FROM ATLANTA TO ... TEPOZTLAN, MEXICO
Tepoztlan recharges travelers’ spirits

By JEREMY SCHWARTZ

Cox News Service

Friday, September 05, 2008

TEPOZTLAN, Mexico - We made our way across the carpet of thick green grass, past the carefully manicured flowers exploding in a riot of oranges and yellows, and onto the cushion of the massage table. Outside, the red-clay cliffs soared high above us. Inside, whiffs of jasmine and vanilla and the soothing hands of the masseuse.

For decades, when stressed-out residents of Mexico City grew frustrated with the smog, traffic and crowds, they’ve headed to this magical town just 90 minutes south of the chaotic Mexican capital.

Tepoztlan is a town near Mexico City that offers travelers the chance to recharge from daily stress.Enlarge this image

The Tepozteco pyramid, an ancient Aztec temple, offers a difficult climb with stunning views as the payoff.

For many who journey here, Tepoztlan is a place to be refreshed, rejuvenated and maybe even re-born.

That’s probably got a lot to do with the dramatic cliffs that wrap around this village of 36,000, which traces its history back to more than a millennia before the Spanish arrived (legend has it that Tepoztlan was the birthplace of the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl). Homes and haciendas nestle into the lush, green valley, and its narrow, cobblestone streets are festooned with purple and pink bougainvillea.

Many visitors swear that Tepoztlan gives off an otherworldly vibration, a belief echoed in the number of crystal sellers, Mayan astrologers and other healers who have flocked here.

But even for those without a New Age bent, Tepoztlan offers a deeply relaxing vacation, and the town is a required de-stresser for anyone visiting nearby Mexico City.

The best place to soak up the town’s charms is the Posada del Tepozteco, a converted hacienda that is one of Mexico’s great hotels (Angelina Jolie stayed here for three months while filming the 2001 film Original Sin). Perched on one of the city’s high points, the outdoor restaurant and sitting areas offer an unparalleled view of the ancient cathedral, one of the oldest in Mexico, and a bustling market selling squash blossoms and mangos.

Activities in Tepoztlan tend to center around pampering and healing: most come for the massages and the temezcal, a kind of pre-Hispanic sweat lodge in which heat from rocks removes toxins. Most hotels in town have their own temezcal and connections with local masseuses who offer everything from aromatherapy massages to full body chocolate immersions (cacao, paradoxically, is said to aid weight loss when spread on the body).

If you’re feeling a little more adventurous, you can explore the town’s eight barrios, neighborhoods whose boundaries pre-date the colonial era. Each barrio has its own patron saint, chapel and festivals. Tepoztlan is a town of celebrations, and there is a reason nearly every day to shoot off fireworks.

The town also boasts an excellent museum in an old convent that used to house traveling bigwigs shuttling back and forth from Mexico City on official business.

Looming above the city is its other great attraction: the Tepozteco pyramid, an ancient Aztec temple that remains in good condition. The pyramid, which stands about 1,800 feet above the city, was a shrine to the Aztec god of pulque, a thick, milky alcoholic beverage that was the precursor to tequila. Residents of the town still celebrate Tepozteco by ascending the pyramid every Sept. 7 for an all-night homage.

It’s a murderous ascent up the pyramid - make sure you wear sensible shoes and carry a bottle of water - but you’ll be rewarded with an amazing view of the valley. On most days, believers burn incense to accompany pre-Hispanic drumming and dancing. The pyramid gets terribly crowded on weekends, and Sundays in particular, when the $3 entry fee is waived, and the hike can take more than an hour with traffic jams on narrow passages.

In fact, it’s good idea in general to visit Tepoztlan during the week if possible. On weekends, the invasion of Mexico City residents can give the place a crowded, hurried feel. On weekdays the town becomes the tranquil, serene place that drew visitors in the first place.

And on weekdays you can enjoy steep discounts at most hotels: At the Posada del Tepozteco, a split-level room with a gorgeous view of the town dips from $200 to about $120. Suites fall from $320 to $200.

Tepoztlan is also a paradise for food lovers. At Los Colorines, a bright, festive place, you can find local specialties like huauzontle capeado, a Mexican plant cooked in a batter of flour and egg and bathed in a delicious tomato-based sauce.

But the tastiest place may be the restaurant at Villa de Tepoz Fuego, an out-of-the-way bed-and-breakfast run by an American expat couple. The restaurant makes a highly credible claim to the city’s best margaritas and serves the town’s best gourmet cuisine. The clams in white wine sauce are not to be missed.

