was very intimate indeed and even more so when the light went out! It's heated by volcanic rocks (because they won't explode) which have been been in a fire pit until red hot and then carried in. One of the men told us to inhale deeply the wood smoke tinged steam through our noses and exhale through our mouths. There were a series of different chants for cleansing different internal organs: lungs, heart, kidneys, pancreas..... every so often more water was poured on the rocks. It was very, very hot, especially if you raised yourself off the clay floor a little. It was a totally absorbing experience. I don't know how long I was in there, but four people got out before me. Before exiting you had to have two basins of cold water poured over your head and back. Coming out into the balmy night, in the middle of nowhere in Mexico, with the panoply of stars overhead was really special. I've always wanted to experience a Temazcal and now I have :) The wife of the guy who owns it, a natural healer, made us tea made with a lemon herb and honey out of a huge jar, and gave us some of her 'pan integral' which was a slightly sweet, very hard bread with grains in it which was somewhere between bread and cake. Sky and I want to go back before I leave so we'll have to sweet talk Miguel into taking us again as there's NO way we would go on our own. We did however go to a free Salsa lesson in the Public Library tonight which was fun and there's a Danzon class there tomorrow night - that's something else I've always wanted to be able to do....