A Maroma State of Mind

As we stood at the entrance of the temezcal, the underground earthen oven we were about to enter, the shaman said: "We will enter the womb of the Earth. You will heal yourself. You will be reborn. I will sing and you will sweat."

I nodded and smiled and said nothing. I was hoping the smile didn't come across as a smirk because the shaman, a nice woman named Nancy Aguilar, was sincere about the ritual upon which we were embarking, and I did not want to offend her. It's just that, well, I'm a chronic skeptic, about everything really, but especially when it comes to New Agey healing rituals. And I couldn't help but roll my eyes when Aguilar signaled to her assistant, a young man named Petuel, who drew a conch shell to his lips and let loose mournful blasts as we turned north, then south, then east, then west, with Aguilar offering chants in all directions and waving wands of incense.

It was almost sunset and, just a few yards away, waves crashed against the shoreline of the Yucatan Peninsula. The air was rich with the briny Caribbean, hence the name of the place, a lyrical combination of "mar," meaning sea, and aroma-Maroma.

Temezcals, which are Mayan/Aztec versions of Native American sweat lodges, occur throughout the Yucatan, where they have caught on with health-minded tourists eager to open their pores and get in touch with their inner whatevers. While some temezcals are little more than glorified mud huts that aren't big on bug control, the one at the Maroma Resort and Spa is worthy of its five-star locale. Occupying prime beachfront just a few yards from the resort's terrace restaurant, the pyramid-like dome of the temezcal is about the size of a VW bug. Dark stones inlayed in the terra-cotta exterior form the shapes of turtles and crabs and a few strange, otherworldly creatures that I didn't recognize.

"Come, enter," said Aguilar as she drew back the wool blanket that covered the temezcal's narrow doorway.

I ducked my head, stepped inside and took a seat on a straw mat beside the fire pit. There was a big earthen bowl at my feet. It was filled with water and contained a gourd ladle so I could dip water and pour it over myself to cool off. Aguilar took a seat nearby as Petuel filled the fire pit with a mound of volcanic rocks that had been heated to molten intensity in an outdoor oven. Then he made his exit, pulling down the wool blanket over the door behind him.

It was dark inside the tiny room with its clay walls and dirt floors. Really, really dark.

"This is when some people panic. They lose it," said Aguilar. "They cannot take the darkness. They cannot face themselves. Just relax. You have entered the Earth. Let the heat and the darkness do their work."

Aguilar gathered an armful of herbs that had been soaked in water and tossed them on the volcanic rocks. The air grew hot and thick with the scent of rosemary, lemon grass, sage.

Then Aguilar began to sing a song she learned from her grandfather. The words were Mayan, the tune haunting. And, in the darkness, I began to sweat. Really, really sweat. I had spent the afternoon drinking margaritas. After all, when in Mexico .

Every time I visit Cancun it is with the same sense of wonder that I reserve for Disney World. After all, less than 40 years ago, neither place really existed, and now both are nothing less than modern marvels, major magnets of the tourist world. Just as Walt Disney envisioned theme parks sprouting where once there were only scrub oaks and swampland, Mexican government planners in the early 1970s turned their eyes to a scruffy fishing village in the state of Quintana Roo-named after the Mayan word for "snake's nest"-and saw a world-class fun-in-the-sun resort. Nowadays, Cancun is home to some 30,000 hotel rooms and it attracts more than three million visitors each year.

In 1976, Jose Luis Moreno, a young architect from Mexico City who designed some of Cancun's original hotels and restaurants, began seeking a retreat from the crowds who would soon flock to the Yucatan. He found it in a former coconut plantation about 30 miles south of Cancun, along a perfect crescent of white beach where a jungle of sea grape and mahogany hugged the shoreline. A few years after buying the 25-acre property, Moreno fell in love with his wife-to-be, Sally Shaw, a former Chicagoan, and they began pursuing their dream of creating a small resort that respected the sanctity of the land and lived in harmony with the surroundings.

They started with just a simple, thatched hut that grew into a one-room cottage with an artist's studio. Over the course of the next 15 years, the house expanded room-by-room, as did a second house. Everything was fashioned from local materials-thatched roofs from the xit palms, limestone floors embedded with shell fossils, bamboo for the shutters and furniture. The overall architectural motif was Maya-Moorish, with soaring arches, terraces and palapa-capped turrets. Most of it was constructed without electricity and with hand tools. And it was all built without formal blueprints, since Moreno preferred to draw his plans in the sand.

Over the years, the couple shared their wondrous enclave with a regular procession of friends from all over the world. In February 1995, they opened Maroma to the public. It drew immediate acclaim, not only for its overall serenity and architectural integrity, but for its excellent food and service. In 2002, Moreno and Shaw entered a partnership with the acclaimed Orient-Express Hotels, which operates resorts in some of the world's most exotic locales, from Europe and the Caribbean to Asia and the South Pacific.

My visit to Maroma was an exercise in extreme lassitude. Oh, I could have been active if I'd wanted to. There is no shortage of things to do along the Riviera Maya, as this stretch of shoreline has come to be known. A few miles to the south, Playa del Carmen offers its charms. It's a funky beach town that serves up plenty of good shopping, restaurants and nightlife without the overdone glitz of Cancun. Beyond it lie the ruins at Tulum, the Mayan City of Dawn with its fortress overlooking the Caribbean. And just a few hundred yards offshore from my digs at Maroma, waves crested and broke over the second-largest barrier reef in the world, a long corridor of coral that stretches from the Yucatan south to Belize and Honduras. The scuba diving here is some of the best on the planet.

But no, I preferred just to sit in the shade of a thatched-roof cabana, reading a good book and looking out on the dream-blue water. Occasionally, I would gather the energy to order a margarita-a really, really good margarita-or take a meal at the restaurant. I ate wonderful ceviches of conch and octopus, whole-fried snapper served with mango and papaya, sinful desserts of Mexican chocolate.

It was overindulgence, both wretched and wonderful. And as it drew time to leave it also drew time to purge. That is why I ventured into the temezcal. To sweat it out .

Somewhere into the second hour, after Petuel had replenished the volcanic rocks and Aguilar had placed more medicinal herbs on the coals, I began to howl.

It started as Aguilar sang another one of her lilting Mayan songs. By this time I was truly one with Mother Earth. Mainly because I was covered with mud. Aguilar had passed me a pot and it was filled with mud said to come from a sacred volcano in Mexico's nether regions.

"Smear it all over your body," she said.

So I smeared the mud and I sweated and I smeared on more mud and Aguilar sang. I had no idea what the words meant but they sounded nice enough and, in the darkness, I began to hum along. I hummed louder and louder and sweated more and more and the humming became a howl. I had never actually howled before and I don't know how long it lasted. Maybe a minute or so. When I was finished howling, we sat quietly for a while. And then Aguilar said: "It is no longer inside you."

"What is no longer inside me?" I said.

"That which needed out," she said. "You have healed yourself."

Then she threw up the wool blanket and we stepped out of the temezcal and walked down to the sea and sank into the water until it came to our chins. The moon was big. I felt cleansed. I felt purged. But mostly I felt like having another margarita.