And those looking for a true escape would be hard pressed to find something better than Tepoz Fuego, situated on the outskirts of town and far from the fireworks marking the town’s many festivals. The exquisitely decorated hotel is also near a running track below the city’s famed cliffs that make for a truly spiritual exercise experience.

But try not to overexert yourself. Tepoztlan is after all about recharging batteries and steeling yourself for another battle against the stresses of modern life.

IF YOU GO:

Getting to Tepoztlan:

The town is about 90 minutes south of Mexico City and about 40 minutes west of Cuernavaca. Frequent buses to Tepoztlan depart Mexico City’s south terminal.

Buses also leave the Mexico City airport for Cuernavaca. From there you can take a taxi or bus to Tepoztlan.

In Tepoztlan:

Lodging varies from small, $50-a-night hotels to quaint bed-and-breakfasts to luxury spas that can cost more than $300. The Posada del Tepozteco (posada.planetbyte.com.mx/) has the best view in town, a temezcal and rooms and suites ranging from $200 to $320. Prices drop about 40 percent on weekdays. The Villa de Tepoz Fuego (www.villadeltepozfuego.com/), on the outskirts of town, has six uniquely decorated rooms, a fine restaurant, a pool, Jacuzzi and spa. Prices range from $125 to $250 a night.

Tepoztlan has a number of good eating options, from haute cuisine to traditional favorites. Los Colorines (Avenida de Tepozteco 13) is the merriest spot in town, a bright, festive place with good enchiladas, cecina and huauzontles capeados. El Ciruelo (Zaragoza 17) is the town’s classiest place with dishes like peppers stuffed with crab and banana. Don’t miss Tepoznieves (several locations), Mexico’s most fascinating ice cream shop, with flavors like corn, tequila and lime, pumpkin and rose petals.

The town’s weekend market is excellent, with lots of artesania and interesting food. The Tepozteco pyramid is a tough climb, but worth it for the view. The Ex-Convento de Dominico de la Natividad (free admission) has an excellent museum on the town’s history and customs.

By Ruth Samuelson
Special to The Washington Post
Friday, December 10, 2010; 11:51 AM

It takes a lot of energy to "cargar energia."

The devotional journey up to Mexico's Tepozteco pyramid requires lots of water and snacks, as well as muchas pausas (breaks). And then, when you reach the top of the mountain where the pyramid perches, something amazing happens: A wrinkled old woman with a cane plods by.

How'd she get up here? And what about the lady in heels? And that family with four children under 5?

It's troubling, really, to be proud of a hike that the wheezing elderly can conquer. But what impels people here is faith, not just a steep hour-or-so nature walk. I visited last spring, a time when Mexicans load up on energy - that's what cargar energia means - by ascending various ancient pyramids, like this one in Tepoztlan, a town of about 33,000 an hour and a half south of Mexico City.

At the top, believers and nonbelievers alike share the same gorgeous view overlooking the town. And the truth is, they've all probably come to Tepoztlan for roughly the same thing: A little tranquillity. The town is unofficially dedicated to soothing and centering its guests, regardless of how the job's accomplished.

I visited Tepoztlan numerous times while studying at a language school in nearby Cuernavaca earlier this year. It's at once cute (the cobblestone streets) and beautiful (the mountains and abundant purple flowers) and cheesily modern (the flier promoting a man with knowledge of "the mysteries of life and death").

Here, therapy is a choose-your-own-adventure experience. In at least two places, you can get your aura photographed. A local tour guide advertises an obesity therapy. Tagline: "Lose weight with magnets, without dieting."

"Whatever word you want to add to 'therapy,' " says Larry Prater, he's heard it. Prater moved to Tepoztlan after retiring from his medical practice in Oklahoma a few years ago and now owns a day spa called TepozSpa that caters to gay men.

"I just got an e-mail about 'hielo,' or ice therapy," he says. "As a psychiatrist, I've never heard of 'hielo therapy.' Until, I guess, yesterday in the e-mail."

Of course, Tepoztlan also offers more traditional therapies: Plenty of local hotel spas, some quite high-end, advertise a range of massages, yoga classes and various skin therapies.

One day on the streets of Mexico City, I met a businessman who also happened to be an enthusiastic yogi. When I mentioned that I was heading to Cuernavaca, he immediately fumbled through his cellphone for the number of his favorite Tepoztlan instructor.

For whatever reason, I accepted the unsolicited advice of this adamant stranger and headed to his recommendation: La Buena Vibra Retreat and Spa. I didn't need shelter, but a yoga class sounded good.

Hikers take in the view of Tepoztlan near the foot of the Tepozteco pyramid.

The Tepozteco pyramid, which looms in the mountains above Tepoztlan, is the town's main attraction.

