Dog Friendly & Clothing Optional? Yes!

Desert Hot Springs' Living Waters Spa announces the 1st ever Dog friendly condo at a clothing optional spa for vacationers who don't want to leave their "best friend" at home

At Living Waters, owners Jeff and Judy understand the importance of not leaving behind an important member of your family. That’s why they are the only European-style, clothing-optional mineral-water spa that invites you to bring your best friend with you and make yourself at home in our pet-friendly luxury condos.

All you need to bring are groceries and your dog’s favorite treats and toys. Their condos have two bedrooms with custom king-size beds dressed in fine linens; cable TV, a DVD player, Wi-Fi; granite countertops, a professional-style gas range; microwave, toaster and coffee maker; cooking utensils and flatware. Best of all, you’ll have a private patio dog run.

If you’ve never had a clothing-optional experience but have always wanted to, now is your time. At Living Waters Spa, you can feel the desert sun and mountain air on your whole body. You can swim in pure mineral water without a bathing suit. And, you can have that experience in an environment devoted to body acceptance and self-discovery.


Spend your days here days relaxing, rejuvenating and restoring, taking in our therapeutic, odor-free water, receiving soul-touching, award-winning massage and body treatments, and exploring nearby Joshua Tree National Park or sight-seeing in Palm Springs. You can take your dog for a hike in the mountains or for an outing at one of our many local dog parks.

The price is lower than ever to visit at one of the top 10 clothing-optional spas in the world. TripAdvisor ranks Living Waters Spa third around the globe, and Spas of America ranks us first in California.

Conde Nast Traveler, American Spa, USA Today, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Ellen DeGeneres, AOL and other media outlets have featured stories about the Living Waters Spa experience. With their special condo rates, now is the perfect opportunity to discover them for yourself.

Their rates for the season, May through September: $499 for the week, $99 per night Monday through Thursday and $139 Friday through Sunday.

About the spa: Completely refurbished five years ago, the nine guest rooms and massage studios retain their Mid-Century Modern spa-tel character. The two pools are fed directly from a hot-water aquifer; they pump 20 gallons a minute, 18 hours a day, from their own well. The water in the small pool stays about 100 degrees, which is perfect for long, therapeutic soaking. They offer massage and spa treatments; a dry sauna; breakfast and afternoon hors ‘d oeuvres. The six condos are directly across the street from the spa.

Living Waters Spa

Spa for the Unpretentious, Saline Valley, California

The woman approaching the hot spring was wearing nothing except for my missing gray ski hat. I had been shivering in my sleeping bag all night without it. The dawn still hadn’t lifted the chill from the valley, which is encased like a tomb by snow-topped mountains. I didn’t have to look too closely to see that she was freezing.

“What are you doing with my hat?” I said, in a tone probably too aggressive, given that we were about to share a steaming hot tub in a desolate California desert valley about three times the size of Manhattan. The woman took off my hat, and her long blond locks rolled down to places you don’t politely look at when speaking to a naked stranger.

“Sorry,” she said. “It was lying here yesterday. I thought it was a gift from the springs.”

Later, she wandered to our camp to offer a gift as an apology, a homemade glass pendant of a bat — the mascot of the Saline Valley. This time, she was adorned only with a menthol cigarette.

The old-timers who constructed the tubs of these colorful hot springs in the desert are long gone. But a spirit of generosity, community and sheer eccentricity still pervade the Saline Valley, a remote outpost ringed by a soaring wall of mountains on the northwest corner of Death Valley National Park.

American Indian petroglyphs around the valley bear witness that this was once the realm of the Timbisha Shoshone and their ancestors, who roamed this desert for at least a millennium before the first Europeans arrived. “There are special sites for giving birth in the valley, but we don’t let anyone outside of the tribe know where,” said Barbara Durham, the Timbisha Shoshone’s tribal historic preservation officer.

In the 1960s a different kind of nomadic community — rock hounds, survivalists and hippies — added to the mystic allure of the springs. There are three levels of springs going up the side of the valley, and around the two lower ones these creative wanderers built two clusters of artful concrete and rock pools that they maintained for all to enjoy. (The upper springs, three miles up the valley, remain more natural.) Palm trees and lawns were planted, and the springs became a green oasis tucked into the northeast corner of the blast-furnace Saline Valley.

The keepers of the springs were discreet, but knowledge about them spread by word of mouth, and many Southern Californians found their way to them — even Charles Manson and his followers are said to have passed through. But the place was literally off the grid; the Saline Valley often appeared as a blank, trackless spot on road maps.

Then in 1994, President Bill Clinton signed the California Desert Protection Act, transferring jurisdiction over the valley from the Bureau of Land Management to the National Park Service and bringing a lot of new regulations down on its few laissez-faire denizens. Some of them left voluntarily; the rest were evicted by the park rule setting a maximum on stays at 30 days.

