I embrace the fact that I am a spa slut.  Spas smell good and I never feel guilty after indulging because these decadent treats are actually good for you.  Mostly.  My swish hotel on the Rivera Maya, Paraiso de la Bonita, has the only certified Thalasso Center in North America, so I went there planning to take full advantage.  Thalasso, still very popular in France (of course), is an ancient Greek and Roman concept.  Romans had a saying: "Sanus per Aquam", or "health through water": this is the origin of the modern acronym "SPA".

The basic idea of Thalasso is that immersing in sea water heated to the same temperature as your body causes some kind of penetrating but passive exchange of fluids.  It was explained to me in less threatening terms: sea water extracts toxins from your body while your body absorbs its rich, regenerative minerals.  This can happen in a super luxe large, heated outdoor salt water pool with powerful jets that pummel your sore muscles under open sky, like they have at Paraiso, or inside the spa through a session of Baleneotherapy.  I did a little Thalasso almost daily, plus opted to be smeared in seaweed and mudd,  and have a algae-rich facial.

In addition, I decided to do a little extra perspiring (like Mexico isn't already hot enough) via a Temezcal (AKA Temescal) on New Year's Eve, which is similar to a Native American sweat lodge.  You go into a dark abobe hut with a central pit.  Glowing, heated volcanic rocks are placed into the pit and water is poured over them until the hut fills with steam.  A shaman leads you in song and guided meditation, a musician beats a drum and plays various other wind instruments, and you sit there for a full hour, rubbing herbs into your skin or getting beaten by reeds.  Sometimes, it gets scary because you get so hot, you hallucinate. Like the time I found my animal totem, a wolf with one blue-eye and one green. 

Unlike Thalasso, the Temezcal originated in this area of Mexico. The Aztecs, the Maya, and many other Mesoamerican cultures used this combination of heat, steam, and chanting often along with fasting and the use of natural hallucinogenic drugs to bring about a trance state. Apparently, the temezcal was also used by the king and his priests before engaging in ritual sacrifices in which they would communicate with the gods and the ancestors, seeking blessings for their people. The remains of these ancient Temezcal can be seen at the ruins at Tikal, Palenque and Xochicalco, and the modern form is offered to tourists at most resorts in the region.  I just loved starting 2008 with a shaman telling me, "There is nothing bad left in your body."

All of this would have been enough beautification, but the resort had a new Anti-Aging Center, and they invited me in to have a look.  Many of my colleagues have written about medical tourism, or people who travel to South America or South Africa to get inexpensive plastic surgery.  But as of yet, I've never gone under the knife.  And if I did, it seems to me this would be one time not to go cheap, but to get the best damn doctor and treatment out there, right?

But I went in, lured by the promise of a infra-red photo analysis of the sun damage on my face.  I knew the drill.  You go in and take these pictures, then they oooh and aaah over the results and recommend a bunch of treatments and creams I can't afford.  But the photo shows you if you have any pesky spots that might turn into basel cells or carcinoma, and it was free, so I said yes.

The inside of the Anti-Age center itself was like a brand new dentist office (it only opened in April 2007), with reclining chairs draped in crisp white towels embroidered with "AGE" in large golden letters.  Ominous.  The doctor didn't quite look old enough to be one, but then I rationalized, maybe he was just doing the treatments there, which range from the much joked about Botox to Mesotherapy to laser rejuvenation to skin peels, all of which are also available at greater cost in the US.  But the real interesting stuff were the treatments NOT available in the US, but widely used in Europe, like Biocell Therapy (stem cells from animal embryos), Transdermal Hormone Replacement Therapy, and human growth hormone treatments (yes, the stuff getting our top athletes in trouble in the news these days that I always thought could make your heart enlarge and explode?).

I thought about all the beautiful people here at the resort and suddenly, I wondered: "Were they in here getting injected or implanted with this stuff, while I was merely getting a massage?" 

I decided I wouldn't want anything more to interfere with my other two favorite daily activities in Mexico, swimming and sun-tanning.  But it got me thinking, and as 2008 began I renewed my resolve to continue eating whole, organic food and do more yoga, in the hope that I could put-off looking into this Pandora's Box of sci-fi options for another decade or two.