IXTAPAN DE LA SAL, Mexico -- I've been oiled, salted, kneaded, toned, perfumed, prodded in the intimate reaches of my metatarsal pressure points. My thighs have jounced and bounced; my Third Eye and First Chakra have been pried apart.

In this land of exquisite torture, I've even been denied chocolate. And I'm feeling pretty great about it all.

For a child of Depression Era parents -- Calvinists to boot -- the idea of tossing hundreds of dollars on a day at a spa is an all-too-fleeting extravagance that never seemed worth it. Springing for the occasional massage at the end of a particularly wretched week was pricy enough.

But when my Miamian-turned-New Yorker friend, Phyllis Stoller, suggested meeting at a spa in Mexico, I plunked down the credit card. Between a dying parent, fast-paced workplace, one of those ''zero'' birthdays and The Husband's midnight emergency appendectomy, I needed a break. And the price was oh-so-right: $830 for a four-night package including single room, all meals, workout classes and multiple spa treatments -- about the price of a ''day'' at a top spa here in Miami.

The added benefit: Girlfriending, that peculiar female ritual in which you never run out of things to say, and what you do say never comes back to haunt you.

COMFORT, NOT LUXE

And so I found myself whisked from Mexico City's sprawling airport and daunting traffic on a two-hour ride through the mountains to Ixtapan de la Sal, a friendly mountain town where the main street is lined with gardens and white-washed tree trunks. Just past the stately village fountain, the hotel rises from a hillside garden of bougainvillea and poinciana trees.

Hotel Ixtapan isn't a luxury resort, but the open-air lobby, twin swimming pools, spacious, cheery rooms (sans AC, but in the mountains, cool enough even in summer) were more than comfortable. A constant refrain of tweets whistled from the tree tops sheltering the 13-acre park of fountains and lawns. The tennis club, golf course and a children's play area offered diversions for guests who weren't sweating it out in the gym or soaking up the spa.

Phyllis -- founder of one of the first big women's travel companies, who has since sold her firm -- understands the importance of girlfriend getaways. ''The women you read about are bragging about backpacking around the world. But most women aren't like that,'' she says. She doesn't like traveling alone, and her job-focused husband wouldn't have enjoyed this trip. ``You travel with your spouse, it's work, I don't care who your spouse is.''

Like the pal she is, Phyllis waited in the lobby for my arrival, then whisked me to lunch and let me know about the aromatherapy massage she'd booked for me that afternoon. What more could a girlfriend ask?

For the next four days, we would pursue our common goals: Exercise, health-conscious meals, pampering and the deepening of friendship.

We certainly weren't alone. Groups of women from Oregon, New Jersey and Texas aerobocized, yoga-ed and hoisted margaritas elbow-to-elbow, and we even saw the occasional woman traveling solo. Most were 50-plus -- a big part of his clientele, says owner Roberto San Roman, whose grandfather first developed the resort in the 1940s. About 33,000 American women came here for spa retreats last year.

Some come for the health benefits, some to relax among fellow X-chromosomers. Like most of the other guests we met, Marilyn Deaton of Medford, Ore., was a veteran, I learned one morning at aerobics class.

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