This year marks the 145th anniversary of Ojo Caliente Mineral Springs Resort & Spa, based on the date, 1868, that entrepreneur and Territorial Representative Antonio Joseph built the first bathhouse. Those adobe structures have melted back into the earth the pottery shards and the hot springs below remain. Tewa oral history tells of an epidemic that caused the community to relocate to the surrounding areas, including Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo. They lived there until the 1500s in a community of hundreds of people its structures contained up to 3,000 rooms. According to archaeologist Merrill Dicks, of the Bureau of Land Management’s Taos office, the presence of stray artifacts is evidence of occupation prior to the 1300s, when the ancestors of modern Tewa people began to live on the Posi-Ouinge land. That trail is not just a way to get from point A to point B-it also symbolizes the unbroken channel of connection to the past, and to the sacred, embodied by Ojo Caliente Mineral Springs Resort & Spa.įor centuries, indigenous people of various tribes gathered peacefully to soak, rest, and trade in this neutral territory, even in times of war.
We were about to see a dramatic display of pottery shards, their colors and striped patterns still vibrant after more than 800 years, and to get a concentrated hit of history.
My daughter and I ascended the winding, rock-strewn path that leads from the Ojo Caliente spa grounds to the Posi-Ouinge ruins, our bodies freshly bathed by three different mineral waters, traces of mud still on our faces, mica from the nearby mine glistening on our arms, courtesy of the spa’s body cream sampled in the gift shop.
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