For a while, even more radical changes were planned. “One of the plans involved dismantling the tubs and bringing the valley back to its natural state,” said Terry Baldino, a spokesman for the national park.

There’s still no final management plan, but for now, a truce prevails. The Saline Preservation Association, a community group, works with the Park Service to maintain the springs.

“I think now everyone realizes it’s a special place that can be enjoyed by all,” said Patricia Barton, the association’s president, “at least the ones who are prepared for the adventure of getting out there.”

The springs may now be marked on the National Park Service’s maps (as “Warm Springs”), but getting there is still a challenge worthy of Indiana Jones. A college buddy introduced me to the Saline Valley in 1984, and I have been back many times. In late fall, I dragged three friends out there to introduce them to the springs. A couple of hours after leaving Las Vegas, the nearest big city, we stopped at the village of Furnace Creek in Death Valley to stock up on gas, water and food and to check out the local road conditions at the Death Valley National Park Visitor Center and Museum.

From there, we drove a roundabout 68 miles west on Highway 190 beyond Panamint Springs, and took a right at a bullet-perforated “Road Closed” sign. Then for 53 miles, we wrestled a washboard road down into the Saline Valley.

Ghostly log towers in the middle of the gleaming white salt lake on the valley floor hinted at the story of the valley’s name. In the early 20th century, these towers were part of a spectacularly steep tram line that hauled salt — the valley’s was considered unusually pure — over the Inyo Mountains and 13 miles into the Owens Valley, from which it was shipped by rail around the world. We passed sand dunes north of the salt lake and turned right onto an unmarked road leading at last to the palm oasis.

After peering anxiously under our S.U.V.’s to make sure the rough ride had not pierced the oil pans, or anything else, we rolled out our sleeping bags on soft ground along the shelter of the bushes that are nurtured by the springs’ runoff. On the edge of the tiny oasis, we were a short walk from the lower pools sheltered in the cluster of palms, and the middle springs, on an open plateau overlooking the valley. In these surroundings, camping is easy — especially if you keep an eye on your hat.

We made quick friends around the communal bonfire next to the lower springs with about 10 campers, including a young couple from Los Angeles, a couple of old-timers, and a rowdy group of stoners. Songs — often naughty, always loud — were sung and a lot of alcohol, some of it homemade, was passed around. We helped ourselves to the informal lending library operating out of a couple of open-air bookshelves under the palms. And we washed our dishes in the ingenious outside kitchen that was created by piping in hot spring water.

The price for using all this? Nothing but an underlying assumption that everyone cleans up after themselves.

Over the weekend, three dozen other visitors shared our haven, including a 60-something couple from Düsseldorf, Germany; a guy dressed from hat to moccasins in clothes he had sewn from jackrabbit skins; a small wedding party of computer programmers who put on elaborate techno and light shows at night from their camper; and a smattering of families whose kids ran around unchecked. “This is probably the last place in the world they can get in any trouble,” one of the mothers said.

But the best part of the Saline Valley is being alone in the ethereal isolation that only the desert can provide, with its space and a half-dozen pools. Few things you can get without a prescription are more calming than floating alone in desert silence in one of the pools overlooking the valley as the setting sun behind the Inyo Mountains transforms everything into a kaleidoscope dream. A sense of space as wide as the valley becomes internalized. A deep sense of peace and fun seems to permeate the consciousness.

Some valley visitors leave intriguing souvenirs. In the maze of ravines and boulders next to the middle springs, someone has built small cairns sheltering postcards and figurines of Elvis. Fantastical sculptures made from burro skulls are suspended above the lower springs, which themselves are Picassoesque masterpieces of inlaid rock, some of crystalline. And images of the valley’s trademark bats are everywhere — painted on rocks, hanging satanically in cut steel from a pole and even decorating the concrete vault toilets in colorful bead and wire.

Many of these bats are the creations of Lee Greenwell, known to regulars at the springs, who tend to go by nicknames, as Lizard Lee. He operates out of a tiny camper trailer, setting up an outdoor art studio in the back, and lives there all year, including the summer, when the thermometer often tops out at 120 degrees. One of the original crowd who made Saline Valley a self-sustaining paradise before the Park Service took over, Mr. Greenwell is now the park’s official campground host.

“This is a place to get away from the world,” he said. “Most folks probably don’t even know I’m here unless they get in some sort of trouble.” If that happens, he’s got an emergency radio.

