January 14, 2006 — This morning Kelly and I took a local bus for a few kilometers to the nearby town of San Juan Cosola. We had a purpose: to sit in hot water.

The water at San Juan Cosola is naturally heated. There are several hotels which offer hot pools, but we chose to go to the place everyone just calls the balneario, or hot spring, located right on the shore of Lake Chapala.

As we approached the town from the direction of Chapala and Ajijic, there were several attractive restaurants right on the lake. We may try one another time. There will be more times! We didn’t bring a camera this time, but now that I know the ropes, maybe I will later.

The cost wasn’t all that low: it was 110 pesos each, or a bit under $11 US, each. For that we could stay from 8:30 Am to 7:00 PM, any day of the week. As today is a Saturday, we went early, as we knew the weekends were most popular. With Kelly recovering from breaking his rib, we wanted tranquility.

The place turned out to be huge. There were several pools, with different water temperatures, up to 41 degrees celcius, which is 105.8 F. Kelly spent his time in that one, while I watched people use the waterslides, enjoyed the jacuzzi, peered into the cavelike steam room, watched the little kids play on the pool for children up to 8 years old, and took dips in a couple of other pools. I’d go back and forth, joining Kelly briefly but he can take hotter water than I can.

My favorite pool offered shade over the water. I lounged in there a long time, watching a woman who appeared to be in her 30s moved a young boy through a series of exercises in the water. He didn’t appear able to move his limbs much himself. I guessed that she was his mother or perhaps a physical therapist. Later Kelly and I walked by there and she was doing similar exercises with someone else.

I wandered around the grounds, watching a resident dog stroll casually among the people. It looked to be part German Shepherd — you see all sorts of mixes here. There was a breeze and I got a little chilled, so I went back to the very hot water.

There I got into a conversation with a gray-haired Mexican woman who had come out with her family first thing in the morning from Guadalajara, less than an hour away. She said that the water was one of the healing forces of nature, which were a gift of God. She used some words I didn’t know to describe the way the water heals, so I asked her to define them a little. She did, using more words I didn’t know. A common problem!

She commented about cognates in the two languages, so I asked her if she spoke English. She said she had learned it three times, but it hadn’t stuck a lot. I was happy to be following most of her Spanish. That is happening more often now.

Eventually Kelly and I got dressed and got some tacos at a little snack bar inside the balneario grounds. it must have been early afternoon, and people were pouring in. I commented to the young people running the snack bar (which also had an impressive bar!) on how many people were there. They said this was very few, that during Semana Santa — Easter week, one of Mexico’s main vacation times — you couldn’t even see the water in the pool for all the bodies, that there would be more than a thousand people there. Considering how many tables and chairs were placed around the grounds, we weren’t surprised.

We caught another local bus back and melted into a lazy nap. We both feel great!