Hot Springs Eternal

Many modern humans are used to conjuring hot water with a simple twist of the faucet. Maybe that’s why we don’t consider thermal springs, which send hot water bubbling up out of the earth’s crust, quite as miraculous as our ancestors did.

Author and photographer Greta Rybus asks us to become re-enchanted. “To soak in a hot spring is to be cradled and cared for by the dynamic forces of the planet,” she writes in her new book, Hot Springs: Photos and Stories of How the World Soaks, Swims, and Slows Down.

Hot springs aren’t just great for unwinding. As Rybus demonstrates in the essays accompanying her photographs, their depths contain stories — and diverse ideas about wellness, environmentalism, and social life. For the book, she visited 23 hot springs on five continents over several years, a journey that sent her from the wind-whipped salt flats of Bolivia to the desert sands of South Africa and the fjords of Greenland. We talked to the Maine-based photojournalist about what she found.

As a photojournalist I’ve tried to focus on the relationship between people and the natural world. A lot of those stories are about work, like farming and fishing, but I’m also interested in the ways that nature cares for us. Sitting in hot springs is just a very clear way of feeling that. We get to receive this gift. Not the caretakers, I mean — the people who just show up.

I grew up going to hot springs as a kid in Idaho, where we did things like climbing and skiing, and where enjoying nature was almost this competitive or work relationship. But then my parents, who were schoolteachers, moved us to Japan to teach on a military base and I noticed this difference in the hot springs there.

I saw more families going. I have a very distinct memory of going to this onsen that was really popular with old ladies and having an elder tell me to clean more thoroughly. I wasn’t being admonished; I was being invited in. They’re using buckets of water, washing their hair, scrubbing under their nails, brushing their teeth. For most Americans, this whole process is not something we’re used to.

There’s a lot of coziness and intimacy associated with being around women of all different ages. It’s very quiet, kind of hushed; you hear this low chatter. It felt so different from the hot springs back home in Idaho, which can have a party element. The thing is, I love both. That’s why it felt interesting to explore.

Yes, on a volcanic coastline, in this little cove, where hot water is coming out of black stone and entering the ocean. You climb down a ladder, push yourself with the wave, and grab onto this stabilizing rope. A wave comes in and you get cool water, and it sucks back out and brings the hot water with it. Depending on how high the tide is, you’re getting this totally different temperature.

It’s a very electric experience. You’re moving like strands of kelp, almost, the way your body is being pulled. I got used to seeing people looking mellow and glowing after being in a hot spring, but coming out of this one, I saw the presence of adrenaline: wide eyes, people looking animated.

Gellért [Thermal Bath] in Budapest made me cry. Four huge swimming pools, mirrors, hot water coming up from the earth into this palace with these beautiful skylights. I walked in and wept. It was heaven. Most spaces I’ve seen with that much grandeur and detail were for the aristocracy, for kings and queens, so I was just so touched by this bath that was made for the public, during a time [1918] when not a lot of people had access to a bath in the home. The sounds moved very beautifully in that space, and the water there was very hot.

I like extremely hot water, like 104 degrees. I want to sweat and to feel that throbbing feeling. I want my skin to be red.

I’m like a tea bag. I’ll go underwater above my chest and then come back up to my waist and sit. I can stay in the water a very long time that way. I see a lot of people who struggle if they just stay in the water and don’t regulate via, say, my tea bag method.

The Grutas Tolantongo — “staggered grottoes” — in Hidalgo, central Mexico, is also a marvel of design. Terrace after terrace, water spilling from one to the next. It looks like latticework. And it’s so clean! Every other day they drain and scrub each separate side. The way it came about seems very organic: It was organized by an ejido, or farming collective, whose members loved bringing friends and family and then started building the grottoes and selling tickets.

Yes, isn’t that cool? Geysir bread is an old tradition in Iceland because, I was told, firewood was in short supply. The baker I interviewed, he just lifts this lid over a hole in the ground and puts the bread in to cook. It’s made using a sweet syrup and has a sort of rye-molasses flavor. It’s so good with salted butter.

I decided to hire a translator in Tokyo, which I didn’t do everywhere. If I were trying to be a thoughtful tourist, I would ask local people about where to go, because there are a couple that are known for not wanting foreigners. But people should absolutely go to Kosugi-yu, in Suginami City, because it’s run by young people who are really into saving sento [bathhouse] culture. They’re doing innovative things like partnering with local coffee shops and using their coffee grounds to make special scrubs.

Onsen towels, which are these long, thin, white, cotton terry-cloth towels. They often have the name of the onsen on them, so they’re a great souvenir. I use them when I’m washing my face at home.

I didn’t find anyone who was super extreme about it. There were regulars, who go often, but there weren’t any people who, say, timed themselves or pushed themselves. I think it’s more about relaxation: It’s a gentle, medicinal experience, like I found in Hungary, or a social ritual. I think there’s a gentleness to hot springs that isn’t quite the same as cold-plunging and sauna culture.

Just adjusting your body temperature in an intentional way is a nice interruption of the to-do list and the production machine of life. There’s something calming about hot water, but there’s also this aliveness, this sensory experience, that we don’t always get to feel as adults. It reminds me of being a little girl on the playground and spinning around.

Yes, because pretty much everything comes back to nature. I mean, it’s just wild that hot springs exist on this planet. Nature is always providing for us, and I’d like to see more recognition of that. A lot of the things I really care about are in this book: grappling with complicated histories, figuring out ways to do things as collectives, understanding land and land ownership. I really wanted to represent those ideas, through something that people would love to explore: hot springs!

Darrell Hartman is the author of Battle of Ink and Ice: A Sensational Story of News Barons, North Pole Explorers, and the Making of Modern Media. He lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.