Yoga Retreat Diary Parte Dos

Day #4:

I woke up very early today (5:30am) and waited an hour rolling in bed until the sun came out. My morning swim was good. I’m starting to really like the idea of “showering” in the sea. My hair likes it too. That thirty-minute process of untangling my hair every morning in New York is getting boring. My hair was born to be tangled and wild. Breakfast was superb. I’m addicted to organic granola, yogurt, and fresh fruit -I wonder if the cafeteria of my office can do something about their awful morning menu.

Yoga class started at 9:45am. Today’s class lasted two hours. Holly shit, holly shit…..it was really hard. But I felt so fueled up after it, full of energy, like I can accomplish anything I wanted. I officially entered ninja-mode.

After class we went to our daily catching-rays routine. Two years ago I discovered the best sun-screen over the face of the earth. Shiseido SPF 50. I never get burned and it still allows me to tan just a tiny bit. I’m proud to say that after four days of intense sun I haven’t burned my skin.

Lunch was served at 12:30 or 1:00? I lost track of time in this place. The sea was a bit rough today so I decided not to go for a swim. We got scared with one of the girls being drifted away towards the rocks. Thank God nothing bad happen but it was a big warning to stay away from the water.

A group of girls -me included- decided to do a Temezcal. A Temezcal is a type of sweat lodge, which originated in ancient Mexico with pre-Hispanic people. It gets hot as hell, and not that I’ve been to hell itself but I can imagine is pretty hot.  Imagine a 4 feet high 15 feet diameter “oven” with a tiny door where you get in crawling. Hot rocks or “abuelitas” are brought in and the temperature quickly reaches a good 120F. Once the door in closed is pitched black. Our shaman’s name was Marciano –shocking. It was the most claustrophobic experience my body and my mind had ever experienced. I wanted to leave that place five minutes after the ceremony started. I had to do some serious concentration and mental control to be able to stay for the whole hour and a half. The only thing separating myself from the open outside world has a tiny door made out of a yoga blanket, but I kept thinking that horrible things were going to happen to all of us in there. I started chanting along with the shaman and I’ve got to say that that humming relaxed me so much. The singing was the only thing that kept me from going crazy in that place. I’m glad I did it, but it was a very intense experience. After the ceremony was over, we crawled our way out of that “oven” and went straight to the ocean. For the very first two minutes I don’t think we were in fully control of our bodies. Olivia went for a swim in the ocean not realizing that she was very close to a huge rock. Thank God for Lauren that kept an eye on us like the holly spirit! The Temezcal girls group will forever live inside of me.

After lunch Lauren and the Temezcal girls went downstairs for a drink or two at the bar. Our bar tender left the premises at 10:30pm leaving us wanting more wine. We solved that very quickly by going on an impromptu trip to the kitchen.

Day #5:

The sun decided to give us a break today. It was very nice since our skins needed a very well deserved day off.

Highlight of the day: Li came (new yoga teacher), I didn’t cry, morning class was hard! Lunch was yummy, dinner was awesome, girls are the best. Afternoon class was pretty tough! Ouch ouch everything hurts.

Day#6:

I woke up super early. I went on my morning shower in the sea. Mental note: I haven’t used my shampoo in 2 days. My hair loves the fact that is dirty as hell. My hair was born to be dirty as hell. Morning yoga started at 9:45am. Today’s intention was: stillness. The music was Adele’s. I was fine, no crying until we were one hour and fifteen minutes into the class. I cried as never before. I was sobbing, double pumping, inconsolable. Lauren being the sweetheart that she is stayed with me throughout my whole crying attack. I went on child’s pose for a good twenty minutes. Lauren stood by my side all the time. I had things inside of me that all the yoga poses took out. The fact that ten other people surrounded me with different intentions for being on this yoga retreat helped a lot too. We all go thru difficult things in our lives and for whatever reason we seam to think that we are the only ones going thru challenging periods. I could feel everyone’s good energy being directed at me. At the end of the class some girls hugged me. It’s so nice to feel that there’s hope in human nature and that even though we haven’t been friends forever we share a secret sisterhood. My eyes were puffy the whole day.  A nice reminder that I’m alive and that I can feel emotions.

