The day I went into -128ºC
It’s a given to most of my friends that I don’t do well under the heat, maybe being from a tropical country it has to do with it. I had never really had a proper winter before I started traveling, a cold winter day in Brazil would be something like 10ºC (50ºF) and that would be breaking news on tv, and I’m not even kidding. I think I’ve only worn gloves and beanies back when I was a toddler, we all know parents and how they think that when we are kids we must always be cold even if it is 100 degrees outside and my parents were no different, I can’t really recall much from my young days but photos won’t let me lie, my parents used to bundle me up often. Once I could start talking, voice my opinion and express my dislike for the heat I don’t remember ever wearing gloves and scarfs.
My first ‘cold experience’ was probably in Canada which was not even that cold since Vancouver doesn’t get freezing cold, it barely goes below freezing point and snowfalls are just as rare but when I made it to a ski mountain I faced -10ºC and was I happy that day, although skiing didn’t really happen from my part as I was most of the time flailing down those slops, footage is available but I’ll spare this post from it.
Being really into traveling I’m also really into The Amazing Race, this reality tv show where teams race around the world completing tasks and at the end of each episode the last time to arrive at the pit stop gets eliminated, and the big winner takes 1 million bucks home, not bad eh? I was never part of The Amazing Race (not yet) but I remember one of the episodes where teams had to undergo the cryotherapy in Prague, which uses very low temperatures to treat damages to the body, basically it shrinks blood vessels so reduces inflammation, pain, swelling an also increases cells survival. I have never been seriously injured or in pain but during my first time in Europe I had to try that cryotherapy treatment.
I was visiting a friend in Prague and told her about this treatment so she was keen to try it too, we went to the Kryocentrum which is a little outside the city centre but not extremely far about 40 minutes by bus from what I remember. We arrived there in the morning and the place looked sort of a gym, which kind of was to be honest. One thing I’ve learned from reading about the cryotherapy is that is fairly sought by athletes so all those treadmills and equipments made sense. They didn’t really speak much english there, which is totally fine and having my Czech friend there with me really helped.
The room with the cryotherapy chamber
They walked us into the cryotherapy chamber room where they explained how the entire thing would go like, since I had seen on tv beforehand I remember all the teams who had to complete this task only had swimwear on. We were also provided with gloves, headband, slippers and a face mask. They stressed that since we were beginners we were only allowed 2 minutes inside the chamber (athletes and people used to the cryotherapy are allowed to stay there for up to 5 minutes) and we should never stop walking in circles. So we geared up and went down the stairs into the cryotherapy chamber. I’ll spare everyone from the obvious because under -128ºC it is definitely cold but during those 2 minutes freezing I tried to notice how my body was reacting to this whole experience, halfway through I felt like I had tiny needles being poked into my skin and a kind of relief (if that even sounds possible), as if my pores were being cleansed, I can’t quite put my fingers on it, I just made sure I was always walking in circles with my friend.
Going in circles inside the chamber
I actually wish I could have stayed longer
And before we noticed a siren went off, the 2 minutes were up. A minute or so after I stepped out I started to sweat a bit but that soon dried up, we were sent to the exercise room where we had to bike for at least 10 minutes if I remember correctly. I remember even biking longer and I don’t even know why I did it, maybe I was really in the zone. I had a shower afterwards and I was ready to head back to the city centre. The staff at the Kryocentrum may not be used to seeing foreigners there so we chitchatted and one of the staff members asked us how we heard about the place and when I told him I had seen the place a couple of years ago on tv he had that surprised face you can imagine.
The cryotherapy and the use of the exercise room has cost about US$15 which I think would have been probably more had we gone to a touristic part of the city to have the cryotherapy done.
I didn’t use to travel much but once I started, I just can’t stop travelling. On Can I Pack? I try to share how I make my travels work out because travelling shouldn’t be hard.
