story and photos by Kayte Deioma
Santa Fe is blessed with an abundance of outstanding holistic healing and 
spa facilities, based on Japanese, Swedish and even Native American healing modalities. A spa experience is great when you’re traveling alone, but it’s also a wonderful bonding experience between couples or friends. It can even be a great multi-generational family experience. Many of the Santa Fe spas have facilities where couples can get a massage in the same room. Hot tubs and steam rooms accommodate groups. Spa salons allow girlfriends to gossip over a manicure or pedicure.
My friend Julie and I decide to try out the new Nidah Spa which opened December 2004 at Santa Fe’s Eldorado Hotel. Nidah is the Apache word for “your life.” Nidah’s spa treatments are based on the sacred directions of the Native American medicine wheel.
Treatments based on the North are restorative, with their roots in the restful stillness of winter. Herbal ingredients are chosen to “relax the body and encourage tense bodies to cool down.'”
East treatments use stimulating spring herbs to rejuvenate and renew body and mind and include a Tomato-Maize Facial or an East Winds massage.
South treatments, like the Chili and Honey Rub, are designed to instill the energy and vitality of summer.
West treatments are designed to purify and detoxify. West massages can include essential oils designed for High Altitude Relief, Feminine Rescue or General Detoxification; or you can choose a Purification Wrap using a Blue Corn and Anasazi Bean Cleanse.
In addition to the four compass points, the Native American medicine wheel counts the Center as the fifth direction. Golden Center treatments represent the earth. They are designed to support all the other directions and bring optimum balance. As much as we both appreciate having our energies balanced, Julie and I both choose the Golden Center Chocolate Mole Mud Wrap as much for the pleasure of being wrapped in chocolate as for its balancing effect.
After a quick visit to the steam room to open our pores, Julie and I experiment with the hot and cold herbal E.lix.rs in the Elixir Lounge. Spa technician Irene Truitt comes to escort me into a treatment room where I am welcomed by the delicious aroma of cocoa.
The treatment begins with a dry body brush “to energize the lymph.” Then the warm Sedona mud mixed with cocoa, cumin, cinnamon and nutmeg is slathered over my body. Its creamy smooth texture is much more chocolaty than muddy. Irene works fast to apply the warm mole mud before it cools, then wraps me in warm layers of wool and Mylar to keep in the heat. I am feeling like a cross between a chocolate truffle and a well-wrapped mole enchilada.
While I bask in the warm mud wrap, Irene unravels my curls and begins a
relaxing scalp massage. She adds a hot stone behind my neck to release the muscles. Then my feet become the subject of her attention with a decadent foot massage. Twenty minutes later I use the shower in the treatment room to shower off the mole mud, then relax on the massage table for a half-hour back massage with my selection of scented or unscented lotion to work out the remaining kinks. The final touch is a layer of the Spa’s signature “Spun Gold” body lotion which leaves a glittery golden sheen on my skin.
Back in the locker room I experiment with the spa’s variety of hair products to get my wild curls back under control before changing to head up to my room. Julie is still raving about the foot massage. A woman in the elevator asks about our treatment. “You look refreshed.” She says. She’s been considering the avocado facial. By the time we reach the fifth floor I think she’s leaning toward a Chocolate Mole Mud Wrap.
The sun came out so we ventured outside after our spa experience, but if it’s still raining, lunch at the Eldorado Court restaurant might be in order. For dinner, the hotel’s much-lauded Old House Restaurant can keep you well-fed and dry. In between you can check out the fitness center on the fifth floor, or lounge in front of the kiva fireplace in your deluxe room. Drinks in the Lobby Lounge are accompanied by live music nightly.
For more information, visit www.eldoradohotel.com
Consisting of various flavors of dark chocolate “paté” coated in Dutch cheese wax, the chocolate blocks are waterproof and resist “blooming,” the separation of ingredients that leaves chocolate splotchy and unappetizing after changes in temperature. The “paté” is a dark chocolate ganache, similar in consistency to fudge.
Raspberry, Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter, Orange Chili Chocolate and Nuts and Berries. These are the basic utilitarian “packer squares”, great for hiking, camping and other forms of travel. It’s a great gift to ship to friends and family members in Iraq, since it will survive both the trip and the heat.
several days in the ninety degree heat of Santa Fe, then packed it in my checked luggage for the trip home. The plastic wrap got a little clingy with the wax, but came off easily. For the heck of it, I immersed the pink, orange and yellow wax-covered bar in water for a few minutes to put it through a pseudo rainy-day test.
If you’ll have a chance to eat your chocolate without the threat of extreme weather conditions, Chocolate Smith has a slew of other gourmet chocolate treats with a Santa Fe twist. These include Dipped Caramel with Sea Salt, Pińon Caramel Squares, Cinnamon Crunch, Dipped Ginger and many more. The shop is also known for its chocolate barks in flavors like Red or Green Chili Pistachio Bark, Mocha Almond Bark, Mountain Bark, a white chocolate bark with coconut, cherries, almonds and toffee, and my new favorite, White Chocolate Lemon Lavender with Almonds. The Pecos Peanut Butter Fingers with a lingering chili bite are also addictive. To continue the Southwest theme, Chocolate Smith’s dark and white chocolate hand-painted pottery shards have also become quite popular.
Although Chocolate Smith is not a café – there’s no place to sit – they’ve recently made coffee available to enjoy with your chocolates. You can easily pass a half hour or so tasting the samples to find your favorites and learning all about their unique products.
Running along the north side of the Plaza, the Palace of the Governors, built in 1610, is the oldest continually occupied public building in the United States, having served as the political seat of multiple governments for its first three centuries. In 1909 it became the initial site of the Museum of New Mexico. The Palace of the Governors currently houses the Museum’s state history collection from Spanish colonial, Mexican, American Territorial through recent New Mexican history. It is a good place to get an overview of New Mexico’s tri-cultural past.
colonial occupation in the New World, are also on permanent display. The artist chronicled history on bison hides in the early 18 th century. The first panel depicts an Apache attack. Segasser II tells the story of a 1720 expedition led by the Lt. Governor of New Mexico, Don Pedro de Villasur, which was ambushed in what is now Nebraska. Named after a Swiss priest who sent the hides back to his family in Switzerland in the 1750s, they were purchased by the Museum of New Mexico and brought to the Palace of the Governors in the 1980s.
piece painted by folk artist Jose Rafael Aragon for the church of Llano Quemado in Taos County.
Some of the works printed by the independent presses are quite entertaining, showing biting political or social satire. The Museum continues to use historic hand-operated printing and bookbinding
equipment to produce limited editions of works related to the Southwest through the Palace Press.