I went on wild mode with my skin and ditched the spf 50 for spf 30. Wow….

We had a little scare today with Lauren. The sea here is crazy. She couldn’t get out of the ocean. Another big warning of not going to the sea alone.

We had a “salsa party” last night. That was so much fun! We stayed up until 2:30am. These girls are awesome.

Day#7:

Last day of our yoga perfections (Generosity, Kindness, Patience, Joyful effort, Stillness, Wisdom, and Tradition.) Today we talked about “wisdom”. The music today was Nirvana. I did not cry. I found interior strength and went thru the entire hour and a half like a bad-ass ninja. I’m a little tired after the crazy salsa night, but I’ll survive. Daphne and Lauren left today; tomorrow the rest of us will be going back to reality. I never finalized the details of my plan to stay here forever, plus, I think my cats might be missing me by now –probably not, but I like to think that they see me as their mother and not their food source. I have a scheduled massage at five today. Three other girls already had their massages during the week and apparently it’s fabulous. More details to come after.

So the massage was fantastic. I paid a little bit more than $90 bucks to have a man massage all my body for a full hour. When you put it that way is sad isn’t it? In all seriousness, it was really good.

Dinner was served on the beach tonight. After eating we were treated to a beautiful bonfire and wine. It’s going to be so hard to leave this place.

Day#8:

Last day. I took my morning shower –not the sea but I got myself into an actual shower and used shampoo and conditioner- early in the morning. Had breakfast with the girls and waited in the sun for a couple of hours until it was time to leave. Xinalani has no port, so you have to get on the little boats as fast as possible from the beach. Somehow we managed to survive the crazy waves and got ourselves and our luggage on the boat. We left this place almost in tears. I really hope I can come back some day. It was really one of the most fantastic experiences of my life.

Tadaaaahhhh!!

The End.

Yoga Retreat Diary

Day #1:

I arrived in Puerto Vallarta from Newark at around 1:30pm local time. I sat next to a NYC retired firefighter whom losted fifteen fire fighters in the attacks of 9/11. He wrote a very nice book about it. I love guys with strong Brooklyn accent. He asked me where I was from after I’ve only said: “Hi”. How can this be? Is my accent really that strong? Of course it is! Anyways, I also watched 2 very cool movies: Before Sunshine, and Before Sunset. The third part is supposed to come out this summer. I can’t wait to see it. I flew with five other girls but I didn’t know their faces. We got together once we reached Puerto Vallarta’s airport. Of course, they were all beautiful and friendly and super energetic. I’m so ready to start an unforgettable adventure.

We got on a tiny boat that the locals call “crucero” (cruise). I’m assuming they are being very ironic. The trip to the resort lasted 45 minutes. The sea was pretty rough. Or at least when you come from NYC where the interaction with water bodies (i.e. sea, rivers, lakes) is not existent a little bit of waves seamed like a tsunami to me (and a nightmare to the rest of the girls).

This place is absolutely amazing. The whole resort is just for the girls from the Yoga retreat. Oh wait, one of the girls came with her husband so we are 15 girls +1 guy.

We did a light yoga class (light in Lauren’s (yoga teacher) terms because the class was hard!) at around 6:15 and then we had dinner in the most beautiful place.

We went to bed at 9 ish…..I slept like a baby.

