I took the jacuzzi bath in wine. My legs had the treatment with ground coffee followed by an exfoliation of carrots. The massage with warm stones followed by a rub down with sea salt was unforgettable.
Then this chair machine gave me an automatic shiatsu treatment up and down my spine before I fell asleep on the waterbed to the sound of the music they play in spiritualist temples here in Brazil.
I decided not to take the chocolate fondue treatment or the bath in cocoa powder. I left the aloe vera for another day. I set the mud pack on one side and turned my face against the Amazonian aromatherapy.
As one whose principal exercise is trotting to catch taxis, I walked hurriedly past the indoor swimming pool and a light, airy gymnasium which seemed to be equipped with more hardware than used to be found in Collins Barracks - though I knew its director, Màrcio, had a kind heart and a jokey temperament behind those tense layers of muscle. There he was encouraging the captains of industry on the walking machines to walk faster, tempting their spouses to synchronised exercises in the swimming pool, ordering coffee barons with plantations the size of Munster to pump iron.
But to start from the beginning. There is a piece of Brazil which will forever be Killarney with sun. More importantly, it is living proof that there is an intensely serious side to Brazilians - it gives the lie to the misapprehension that its men spend their waking hours dancing sambas on the beach or in the slums, with women wearing straw hats loaded down with artificial fruit.
Gramado, in Brazil's southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul, is a clean place, and people are at least as courteous and respectable as in Booterstown. The worst that is likely to befall you is that a poodle will bark at you from inside the fence of one of the pretty houses which peep out from behind the pines and the eucalyptus. Or you could fall victim to a self-inflicted misfortune by losing your ticket to the evening picture at the annual Gramado Film Festival. But they'd probably let you in anyway. They love Europeans here.
And Gramado is home to Kurotel, a complex which must be better-equipped and staffed than anything of its kind this side of Jupiter.
According to its devotees - who include stars of Brazilian showbusiness and politics - there is no better spa in Brazil. It has been run for the past 25 years by Dr Luis Carlos Silveira and his wife, Neusa. These days, they are assisted by two of their four daughters.
Despite the baths in wine and the automatic shiatsu, this is a serious place where a small platoon of doctors, nurses, physiotherapists and nutritionists look after their select group of very well-heeled guests in an atmosphere of chintzy comfort. But the most notable feature of the establishment is the extreme seriousness with which the staff take their task of diverting their charges from the primrose road to obesity and other forms of transition to an early grave.
The average stay lasts a week and, in that time, the guests are questioned and examined, told what their weight is and should be, and advised about how much the proportion of fat and water in their bodies exceeds the norm. At the end, they are given a set of guidelines which should last them through the year. They are encouraged to robe in white towelling dressing gowns - the sort of habit Carthusians might adopt if they became more fashion-conscious.
But Kurspa is not just for the obese. There are cabins for women with newborn babies who need help in adjusting to motherhood. There is psychiatric advice, all for about €160 a day.
Nutrition is a basic consideration. We are all served to the highest standards but, after a few days, I was pining for some of what makes life worth living: butter, alcohol, white bread, red meat and a good cup of strong tea. The waiters were courteous but relentless. No - I could not have water, or any other liquid but herbal tea, with my meals. And they served me with a herbal tea of a particular pungency.
Breakfast was the only repast where coffee - the drink which has made Brazil what it is today - is allowed. It was indicated in the restaurant that asking for sugar for my beverage (in place of the small packets of saccharine) was tantamount to farting in church or denying the Pope was validly baptised.
On Sunday morning, we all went out with Màrcio. The electric gate opened and there we detestation of the poodles by walking past their barking with our noses in the air. We came to the ornamental lake and circumambulated it fast. And again. And again, but faster. Did I expect Màrcio to take heed of any entreaties of mine to slacken the pace? Did I dare to sit on the lakeside bench while the others did yet another brisk circumambulation? Of course I didn't.
Yet, opportunity did knock one afternoon when I was able to sneak into town with a member of the Kurotel staff whom I'll call Adela.
"I expect you'll be wanting an ice cream," she said as we came to the cafe where the film crowd hang out during festival time. I mumbled something non-committal in Portuguese but she carried on. "Well, this is where a lot of our guests go for that - and for good juicy steak. But if I see them eating, they all beg me to keep my mouth shut."
As I tucked into my massive sundae I knew what guilt felt like. But I was pathetically grateful to have heard from Adela that I was not the only backslider in the deeply serious business of losing weight and keeping fit in Brazil.