The most vivid reminder that there is a world beyond the peaks is the frequent and surreal appearance of fighter jets from nearby military airbases. While we were there, these extraordinary machines roared up the valley several times a day and banked so low over the oasis that we could see the pilots’ helmets, a maneuver widely suspected of being inspired by the springs’ “clothing optional” policy.

Other than that, you’re on your own in the Saline Valley. And that’s the way most desert rats seem to like it.

IF YOU GO

From Las Vegas, it’s about 130 miles to the visitor center at Furnace Creek, Calif., and 120 more (at least six hours in all) to the springs of Saline Valley in Death Valley National Park.

Check on road conditions with the park rangers and pick up a map at the Furnace Creek Visitor Center and Museum, which is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily (760-786-3200, www.nps.gov/deva). The national park vehicle entry fee is $20 for seven days.

Furnace Creek’s general store and gas station are convenient, but expensive, for buying gas, food and water. But make sure you are stocked up sufficiently for the trip into the springs and out again.

From Furnace Creek, continue 68 miles west on Highway 190. Turn right off the pavement and onto the Saline Valley Road and continue 46 miles on what is usually a challenging and rough dirt road into the valley — be sure to have a full spare tire.

During the winter months, the road may be covered with snow or ice at the 6,000-foot South Pass into the valley. Four-wheel drive, high clearance vehicles and snow chains are recommended.

After passing the salt lake and sand dunes on the valley floor, take the unmarked but obviously well-used road to the right for another seven miles to the lower springs. Once you see the steel bat hanging from the pole, you’ll know you’re almost there.

For more information, check the National Park Service daily road reports at www.dvnha.org/morning_report/Morning.pdf or go to the Saline Valley’s community Web site, salinevalley.tribe.net.

By FINN-OLAF JONES, NEW YORK TIMES

Taking the Waters in Uruguay’s Gaucho Corner

To many travelers, Uruguay is known — if at all — for Punta del Este, the Atlantic coastal beach resort called the South American Riviera by Argentine landlords who have gobbled up the peninsula’s seaside real estate.

In good times, that image guarantees steady business for the seafood restaurants and the boutiques that serve the luxury hotels and condominiums. But being tethered to Argentina’s tumultuous economy has its risks, and Uruguay has suffered from financial crises that originated in its larger neighbor.

Of the 1.8 million visitors to Uruguay in 2006, more than half were Argentine. But quietly, Uruguay is developing a second vacation spot that may help uncouple its tourism fortunes from Buenos Aires. It has found its best hope 3,000 feet underground, in the hot springs along the Uruguay River, a once-isolated region that even Uruguayans lump in with the rest of the “interior” — anywhere outside Punta del Este and the capital, Montevideo.

Since the discovery of the hot springs in the 1940s, by an oil exploration team wildcatting along the Argentine border, Uruguay has developed an impressively varied string of private resorts, public campgrounds, water parks and dude ranches. All tap the Guaraní Aquifer, the largest in the continent, funneling its toasty and mineral-rich water into indoor and outdoor baths.

That effort has sparked internal migrations during holiday weekends, when Montevideo, home to nearly half the country’s population of nearly 3.5 million, empties. It has also kept the border crossings busy at the Uruguay River across from northeastern Argentina, the route from both Buenos Aires and Asunción, Paraguay.

But word of the hot springs has not spread far. Americans who make it to Uruguay, mostly on cruise ships, are still almost certain to drop anchor in Montevideo and Punta del Este only.

There is reason to believe, however, that this might be changing. As American travelers trickle across the Río de la Plata, they are discovering in the hot springs an authentically Uruguayan experience that comes without sacrificing the comforts of the coastal resorts.

Arapey Thermal is at the top end of hot springs lodgings, and it is also the most remote, some 350 miles from Montevideo and with little access to an international airport. But the resort’s owners have settled a patch of civilization in gaucho country.

At check-in, members of the hotel staff slap a cerulean bracelet, the color of Uruguay’s flag, on the wrist of overnight guests, bestowing access to five thermal pools, a movie theater and tennis courts. It is also the key to the restaurant, where the culture of the hotel’s spa — an oasis of hot steam, hot tubs and hot-stone massages — gives way to Uruguayan excess. Sure, there are rice cakes and grapefruit with the café con leche at breakfast. But by lunch, all that wading in warm water has built up an appetite, so the buffet is piled high with grilled chicken in orange sauce, with the crispy skin left tantalizingly in place, and hunks of beef and sausage off the parrilla, the traditional grill.

Nor is there pressure to rise with the sun for yoga, not with dinner ending around midnight and guests partying to karaoke in the game room. But just because you can follow your facial with a filet mignon does not mean there is no relaxation. For that, the isolation helps, leaving few options for the afternoon but to float until your fingers prune. The indoor and outdoor pools connect beneath a glass divider, and swimmers, like seals at an aquarium, come and go without retreating to their towels. In the South American winter, the air outside is cool at night, but when a light rain sends up steam from the pool, clouding the planted palms and nearby pasture, the land feels almost tropical.