Day#2:

I woke up at 5am. No alarm necessary. I can only sleep 8 hours straight. At 5am it’s still pitch dark in these latitudes. I had to wait until around 6:30am to be able to see some sort of light. I went to my early swim in the sea and it was the most invigorating experience. Breakfast was super yummy of course! And the fact that you get to sit down with other people to have an actual meal with no rush early in the morning is pretty refreshing too. Yoga class started at 9:30am and it went on for a good hour and a half. I’m so soared. But is the good pain. The pain that you enjoy, that you actually look forward to (you look forward to this kind of pain too right? Please tell me you do!). The yoga room is more or less 600 steps above sea level. By the time you are all the way up there you are already tired. My right knee is not having a good time with all these steps. Oh well, the rest of my body is so suck it up!

I’ve heard that sometimes people cry during yoga class. I usually don’t make fun of people but it’s really funny to imagine someone crying during a yoga class. Well, this time the joke was on me. After a third painful wheel my body couldn’t take it any more and out of nowhere tears start coming down my eyes. I’m not talking about “allergy tears” with no emotions. No, I’m talking about straight from the heart tears. Tears that I couldn’t hold any longer. It was a little embarrassing. It’s OK to laugh with strangers, but to cry? I know at the end of this journey all of these girls will be close friends, but as of now we are just starting to know each other. Crying in front of them is something I wasn’t looking forward to. But it happened. It felt liberating.

After yoga class we went to the beach. Did I mention is a private beach just for the yoga retreat group? (Secretly I’m designing a fools-proof plan on how to stay here forever). Lunch was served at 1:30pm. I can’t tell you enough how delicious the food on this place is. Everything tastes so fresh. My digestive system isn’t attacking me for the first time in months. I haven’t feel bloated and I feel with more energy than I usually have. The afternoon passed by so fast (of course, time goes by faster when you are on vacation, somehow the clock moves faster and you can’t do anything about it).

Our second yoga class started at 6:15pm and it lasted an hour and a half. I cried again. This time not sobbing double pumping crying as in the morning, but a few tears rolled down my eyes. Nothing to be ashamed of.

Dinner was served at 7:00pm. I will stop talking about the food but I just got to say that of course it was beautiful (not yummy, but beautiful, as in paradise beautiful). Then of course, came the wine. Everything is just better when the wine comes and visits. People are more open, everything is funnier, life is perfect, and troubles seam to melt away. I just love wine. I went to bed at midnight after the bottle of wine came to an end. After yoga, swimming, delicious food and a bottle of wine every one sleeps like a baby. And that’s exactly what I did.

Day #3:

I woke up a bit later today (6:00am). I went for my morning swim. Life is good. Breakfast was served at 8:00am. Yoga class started at 9:30am. I didn’t cry today! I don’t know if this is bad or good, but most probably someone else did because the class was hard! After class I went swimming some more. There’s a kayak tied to a buoy a good 500ft away from the beach. I swam to the kayak, got onto it, and used it for an exploratory mission along the coast. My arms are not used to this kind of abuse and they are very soared. I love this pain.

Yoga class in the afternoon was more like a workshop- equally hard- where we learned how to do a pose that I like to call the scorpion. I’ve surprised myself with the things I didn’t think I was capable to do and that I’m doing by listening to instructions and concentrating hard. I get easily distracted, but once I get into “the zone” I can go places. I like that feeling of accomplishment.

Dinner was served at 7:30pm. I can get used to this life style.

Stay tuned for Days #4, #5, #6, #7, & #8

All pictures by me. CoCo couldn't fit inside my bags. I missed her greatly. 

Real Nice Thing in Life #12

My real first love was a kitten I named Aurelio. We met at my uncle's farm in the mountains of Colombia. I was only four years old. With Aurelio I initiated a non-stop frenzy of lovers. I used to bring home frogs (who never turned into princes), lizards, kittens, street dogs and injured birds hoping for my mom to accept any animal as the household pet. 

