Travellers’ Tales: Embracing Ancient Rituals and Wildlife in Mexico

This story is part of the Travellers’ Tales series, where we invite travellers and storytellers to share stories from their journeys. Have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch!

Our story, Allan and Katharina, starts in Mexico City, where we met for the first time while stuck in a hostel during the pandemic. As everything started to get more and more locked down, we were part of a small group of lunatic travelers who decided to stick it out in Mexico.

This was the best decision of our lives because three years later, we are still on the road together! We never returned to our home countries but stayed in Mexico for two years. During this time, we volunteered through Workaway to keep expenses down and had many memorable experiences.

Our favorite Workaway host was Juan, a local guy from San Pancho, a little beach town on the west coast of Mexico. We helped him out with construction, cleaning, cooking, marketing, and other odd jobs. Just whatever he wanted us to do around the house.

But what made our stay memorable was the places and experiences he took us to. 

 

One day, he took us to Clay Beach, a beautiful deserted beach where you can cover your body in clay to cleanse your skin. While there, he told Katharina to put her head under the water because whales were singing. 

When she put her head under, she could hear her whales singing, which she said sounded like beautiful music. Everyone came out of the water and talked about how amazing it sounded when, suddenly, an enormous whale swam past about 20 meters from shore! It was incredible how close it was and one of the most impressive displays of nature we have ever seen.

Another experience he took us on, which we will never forget, was a Temazcal, a kind of sweat lodge used by indigenous groups from North and Central America for centuries. Juan described it as kind of a sauna but homemade. We thought, okay, sounds relaxing we are in. But it turned out to be far from relaxing!

We arrived at a house after driving down a long, bumpy dirt road. Next to that house was a small hut made out of blankets, a bonfire, and a group of people. Immediately, we were told to get into our swimwear and go inside the hut. No introduction; get in!

Inside the hut, the roof was just above our heads while we sat in the dirt, and everyone was jammed in like sardines. It was far from comfortable. There were about 20 other people we had never met inside, including families with their kids. 

After being inside for a while, hot stones were brought inside and placed in the middle. Then the “doors” made of blankets were closed, and it was so dark we couldn’t see our hands in front of our faces. We still had no idea what was happening because our Spanish was not very good.

All of a sudden, the leader of the ceremony started chanting and banging a drum, and water was poured on the hot stones. The heat created by the steam from the stones was unbelievable! It felt like our skin was going to peel off. 

We both felt a little freaked out because the chanting was so loud, and we couldn’t see, hear, or barely breathe. Our skin was glued to the person next to it, covered in a waterfall of sweat. Plus, Juan had not told us how long this would last. Are we in here for 5 minutes, 20 minutes? Forever?

 

After a while, kids in the families started crying, saying they wanted to leave in Spanish. We were both thinking, can we go with the kids too? But the chanting and heat continued, so we had to stay inside a little longer. After what felt like an eternity, the “doors” opened, and desperately needed fresh air rushed into the tent.

We both jumped at the chance to escape the oven we were trapped in. After leaving the tent, we felt reborn in the cool air. Juan happily stayed inside the tent, but Katharina decided she had had enough after we discovered that the Temazcal session would last three times longer than we had just endured. I returned and finished the whole session, which I was pretty proud of.

The Temazcal was super uncomfortable then, but it is an experience we will never forget. It is the type of thing we would have never done without getting to know a local like Juan.

During our stay with Juan, we had many other incredible experiences. We volunteered with him for five weeks, one of the most memorable weeks during our two years in Mexico. We became friends with him and will always be grateful for all the experiences he introduced us to. We are planning another trip to Mexico and will stop by at Juan’s.

 

Author Bio

We are Allan and Katharina, a travel and fitness-loving couple from New Zealand and Austria. We write budget travel guides on our blog happyhealthynomads.com with mindful travel tips for backpackers and digital nomads. If you want to read more of our Mexican adventures and get some ideas for your next trip, you can check out our blog Happy Healthy Nomads, or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest.