Mondariz Spa, Pontevedra
They are everywhere, on cruise ships, in hotels, in airports, in any corner of your city. I'm not going to be caught off guard anymore when my baker puts a spa in the back room. The strange thing would be that it put good bread (but that's another story), but a spa? The normal. And that is the first task when learning to behave in a spa: distinguish it from a spa.
1.-Distinguish it from a spa. What is called a spa is a center with its pools, its jets and its quirky treatments with tap water. To compensate for the water, the massages either come from the East, like the Three Wise Men, or are based on local products. That you are in La Rioja: wine therapy. That you are in Albacete: navajotherapy. But above all, a spa is attracted to Zen like a goat is attracted to the mountain and a Spaniard to a breakfast buffet. The idea in a spa is that you relax, and the music, the colors, the uniforms and the way of speaking to you are taken into account. Basically, everything is tried to be sleepy.
A spa, on the other hand, what it has are mineral-medicinal waters and what he wants is to cure you . And since when is that relaxing? The more traditional the joint, the less important relaxation is. If you let yourself go without having much idea, in one of those of a lifetime you can find yourself with the surprise (in the whole face) that a Scottish shower is nothing more than a riot-style hosedown , of those that were used above all with the raving madmen. The lights here can be a focus of direct questioning to the eyes and the masseuses are allowed to have their hands smell like garlic. It happened to me, and it was just at that moment when I realized that this water must really heal.
2.-Enter with dignity . A hotel hasn't really grown on top of the spas, if not nearby. Often you have to cross the entire hotel in your bathrobe to get to the pool. I have even had to cross a street and walk across a field. These are all good signs: the further away it is, the more minerals the water brings . As for how to make a bathrobe and dignity coexist, here it is expected that you park the latter a little, as they explained in the movie 'Battle Creek Spa'. Feel like a child, you are in their hands.
3.-Do not eat things. There may be fruit or wine in your bathtub. Or chocolate all over your body and on everything you touch. That is not eaten. The restaurant macrobiotic food maybe you wouldn't eat it under normal circumstances either, but if it's being put on a plate for you and you've paid for it, then yes.
4.-Put gut. You share a pool and more with a bunch of strangers. Despite the temptation, do not put guts . Finnish saunas, Turkish baths, and scalding or freezing pools will give you plenty of opportunities to let your blood pressure drop or get short of breath. Don't force.
5.-Look. Putting that happy face with the lost look is fine. If you do it with your eyes on someone else's partner, you get a perverted face.
6.-Ask for a masseur of the sex you like. Nothing happens and it can save you the bad time that you like too much what someone from the sex you don't like does to you. Indicate your preferences before entering, that is done and that is fine . Especially if you have made the wrong establishment.
7.-Identify well what each thing is. In a luxury hotel spa, everything is so modern and designer that you have to walk with a hundred eyes . Two journalists I know began their spa circuit with the exquisitely decorated footbath at the entrance. One of them explained to the other that the pebbles and cold water favor circulation, even if they hurt. Until the security guard appeared shouting wildly: "Please, ladies, get out of the fountain, you're going to be electrocuted!"
8.-Resistance in the sauna. It's better to get out of the sauna a minute before fainting than a minute after. They are two minutes less than manhood that nobody is going to take into account.
9.-Food. In classic spas they tended to feed you seeds, like parrots. But now they already have everything, although their thing is to take advantage of it to eat healthy and not get stuck in the ribeye. If you can't do without it on your vacation, be discreet and camouflage it : ask at least that they put it in a salad. Ribeye salad, that can't be bad.
10.-Speak low. A treacherous laugh a few inches from the ear just at the moment of greatest laxity can make anyone's heart escape from their mouth and leave the spa more nervous than when they entered. You have to try not to be neither the one with the laughter nor the other.
11.-Nudism. It is rarely seen in Spanish spas, except in Majorcan ones, which are always full of Germans. A spa gives twice as much pleasure if you travel in marbles . If you see someone naked, take advantage and take it all off.
12.-Children. If you are one of those parents with selective deafness that allows them to be the only ones in the bar who are unaware that their child has transformed into the incredible Hulk and is smashing the furniture: congratulations. In a spa there are nooks and crannies from which you won't see your offspring or their victims and deckchairs where you can credibly pretend to be asleep.
In addition, if someone comes to complain that the kids have been screwing around all morning and throwing themselves like a bomb, you can argue that it is much healthier for them to splash you, push you and, in short, become collateral damage with mineral-medicinal waters than with any other . Or you could also ask yourself if the children would be better in a ball pool than in a thermal pool.