And visiting the hotel provided a glimpse of Tepoztlan's highfalutin side (no aura photographers in sight). I strolled past Buena Vibra's pristine grounds, the pool, the terraces with plush couches and adobe sauna huts so beautiful I half-expected to see miniature craft re-creations of them in the town's market.
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Unfortunately, I've always considered yoga to be a workout rather than a path to enlightenment. When I'm in Mexico, my "happy place" generally means "the taco stand where I am now eating." And "being in the zone" signifies the numbness I feel after leaving an outdoor market, overstimulated by copious crafts, T-shirts, silver jewelry, Lucha Libre masks, etc. (Most markets have roughly the same stuff.)

Luckily, Tepoztlan allowed me to both go to my happy place and be in the zone.

Market stands line the streets around the town's central square, right behind which, down some stairs, there's a maze of stands with tacos, quesadillas, mole, etc. The local ice cream chain Tepoznieves also attracts tons of people, even with such indecipherable flavors as "ofrenda a los muertos" (offering to the dead) and "oracion de amor" (prayer of love).

Beyond indulging my own stomach-approved therapeutic preferences, however, I wanted to learn more about some of the older local rituals: I wanted to meet a curandero or curandera, a Mexican medicine man or woman.

Through a friend, I met a woman from Amatlan, just a few twists in the road from Tepoztlan. She suggested that I go there to find her uncle Don Aurelio, a curandero.

The next day, I took a 20-minute bus ride from Tepoztlan to Amatlan. I went to his house, but he wasn't home. So I walked back up a small hill to the main road, where there was a little quesadilla stand, and waited around for about an hour. Just as I was about to give up, a truck pulled up and a small man carrying a bag of eggs hopped out and set off down the hill. It was the curandero, someone said, so I ran after him.

Luckily, this did not unnerve him, and we started chatting. We strolled through the stone archway to his property, and Don Aurelio showed me his temazcalli, a traditional sauna chamber. In the center of Tepoztlan, there are temazcallis for tourists, too. But they're mostly billed as purification and detoxification saunas rather than medicinal ones. Don Aurelio, on the other hand, advises people with knee pain and skin rashes to use his temazcalli, which resembles a brick pizza oven big enough for humans.

Before he treats, he diagnoses. That's where the eggs come in. When people visit Don Aurelio, he often assesses their problems with what he calls a "limpia," or cleansing. He passes an egg over the person's body, just above the skin, and when he feels the yoke rattle inside the shell, he knows there's a problem. Then he cracks the egg open, drops it into a glass of water and "reads" the bubbles and the white mucus in the yoke.

As Don Aurelio got up to show me the procedure, he suddenly reached over and started groping the back of my head. Apparently, I had a "susto," a word I didn't know.

I figured it meant a cyst, which got me momentarily worked up. (Way to kill the good times, Don Aurelio.) I told him that when I was a toddler, I'd had a little bump on the back of my head that had had to be operated on. It had turned out to be a non-threatening cyst (but a scare for my parents, who'd been worried that it might be cancerous).

He nodded and flashed an affirmative smile that seemed to say, "So it was just as I said."

Soon after, Don Aurelio went inside the house, and I scrambled for my Spanish-English dictionary. Susto, susto, susto. It didn't mean "cyst." It meant "fright, alarm."
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Hmmm. Yes, just as he'd said.

I never tested out the full-on limpia procedure because, frankly, I felt quite healthy. But I had a separate brush with superstition on the Tepozteco pyramid.

After climbing atop the structure, I headed toward the edge, where people were leaning against a short wall, and pondered what to do about water, since I'd nearly run out, and it was hot.

Eventually a friendly woman from Mexico City, in Tepoztlan with her husband and three kids on a day trip, awoke me from my stupor, and we began chatting. Pretty soon, the whole family chimed in. Then, out of nowhere, another man nearby passed me a small turquoise stone.

"Tomela, guera," he said, which roughly translates as, "Take it, pale girl." (The term is used frequently here, without offense.)

He'd given the family stones, too, and told us to place them on the ground, which would somehow help with the whole "cargar energia" attempt. A few of the family members stood near the rocks with their eyes closed and their arms stretched out, waiting for the good vibrations.

When they were done, I retrieved my stone. It was time to turn around, my battery hopefully powered-up.

A hiker bottleneck plugged the narrow top of the trail. Local police officers orchestrated traffic control.

"Make way for your friends carrying lots of new energy," said one cheekily, as he paused the upward-journeying line to allow people down.

I don't know whether it was the stone or that oft-mentioned energy, or my lunchtime sandwich (probably) or newly purchased bottle of water (wonderful decision), but I felt great on the walk down.

travel@washpost.com