Holy smoke!
Ever heard of the ancient Native American ritual of Temazcal ? Neither had I. While planning for my yoga retreat at Maya Tulum (which was AWESOME) I ran across a description of it amongst the spa offerings. It billed itself as total release of physical, emotional, and spiritual toxins. Hmmmm. I could use a good inner cleanse, I thought. And that is exactly what I got, and more. It basically works like this. They stoke up a great big fire and heat large lava rocks until they glow with heat. They carry those giant embers into the steam lodge (pictured above) and drop them into a fireplace in the middle. The door then shuts so it is completely dark inside; you cannot see your hand in front of your face dark. Then the ceremony leader, a young Aztec man in our case, pours water and special herbs and salts and things over the rocks to create steam. It gets hot as hell. Like, really, really hot. They do four rounds of this, with a little reprieve between each one where th