As I fleetingly mentioned in my post about our trip to Mexico, Katr and I want to the spa on the very first day we were there.
Katr went because she LOVES the spa. She loves being exfoliated. She loves being wrapped in seaweed. She loves being rubbed for money. She doesn't care who sees what in the confines of the spa. She loves it.
I, on the other hand, don't really enjoy strangers touching me and want to throw up in my mouth a little when I think about experiencing the above-noted spa activities. I do not love the spa. But I do love Katr. And since it was her birthday and since we were in Mexico, I agreed to throw caution to the wind and join her in what the resort spa called the "Humanity Ceremony for Two".
Me and Katr at the spa, being human together. Oh, wait...yeah, this isn't us.
Here's what that means:
HUMANITY CEREMONY FOR TWO
Initiate your private ceremony with pu-erh tea for its detoxifying and calming effects and aura cleansing with sage. Next, enjoy a foot ritual with infused lavender flowers and essential oils followed by a private mud therapy bath for two where you will apply an aromatic exfoliation to each other, revitalizing the skin with cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, hazelnut, rice, sesame and bamboo. Your treatment continues with a warm bubbling and nutrient vanilla and orange bath while soothing hands massage the scalp.
Now that your body and mind are renewed, prepare for a silk sybarite body wrap to restore energy and nurtures your skin. Conclude your Miilé spa indulge with an Excellence Massage treatment.
Basically, this was my worse nightmare. Listen - I am all about pants off at home. But not at home - PANTS ON.
USUALLY when Katr tempts me into the spa, I get a facial (pants on) or a pedicure (pants also on). But this was a full on, three hour pamper fest where, for at least part of it, my ass would be hanging out. Fortunately, we were at an all inclusive resort, so I did what any spa-phobic person would do before their spa appointment - I got a little drunk.
The spa treatment starts off with an hour long hydro-therapy circuit, which is, simply put, the shit. It was basically like a series of Last of the Mohicans-style waterfall scenes, intermixed with scenes you don't see in the film, like the "Dry Sauna of Death" scene, the "I'm rubbing handfuls of crushed ice in your private places" scene or the "Just when you think it's over, there's a drive-by massage, which you don't see coming because there's a lavender-scented towel covering your eyes" scene. Pretty intense, is what I'm saying.
After the hydro therapy circuit had really woken us up, we headed in for the main event. I have to say that I'm sure the two spa technicians assigned to us were terrified when they saw that Godzilla and Mothra had arrived for their Humanity Ceremony, but they were very professional and lovely.
There was some delicious tea. There was the side-by-side foot ritual (the "ritual" was that they "rubbed" our "feet" with some kind of "oil".)
Then it was time for the "private mud therapy bath". This, I must admit, was the sole reason I'd agreed to do this thing - because I thought that rubbing mud all over each other in a steam room would be super hilarious and fun.
As it turns out, it was indeed super hilarious - because the steam room was a very tight fit (even for average sized people it would have been wee) and also, the "mud therapy" was about two tablespoons of shizz per person. So basically, we squeezed into this steam closet and had enough "mud" to exfoliate one body part each. I chose my left elbow. It felt really great.
Then there was this part where you get into a jetted tub and they rub your head for like half an hour and you try to convey to the spa technician - through hand signals and constant giggling - that the intense farting sounds she's hearing are due to the tub jet friction against the bathing suit you refused to take off and not you just letting 'em rip one after an other after another.
Following the head-rub-tub was the silk wrap. This is where the shit got real. Pants were off and some kind of silk lotion was slathered on and then we were trussed up in plastic and covered with blankets and left alone on our tables with plinky plonky music playing. I expected to be panicking but instead, I fell asleep. Thank god for the 4 mimosas I'd had for breakfast.
I was awakened by my spa lady, Rosa, busting into my plastic tube and ushering me off to the shower. And then...came the massage.
It's been a long time since I had a massage. Like maybe 2006. And to be honest, I was kind of expecting a plinky plonky spa massage. But no. Tiny Rosa climbed on and gave 'er. She used her forearms, her elbows and all of her weight to work out whatever the hell was going on in my shoulders and back. I have never been in so much weirdly therapeutic pain. I had no choice but to breathe through it and offer it up to Jesus. And Jesus said "Yeeeeaaaaah...I'm good, thanks. You hang on to that."
Worked over, lotioned up and exhausted, Katr and I staggered out of the treatment room to the recovery gazebo, where we drank some juice that tasted way too good to be made of actual fruit. And then, we tipped. A LOT.
Katr was very appreciative of my participation in the Humanity Ceremony for Two and as you know, I live to please her. So you'd think I'd be off the hook for spa fun for at least a year or two.
But then again, a certain Katr got a gift certificate for this place at Solstice. And she keeps whispering things like "Steam cave!" and "Glacial waterfall!" in my ear when she thinks I'm sleeping. I think we all know where this is going. It's going to be Last of the Mohicans alllll over again.