It wasn't until I turned seventeen that a four-legged animal was accepted as part of the family. If Aurelio was my first love Lino, my Labrador was the love of my life. I switched the "princess" bed for a bunk bed so that Lino could sleep in my bed-room. I had the upper level, Lino the bottom. Shortly after Lino's arrival, my brother and I found a tiny kitten roaming around our building. She was all bones and whiskers. She became Lino's younger sister. We named her Misifú. My mom loves Misifú more than my brother and me. I don't blame her. 

My love for animals has dictated many aspects of my life. I've been an on-and-off vegetarian for most of my life, I stretch cat-style every morning, I wag my tail when I'm excited, and I also love to wear animal prints while outside in the wild (i.e. friends' backyards, NYC streets, PATH trains, etc.), you know, for camouflage purposes. 

I found this fabulous faux fur vest on Bib & Tuck (wonderful site where you exchange clothing with very fashionable girls), and have been wearing it pretty much every day. As certain Guayabagram suggested last night, I wore the vest with flower-print pants and a leather jacket while obscenely devouring Nutella crepes. Today my belly hurts. 

Real Nice Thing in Life #12: The Aurelios and Linos that brighten our lives, teaching us what unconditional love is; to camouflage yourself in animal prints and bright colors hoping that the rest of the wild world is color blind; Nutella.

All pictures by Alcibiades. Photo shoot location: The Congotes house AKA la casa de la perdición! ;)

DIY of the Month

I think we can confidently say that summer is here. I talk a lot about the weather, but please understand me, I live in the New York area, and the weather here is a main topic of conversation. In celebration of the new season I've decided to work on several Do It Yourselves projects (I still owe you a DIY pant a la Isabel Marant as certain Instagram Picture suggested it, I just need to smitten Alcibiades (my photographer) into a photoshoot), after all I'm an architect damn it, and I was trained to explore my right creative side of the brain (or the left?). Therefore, just so my mom doesn't think she threw her money down the drain with my education,  I want to share with you one of my favorite DIY of all times; I will call it: what to do with your friend's backyard when you've pretty much done it all DIY (we've done the inflatable pool, the take a picture with baby bear now that momma bear is not looking, the let's go deep into the woods, the let's see the sun rise even when we are dying to go to bed, etc). I'm giving you exact instructions, but if you are lost at any time, please don't hesitate to call me.

Adios my lovers, I hope you are still tuned. Besos!

Green Bathing Suit that is not really a bathing suit but I think it looks wonderful in a pool or any "wet" environment, American Apparel. Bathing Suit worn underneath  The Green bathing Suit also American Apparel. Friends brought to you by years of cultivating wonderful relationships. All pictures by Alcibiades. Thank you Alcibiades, without you, this blog would be a series of self taken boring mirror  pictures. I love you. 

SoHo-Ho

In latitudes where seasons are as intense as New York's, the weather becomes a daily topic of conversation. If you are forced to speak to someone in an elevator the first thing you say is: "How do you like this weather?" (assuming that day is one of the 30 really nice days out of the entire year), or "Isn't it miserable outside?" (and this applies to pretty much the 335 remaining days of the year). You don't ever leave your house without checking the weather (or without your cell phone, can someone remind me again how the heck did we function years ago without that extra limb called the cell phone?) because in this area of the globe Mr Temperature suffers a severe case of maniac depression. One minute you are freezing, and all of a sudden you feel like you are being cooked into a perfect medium rare term. When Mother Nature along with Mr. Temperature, God, Helios and probably the Planets are in a good mood, they reward us with the beautiful gift of a perfect day. These very few days cannot be wasted indoors under any circumstance, specially when one of your best friends calls you to meet in SoHo for a photo shoot for her website. 

"Taunt by passers with your camera? sure! I'll see you there!"

Have a great week everyone :) 

Must have accessory of the season: a gorgeous sweetie pie dressed in pink tutu and silver shoes. 

Extra points if her dress matches your hair highlights.

Customized I LoveNewYork Tshirt stolen from your friend (you don't want it back do you?) 

Vintage skirt, Miu Miu shoes that I'm planning to milk forever :)