From the beginning this spa offering sounded labyrinthine,  The African Rain Forest Experience at the Arabella Western Cape Hotel and Spa.

You must get it together now, not treatment but experience.

 And an African forest it was!

It started with the exfoliation room. The salt scrub on the heated slab (smoothed concrete?) was pleasant enough. But not quite a revelation of what was to come. After the rub down, the therapist instructed me to take a shower, easy enough.

With fresh skin, old haggard flakes gone, I was ready to be blown away. What's next in the experience, I wondered.

As I pondered the next move, I followed the lead to the next shower. A startling cold shower. I didn't quite scream but I was close. After the muscle relaxing warm shower, the cold water followed as a boost for blood circulation.

I don't like cold water. Even if it’s good for my blood. So when I was sent to the steam room I wished I wouldn't have to face freezing water afterwards.

The Eucalyptus steam room was incredible. I'd had a case of the sniffles earlier in the day but halfway through the session my nostrils had opened up.

After about ten minutes of steaming it was time for another cold shower. This time I knew what was coming so I was ready. Still chilly, but apparently my lymph nodes would love the sensation; it jogged to kick toxins off the body.

The chilly waters preceded idling in the dry heat sauna. Heated to 75 degrees Celsius, I hoped it wouldn't last ten minutes. As with saunas, a few minutes in I couldn't tell whether it was me perspiring or just the hot air congealing against me.

Just when I started frightening myself with thoughts of the therapist forgetting about me in the sauna, she came back. It was just five minutes but I was all tingly and fresh.

I expected yet another icy shower but I let my guard down when I was escorted to the few resting slabs in the middle of the large "forest". I lay on one of the slabs, much like the one I got exfoliated on in the beginning, only lower, face down expecting some kind of massage and… behold, the waterfall shower. This time I let a little scream out and then laughed.

The shower was truly like lying in the rain. As the water got warmer it hit the body harder too. I promised myself to lie down in the rain more when I go back to my non-African-rainforest-experience life.

When the water stopped, it was as if something lifted off my back. Relaxing much. Pitifully, I couldn't get it again.

Then came my favourite part, the cold mountain mist. Nothing fancy. Just a cold mist under dim blue lights that make it seem like the little hairs on your body are catching tiny bits of snow - actually very fancy. One of the people who experienced the mist loved it so much he said he's seriously thinking of getting something like that for his home balcony.

The treatments lasted for two full hours but it seemed like half a day. By the time they sent me to the darkened room, with beds curtained for privacy, lit up only in candle light, all I wanted to do was sleep. But my skin felt so lively, and I wondered why I don't do this sort of thing more often.

Also available at the Arabella Western Hotel and Spa is the back knot assaulting African Dumbbell massage. It takes "the pain out of your arse," quoth the therapist.

Come down to the Cape on these specials.