Day 50: La Fortuna, Costa Rica

Happy Valentine`s Day! (photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/27784972@N07)

As a Valentine`s Day gift, we booked a couple of insanely cheap massages ($25/hour, expensive for budget rtw travelers but we don`t do this, well, ever!) for early afternoon. We lazed about most of the morning and did a bit of website work at that little cafe with the most delicious coffees and milkshakes until time for our massages. We signed in and were directed to a room with two tables by a woman who only spoke Spanish. After deliberating several minutes on how much to undress and if there might be any cultural differences for massage etiquette, we decided to just go for it.

 Trying to make up for lost time, we hurried onto the tables and threw the towels over ourselves just in time before the massuers came in. First thing they did was rearrange our towels to cover up more skin, haha. But they didn`t seem put off so it must have been alright.

Not exactly pros at being massaged by strangers, we were both a bit anxious and difficult to relax at first. That is, until our massuers spent ten whole minutes rubbing each foot! The rest was kind of a blur of splended utopia. Though it was only supposed to be an hour, we noticed it turned out to be about 15 minutes extra. Awesome! We wobbled our jelly legs out to the lobby, graciosuly thanking our massuers and paid the bill before wobbling back to the room. We planned to lay around and watch movies and eat some chocolate but when we got back, Saben suggested we take a little stroll to that waterfall the guy in the cafe told us about. Thinking it couldn`t be too terribly far, Lin agreed and we set out on what became a 4km journey uphill to a park that charges $10 entrance fee and was closing in 10 minutes. Wow. Not exactly how we had planned to spend a lazy day! We waited around til closing and tried to sneak in but the night watchman (who was nowhere to be seen) had his 2 sons gaurding the gate and the oldest one (maybe 9 or 10 years old but quite serious) refused to let us in. We didn`t want to get the little guy in trouble so we went back over the gate and began our return 4km “stroll“ back to town.

We had gone about 3km when an empty shuttle bus pulls up and the driver asks if we want a ride into town. It`s not that much farther but, what the hell? We hop in and chat with the tour guides who had just spent the day leading every single tour offered (hiking, kayaking, waterfall, more hiking) and were quite tired but still very friendly. Since it was just a 5 minute lift, we didn`t offer to pay them anything and they didn`t seem to mind at all. It`s hard to know when and if to offer payment for hitchhiking in Costa Rica. Some people say offer even thought it`s likely to be refused and some people say not to worry about it. We just wing it.

Despite the unplanned trek immediately following our massages, we actually had a really great day!