In Salto, the nearest city, Uruguay has converted former military housing into the Hotel Horacio Quiroga and burrowed into the hot springs. As at Arapey, the location seems unlikely for a tourist destination, evidence of the hot springs alchemy that has seen tilapia farms materialize in spring-fed ponds and artisanal queso thermal (thermal cheese) factories open in the countryside. There, as at many of the region’s hotels, the hot springs water — pumped from 2,300 feet to 6,500 feet below ground and emerging as hot as 108 degrees — rains down from wide showerheads. High in iron and calcium, believed to lower blood pressure and relax muscles, it is also poured from glass pitchers and frozen into ice cubes.

“When there’s an economic problem in the region, Argentines stop coming and that causes a major problem,” said Mónica Lozano, the hot springs specialist for the Uruguayan Ministry of Tourism. “We’re looking for other places to promote these sites.”

Horacio Quiroga has not exorcized all traces of its institutional past. The outdoor pool overlooks the Salto Grande Dam, source of 70 percent of the country’s energy. Guests cannot hear the turbines, but the soundtrack of bubbling water and classical music is interrupted by the slapping of pool noodles against the water’s surface and the “uno, dos, tres” of a martial exercise instructor. There is less cosseting than at Arapey Thermal; the plastic lawn furniture shakes as guests carve their tenderloin, and the napkins housed in metal dispensers can hardly absorb a teardrop.

But there are advantages to the casual atmosphere. Barefoot guests roam the corridors robed in the white uniforms that hang in pairs in room closets. And there are no forms to fill out for borrowing a bicycle, so guests who sleep through the morning stroll tour the 540-acre property on a whim, pedaling past neat lines of planted pines and eucalyptus inhabited by a startling variety of brightly colored birds.

Horses are available for meandering off the pavement toward the woods and the orange grove that encircle the water park and its wave pool and towering slides. Hypnotizing digital displays announce the water temperature in three thermal baths.

Farther south, the regional government runs the Guaviyú hot springs, keeping prices low enough for backpackers looking to kick back by a dozen indoor and outdoor pools.

A day at the park costs about a dollar and visitors can rent a heated cabin for as little as $25 a night. The village that has grown around the pool includes a butcher shop that ensures that the grills behind every cabin are always smoldering and that the evening air is perfumed by Uruguay’s famous, grass-fed meat.

“In the area, there are other hot springs. But this is the safest country in the region,” Ms. Lozano said. “We have a reputation for being very calm.”

IF YOU GO

The Arapey Thermal Resort and Spa (Termas del Arapey, Salto; 598-76-82005; www.arapeythermal.com.uy) is an hour north of the city. A superior room on a weekend costs $125 a person, including three meals and the merienda — the traditional late-afternoon snack.

The Hotel Horacio Quiroga (Parque del Lago Salto Grande; 598-73-34411; www.hotelhoracioquiroga.com) is about 20 minutes outside downtown Salto. The hotel provides a free shuttle from the bus station. Except during holidays, the weekend rate for a double junior suite, with breakfast, is $172.

New York Times

They Came to New York for the Waters

Pungently sulfurous waters burble up from the ground alongside a concrete 1970s hospital building in Clifton Springs, N.Y., southeast of Rochester, and I’m soaking in them. That is, waters from a mineral spring renowned in the 19th century for healing properties have been pumped from a stream running beneath the hospital lawn into a new spa wing, where I’ve gone more for relaxation than anything curative, and a nurse has prepared a hot bath for me.

In a serene pale-purple treatment room, I step gingerly into the tea-colored water. The vapors clear my head, and I soon feel tingly and light, yet strangely immobile. The sound of the spring outside, gurgling into tiers of concrete fountain pools, mingles with the indoor soundtrack of pan flutes. When a knock on the door comes for my scheduled massage, I’m sorry to let the water drain.

Upstate New York is hardly known as a center of mineral springs. But in the 19th century, the golden age of mineral-water spas, at least 50 New York towns, scattered from Long Island to Lake Ontario, had resorts or sanitariums drawing on water emerging from rocky places underground and laced with elements like magnesium, calcium, potassium, iron and sulfur. “There were more mineral baths available in New York than in any other state,” said Charlotte Wytias, the program manager at the Clifton Springs Hospital’s spa.

All sorts of healing powers were claimed for the waters, which often carry a metallic or swampy taste and smell. But primarily, the resorts were places to go on vacation. “Life at the springs is a perpetual festival,” an 1850s guidebook said.

Read The New York Times Article