Day 15

Today started off & ended really great. We had breakfast at our hotel in La Fortuna and hit the streets to scourer for great buys/souvenirs. 

La fortuna is the little town at the base of the volcano that's been turned to ash a time or two by lava. It is really clean and doesn't smell like Quepos did (the town outside of Manuel Antonio). We were craving chocolate again and all of the sudden, out of nowhere, a chocleteria mirage appeared- except it wasn't a mirage!! Chocolate!! mmm. 

We grabbed a cab to The Baldi Springs Resort - which has been recommended by several people we've met here and was featured in my Costa Rica book. We get there early and tried to check in but our room wasn't ready. The dude gave us wristbands to use the springs until our room was ready…we walked around and were more than underwhelmed - and not just because we were spoiled the day before at one of the top 5 rated romantic places in the world (The Springs). 

Depressionville

all fake smiles

at the winemine aka baldi

We were shelling out a pretty penny to stay at a place like that and, frankly, it reminded me of the watermine. so Kim decided to see if we could get our money back and dip set. Eureeka! it worked, we checked in and checked out equally as fast. Liz, Suz & MK were being picked up at Baldi for their zip line excursion, so they had to stay. We threw all of our luggage (again) into a van. Kim & I high-tailed it back to town, dropped our luggage back in our room and hailed a cab back to The Springs. Not to sound bratty, (ok, this is going to be bratty) but how do you go back to canned tuna fish when you've been eating caviar? 

Kim and I lounged at The Springs all day and the girls met us there for the last supper after their zip line experience. How did it go?? Well, they survived! One of them is going to guest-blog about the experience later & share photos/videos later. 

Tomorrow we lose another - Kim, MK, Susan and I take the NatureAir puddle jumper to Tamarindo & get back to caviar at the JW Marriott Guanacaste. Liz will meet her beau in San Jose on Wednesday to then hop over to Tortuguero for the rest of the time here.

Day 14

Day 14
It is safe to say that yesterday was one of the least fun days in CR and today was one of the most!!! Dare I say the best? We woke up and took a cab to The Springs Resort & Spa. It was recent host to The Bachelor. It might be the best place on Earth. 

MK, Susan and Liz were scheduled to zip line at 2 but upon arriving to The Springs, they immediately starting working on changing their zip line adventure to tomorrow. We asked our cab to come back for them at 1:30 so they could make their appointment. The front desk called the number from his card and told him we would no longer be needing him. We explore the springs perdidos (the lost springs) and all the other springs on the property - there were tons raging from all different depths and temperatures. 

We had one 15 minute downpour today while we were in the springs but it was incredible to be in the warm water with the cool Costa Rican rain coming down. Finally the clouds parted and we had sunshine for the rest of the afternoon and could even see to the top of the volcano. While we were heading up to lunch, we run into our cab driver. Uhh..What? He said he was there to pick us up. Liz and I in our most forceful and angry Spanish tell him that the hotel called the number from his card and said we wouldn't need a ride 5 minutes after he dropped us off. 5 minutes of very uncomfortable Spanish exchanges (him telling us that we must have called the wrong number, and that we should pay him anyways). Finally, I yelled "pura vida, no pasa nada" as we all shimmied into the Dama's bathroom. 

We spent the rest of the afternoon lounging in the various springs, sauna and swim-up pool bar. We went to a delicious sushi dinner at the resort before hopping in a cab and heading home. Tomorrow we head to the Baldi Springs Resort & the girls are going zip-lining in the longest, highest, (prob scariest) zip line in Costa Rica. Wish them luck!!

Today was great. No way to really describe, just be jealous of the pictures. I love Costa Rica!!