If you missed the first part, click here. I quickly recapped our decision process and our exciting trip down there.

We went to bed that first night relatively early, exhausted from a day’s worth of travelling. The next morning, we were up bright and early for our trip to the Jungle Spa in Puerto Morelos. Being our first time in Mexico, we were completely naive when it came to how long the ADO bus trip would be. I researched before leaving and wrote down a list of possible departure times. The site said it would be about 45 minutes by bus. I mean, as far as I could tell anyway. The whole website was in Spanish. I was in communication with the owner of the spa, Sandra, and she advised to take a taxi once we got to Puerto Morelos, from the bus station through town to the jungle spa. My dear, sweet boyfriend figured we would be able to walk back to the bus station after our massages. Again, naive. =)

The bus dropped us off in the outskirts of the town. It wasn’t exactly tourist-friendly. This sort of thing usually puts me on edge, but I very much tried to let go of any worries I had to really enjoy and appreciate the experience. We negotiated a cheap taxi ride to the jungle and we were off. We drove through neighbors that you would see in movies, little tin huts with barred windows, vehicles sitting with missing tires, stray dogs laying in the street… I could feel my boyfriend’s eyes staring at me and thinking, what the heck have you gotten us into!!? We then turning onto a dirt road and drove into the jungle. All that was there to indicate that we had arrived was a tiny handpainted sign that read JUNGLE SPA. After paying our cab driver, he drove away and we looked around. It was hard to tell how to enter this place! We were then greeted by several dogs, and we made our way in through the gate. It was there that we encountered a man who guided us to the main palapa (sort of like this). It was there that we realized we were almost an hour early. Whoops!!!! Guess that trip was much shorter than we had anticipated…

Once the other scheduled appointments arrived, we heard the story from Sandra about how the Jungle Spa came to be. It really is an incredible story. I don’t want to reveal too much, because I know she really enjoys telling the story to all the new people that come. But here are the Spark Notes:

Her and her husband are originally from Ohio. She studied Community Tourism and really enjoyed Mexico. They originally built the infrastructure for a cenote, before they became a big tourist draw down there. Through a series of unfortunate events, they lost the cenote and she decided to set up a market with some Mayan women, so they could showcase and sell their crafts. After learning that the Mayans give massages to those who are sick, Sandra thought it would be a great way for these women to make money. She bought a small piece of land in the jungle, and her and the women went in with machetes, cut down some trees, and built the structures that are there today!

So they decided to blend their practices with the traditional massages you can get in any spa and they customize them based on any problem areas you may be having. For example, my boyfriend told them he was a forester, so he is always walking around and looking up at trees. They focused on his neck and shoulders. I sit at a desk all day, so they focused on my shoulders, back, and thighs. My boyfriend got an hour and a half massage, and I opted for the hour massage with a half hour chocolate massage after.

We were taken to the same palapa but there was a partition in between us. We actually didn’t realize we were in the same hut until the end!!! I can only speak from my experiences from this point forward.

My masseuse instructed me to take my clothes off and lay on the concrete (not kidding) bed with a tiny towel. I managed to get it to cover the essential parts of my body, but that’s about it! As this was my first time ever getting a massage, I just went with the flow. My mother raised me to not get embarassed in these situations as I “will never see these people again“. I was massaged literally from head to toe. Only part of my body that she didn’t touch were my private parts. Any place she found any knots, she spent extra time on. I’d be lying if I said parts of it didn’t hurt. But afterwards, it felt like that part of my body was woken up and re-energized.

Once I had been massaged from head to toe, front and back side of me, she pulled my towel off of me. Yes, at this point I was stark naked. The only thing she used to cover me up was a small towel in my butt crack. Good thing I’m semi-okay with my body????? The chocolate part of my massage consisted of being covered head to toe (again) in the seeds of the cacao, which is used to make chocolate. It was very grainy, which made it a great exfoliator. After she covered the back side of me with chocolate, she covered me with giant banana leaves and left me for ten minutes. Ten minutes was an excrutiatingly long time to be left naked covered in chocolate and leaves, naked, in the middle of the jungle. Couldn’t really complain too much though, because the smell was amazing. Once she came back, she wiped all the chocolate away with a warm towel and then instructed me to flip over onto my back. Again, naked. She put a leaf over each boob and my private parts, and got to work covering the front side of me with more chocolate. After she finished and covered me with more leaves, she again left me alone for 10 minutes. It was at this point that I realized my boyfriend was in the same palapa as me the whole time. He popped his head in once his massage was finished, and saw me lying on the table covered in chocolate in leaves. We had a good laugh. I wish he had gotten a picture!!!

I have to say… It was an incredible experience. Neither of us had ever had a massage before, so we can’t really compare it to much. But we both agreed that we never slept better in our lives than we did that night. And my skin is the softest it has ever been. Side note to my lady readers: for whatever reason through the exfoliating process, it left my legs sooo smooth! I didn’t have to shave them once while I was down there, and it wasn’t until the last day (5 days later) that I felt even a hint of stubble. Amazing!!!!!! Pretty much any other tourists we encountered down there, we shared our experience with and told them that it was a must. I am sure a massage on the beach is fantastic and relaxing. And I’m sure they do an awesome job! But you can get one of those anywhere. I could get one at the Cape this summer if I wanted. This was truly unique, and it made us feel good knowing we were contributing to their lives and heritage.

This post ended up being a lot longer than I had first anticipated, so I’m going to end it here and make this a trilogy recap! Thanks for reading!!!

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