Tulum

There is probably no way I can communicate how amazing this trip was. Everything clicked. Everything came full circle--everything we asked for appeared...[ask and you will receive]...bigger and better and more incredible than we could have imagined or hoped for.

I went on the 'yoga retreat' solo [or so I thought]. I was to be given a ride by some random guy at the airport and to share a room with two random women that I never met and who had never met each other.

Immediately, all four of us clicked--and stuck together like Mayan mud [more about that later] for the whole week--having the most wonderful adventures along the way.

We didn't wear shoes for a week. The paths were all made of powdersoft sand everywhere you went. The water was a warm and clean and toothpastey aqua blue.

We did yoga some days and then realized that coffee on the porch followed by a walk down the beach was just as spiritual. On one walk, we met locals--one who created the most incredible 3 story treehouse that overlooked the jungle on one side and the ocean on the other. Juan built it to preserve as many trees as possible and they were jutting up through the yoga floor and all inside the structure. It was beautiful.

Juan was more than happy to share this space with us [ask and you will receive] so we could watch the sun set over the jungle from the birdseye view. We met some girls who were staying there from Colorado and ate potato chips dipped in habenero sauce of varying intensities. Fabio, Juan's assistant who was covered in tatoos and piercings, struggled with his english [which was still a million times better than our spanish] to explain that each chip he handed us was a different 'level' of caliente. Level 1 was zippy--level 4 made my tongue flip over in my mouth. Juan played guitar and sang.

We did a Temezcal. [a sweat lodge] This is a concrete igloo that about 11 people can fit in, sitting room only. They fill the center with hot lava rocks that have been roasting in the fire outside and close the door. In the dark, led by the shaman-looking peruvian man with blonde dreads to his waist, we sweat and chanted and played our maracas while the temezcal got hotter and hotter. He threw water on the stone to create steam and we sweat. You stay in for an hour and each 15 minutes they open the 'door' to let spirits in or out AND to throw even more hot lava rocks in the mix. The first 'door' felt like a Bikram yoga class--the 2nd door was hard to breathe--by the third door half the group left and I was on the floor on my back [air is cooler down there] moving as little as possible--not even so much as shaking my maracas.

When it was done we had a ceremony, thanking mother earth, the wind, the fire and the water and then wandered through the sandy paths, lit up blue by the moon, until we got to the ocean and all ran and dove in. We get out to see a bonfire party down the beach where we met people from South Africa and Cancun and Mexico City.

We hung out at the resort next door, where there were full futons with ropes hung in a wooden frame so you could swing and sleep and lounge by the ocean. The bar there had swings instead of chairs.

We covered ourselves in Mayan mud, allowing it to bake on our skin in the sun and washed it off in the ocean. We swam with dolphins, took an intertube ride down a river through mangroves...and laughed our asses off for the entire week.

The very last night was the grande finale--the girls from Colorado told us about this thai restaurant and dance club all in one. It was all outside by the ocean with a NYC-style DJ and lights and reflective pools. We all danced and out of nowhere came the men wearing masks and all white carrying white flags in each hand. A circle formed around them and they did a tribal dance, only as an introduction to the men and women on stilts and white flowing sleeves who walked over the bridges into the circle to dance. It was surreal and beautiful and the most fabulous farewell. [althought I did not want to leave]

Someone I told this story to today said the week sounded like a mushroom trip. And it seemed like it in a lot of ways...only better.