Today we swam naked. Charlotte and I were gifted two entries to Karlsruhe’s Therme Vierordtbad or thermal baths. Germans love being naked. It’s a fact. The Anglo English speaking world is not so open, and we keep our clothes on. I’m not a particular fan of saunas. But I do love an open-air spa followed by a cold dunking. My best memory of this is at the Mangatutu Hot Springs in the Kaweka Forest Park in New Zealand. You broil in the hot springs and then cool off in the mighty Mohaka River. But that’s another story. Today, when in Rome, we did as the Roman’s did.
Why naked?
Hygiene. Apparently swimsuits are septic breeding grounds for all kinds of bacteria. It’s off with the clothes and on with the terry cloth robe. After all the jokes, the joke was now on me. I had to get naked. At Charlotte’s dad’s house, I was issued with all kinds of equipment (and here I thought we needed nothing, no clothes anyway): one terry cloth robe, one regular towel, one small towel, one insulated drink bottle, one sandwich and a warning from my father-in-law: remember the etiquette.
Stage One: Aufguss
As I said, I’m more of an outdoor spa guy, but here I was being roped into a sauna infusion ceremony or Aufguss. I always feel claustrophobic in a sauna. And with the heat, it’s like being forced naked into a pizza oven. Now, etiquette must be adhered to. This isn’t the Glenfield Leisure Centre. You must be naked. You must sit on a towel and this includes your feet. I made the mistake of sitting on my towel but setting my unshod hooves on the wooden bench. I was politely reminded by my naked neighbour to show some respect and use a towel for those clod hoppers lest they contain verruca vulgaris.
The Sauna Meister entered the sauna room. He was in his sixties, with a grey crew cut and slightly bandied legs. His long, damp dungeon days had taken their toll on his toenails, which had receded as if in shock or protest. I laughed internally. Here was a man whose job it is to torture naked Germans in a wooden box. The Sauna Meister placed what looked like a snowball on each of his fire pits. Hisss. A murmur of appreciation came from the geriatric, perspiring crowd.
Charlotte whispered a translation into my ear as the Sauna Meister addressed the crowd. We were stacked up, sitting on wooden benches in a semi-circle facing the Sauna Meister and his twin steam engines. Thankfully, we secured a seat one up from the lowest meaning we wouldn’t get the hottest of the Sauna Meister’s furies.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the sauna. This ceremony will last for ten minutes. If you get too hot, you can leave at any time.’ The glint in his eye seemed to suggest otherwise. I was hot already and the door was still open. The Sauna Meister battened down the hatches and submitted us to his first brew: a snowball of lemon and citrus. As the aroma erupted, I felt like I was back at mum’s dinner table with a towel over my head being forced to inhale eucalyptus to fix a cold.
Next, the Sauna Meister took a red towel. He began to helicopter it over his head to send heat waves at his willing victims. An ageless man to my left with alopecia raised his hands to welcome the heat. I dubbed him the Sun God. His hairless face seemed impermeable to the heat and he welcomed more. I looked at my watch. We were barely three minutes in. Thirty percent. Would I have to do the walk of shame, sweating and nude, whilst pushing my way out (there were no stairs). I hunkered down. ‘Are you OK?’ Charlotte said. I gritted my teeth and prayed for mercy from the sadistic Sauna Miester and his torture towel.
The Meister dropped another snowball onto each of his steam engines. Pausing, he took a towel and wiped his face. His next weapon: an extendable black fan the length of a baseball bat. The Sauna Meister was the only attired among us dripping heathens. His entire front was drenched in sweat as he began to fan. Wooooff, wooooff. He radiated heat shockwaves around the room. The Sun God raised his hairless arms, more, more, he seemed to say. When the heat hit I felt my nerves sing. I’ve never experienced anything like it. It’s like you’re burning but in a good way. There was three minutes to go. No one had left. If I left now, I would not only be a coward, but a naked, sweaty coward.
Sweat dripped off my nose. Ninety seconds to go. I closed my eyes and thought of Rachael Hunter holding an ice cold Trumpet. I thought of playing rugby as a six-year-old barefoot in winter. ‘Danke schoen,’ said the Sauna Meister to close the ceremony. Immediately someone shot down from the highest (hottest) seat up top. Taking my sweaty ass towel, I made a dash for the door. Rachael was nowhere to be found, but the ice cold plunge pool was welcome.
Stage Two: The Feeding of the gannets
The Sauna Meister wasn’t finished with us yet. We were now outside in the open-air spa. Steam rose from the surface. The Sauna Meister came out with a wooden bucket and stood at the edge of the pool. The swimmers bunched together and seemed to await feeding like seals at Seaworld. ‘What is it?’ I asked Charlotte. ‘He’s not going to feed them is he?’
‘No, it’s a kind of salt balm. A herbal remedy.’ The punters humbly took their medicine from a ladle and began to rub it on various broken-down body parts: a gammy-knee, crook shoulder or bad back. One guy rubbed it into his scalp but you can’t fix stupid. Charlotte and I sat this one out, already wary of the Sauna Meister and his inscrutable ways.
Stage Three: Revelation
We had forty-five minutes left. We choose to sit in the open-air spa. ‘That girl has a swimsuit on,’ I said to Charlotte. ‘I thought togs were expressly verboten.’ Charlotte turned and said to me, ‘Oh no, you can wear a swimsuit in the pool.’
‘What!’
‘It’s only forbidden to wear anything in the sauna.’
I had been stitched-up yet again.
Update: On Monday we fly 12-hours from Frankfurt to Houston, and 15-hours from Houston to Auckland with an 8-month old. It will make the Sauna Meister look like a big ol’ pussy cat.
God Bless Rachel Hunter.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/07/german-nudist-chases-wild-boar-that-stole-laptop-berlin-teufelssee